Frankly I’m surprised the Federalist would print it @RexHuppke @Tracinski

— Kragar (@Kragar_LGF) July 30, 2015

Phrases like “better than break even” or “I want a Lamborghini” are becoming similar memes, used as shorthand for a narrative about the cynical, smirking evil of Planned Parenthood—even if, in context, they don’t necessarily support that narrative. And as they harden into memes, they become resistant to debate and questioning. Since we’ve already accepted the intent of the meme, the portrayal of Planned Parenthood as cold-blooded organ-selling baby killers, then anyone who questions the meme must be defending baby-killers, right? So why should we listen to him? In this way, the meme itself functions to invalidate any criticism or analysis of it.

An awful lot of our public debate looks exactly like this.

The problem with memifying the abortion debate is not just that it prevents us from an accurate evaluation of the facts. It’s that it usually fails to make converts. Memes carry meaning to those who are aware of and sympathetic to the story behind them—but not for those who disagree. I suspect my pro-life friends and colleagues are going to be disappointed, over the long term, with the diminishing returns as the self-styled Center for Medical Progress produces more videos using the exact same techniques. And they will be disappointed by how little this whole controversy is going to move the abortion debate a year or two from now.

I think it would be very productive to have a debate about abortion and to reason carefully through the moral and philosophical rationales on either side. But we need to start from a common ground of scrupulously accurate facts, rather than letting our perspectives harden into warring memes that prevent thinking rather than stimulating it.