Amber Phillips of The Washington Post thinks she’s caught Ben Carson in a hypocrisy trap over the Planned Parenthood scandal and abortion. In 1992, Carson did some research on fetal tissue, which Phillips argues complicates his criticism of Planned Parenthood for doing the same thing. But that’s easily explained, the former neurosurgeon said. “You have to look at the intent,” Carson told Post’s Dave Weigel. “To willfully ignore evidence that you have for some ideological reason is wrong. If you’re killing babies and taking the tissue, that’s a very different thing than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it.” Carson’s absolutely right, but his statement confounded Phillips, who wrote, “If you had to reread that once or twice, you’re not alone. It’s a very complex — and politically charged — issue.” She really doesn’t seem to get the difference between killing a child and selling his parts and using tissue from a baby who died naturally. Part of her confusion is based on assumptions: “Planned Parenthood has flatly rejected” having done anything wrong,“ she says, and no crime is "proved by the videos.” Pardon us if we don’t take PP CEO Cecile Richards’ word for it, and instead believe that Carson is a true conservative operating under upright ethical standards.

Meanwhile, Carson turned the tables in another interview. “The majority [of Planned Parenthood] clinics are in minority neighborhoods,” Carson said, and not by accident. “The number one cause of death for black people is abortion, and I wonder if maybe some people might at some point become concerned about that and ask, ‘Why is that happening?’” Carson added. “I encourage people to go and read about [Planned Parenthood founder] Margaret Sanger and go and read about the beginnings of [that] organization so that you know what you’re dealing with. One of the ways that they’re able to perpetrate the deceit is because people are not informed. The more people are informed, the less likely these kinds of things happen.”