Ducey's call to ban the illegal sale of body parts lets us off the hook after Planned Parenthood video

Aaaaand we're off.

Gov Doug Ducey on Monday ordered state health officials to immediately implement "emergency rules" to ban the sale of body parts from aborted babies.

Never mind that Planned Parenthood says it never has sold the body parts of aborted babies for medical research. Or that it's already illegal to sell the body parts of aborted babies.

Never mind that Planned Parenthood of Arizona doesn't even have a fetal tissue donation program.

Never let a good sting video go to waste, I suppose.

It's a shame really because all this talk of selling hearts and lungs and kidneys is allowing us to avoid the real question raised in that undercover video.

The one we'd rather not think about, which is this: What are we doing?

As I wrote last week, I believe in a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body, up to a point. I've always thought that point was when a child could live on his or her own.

Now I'm watching Planned Parenthood's senior medical director talking about crushing heads to harvest body parts and yeah, suddenly I'm queasy.

Suddenly, I'm wondering when the sum of those body parts -- of heart and lungs and kidneys -- constitutes a human being rather than a lab specimen.

I know what the Bible says. I know what the Supreme Court says.

I don't have an answer, only the question.

Well meaning readers who are pro-life applauded my call for a gut check in America.

"The issue is at what point in a pregnancy does society have the duty to protect a child," wrote Mike. "A woman cannot kill a newborn, obviously. What about one two weeks from birth, five?"

Well meaning readers who are pro-choice warned that even asking the question is the first step down a slippery slope to outlawing abortion.

"The people that made this video are counting on the ick factor to get America to agree to all sorts of preposterous bans and limits," Erika wrote. "Do you know at 20 weeks a lot of women don't know they are pregnant? Do you know that is about the time when they find things wrong with the fetus?"

A lot of women don't know they are pregnant for five months?

In fact, most women who have abortions get them early, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. In Arizona, 13,401 women had abortions in 2013 -- 90 percent of them before 14 weeks.

Of those 76 women aborted due to a maternal medical condition, most early. Another 141 aborted due to birth defects, most before 20 weeks.

At least 137 women had abortions after 21 weeks.

I don't know when a woman's right to choose should give way to a baby's right not to have its head crushed in and its body parts distributed to make lives better for the lucky ones who made it through the birth canal.

I do know that Ducey's call for rules to ban the sale of fetal tissue is about pandering to the base – a sideshow that allows us to avoid pondering the uncomfortable question that we'd rather not confront.

And that is both a relief and a shame.