Lawyers for Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden released a new video Thursday that exposes horrifying statements from leaders of the abortion industry during National Abortion Federation conventions in California in 2014 and 2015.
The National Abortion Federation describes itself as “the professional association of abortion providers.” The group says it “exhibits and presents at numerous conferences … about topics related to abortion care.”
The video notes that “Planned Parenthood makes up about 50 percent of [the National Abortion Federation’s] members and leadership.”
The video opens with a Planned Parenthood medical director speaking on a panel about “heads that get stuck” and the “hemorrhages that we manage.”
She is later seen telling a panel: “Given that we might actually both agree that there’s violence in here, ask me why I come to work every day. Let’s just give them all the violence, it’s a person, it’s killing, let’s just give them all that.”
A Planned Parenthood abortionist then complains about how an unborn child “is a tough little object” and “very difficult” to take apart.
A lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union is heard remarking, “When the skull is broken, that’s really sharp” as the crowd laughs about the difficulty of “getting that skull out.”
Another Planned Parenthood official, speaking on a panel, recalls that an “eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross.” The crowd laughs.
The video shows a procurement manager from StemExpress, which acquires fetal tissue for research, commenting that there are “a lot of [abortion] clinics that we work with that, I mean, it helps them out significantly.”
At another point, a Planned Parenthood official says of clinics providing tissue from abortions that “the truth is that some might want to do it … to increase their revenues. And we can’t stop them.”
One would think the state of California would be concerned about what was said at these conferences.
But instead of looking into potential illegal profits from the transfer of fetal tissue, California has charged Center for Medical Progress journalists, including Daleiden, with 15 felonies for bringing these troubling questions to light in the first place.
California argues that the Center for Medical Progress unlawfully recorded the subjects of other undercover videos without their consent.
When the charges were announced, Casey Mattox, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal that even in two-party consent states such as California, “It’s well understood as a matter of First Amendment law that people have a right to be able to record their own conversations.”
Mattox added:
These were publicly recorded conversations, they were recorded in restaurants and other places where Planned Parenthood officials should not have expected they had any privacy at all. I find it fascinating that the state of California is apparently very concerned about the privacy of Planned Parenthood officials, and much less concerned about getting to the truth of Planned Parenthood actually engaging in violations of the law by selling baby body parts.
As this concerning case makes its way through court, Americans should remember that Planned Parenthood receives over half a billion dollars from taxpayers each year.
The newly released video once again demonstrates the urgent need for policymakers to end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, its affiliates, and other abortion providers once and for all.
Funding could instead be redirected to centers that provide health care for women without entanglement in on-demand abortion.
Congress has the opportunity to deny Planned Parenthood certain federal funds in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill to repeal Obamacare by ensuring the language includes a provision (just as the 2015 version of the bill did) that would disqualify Planned Parenthood affiliates from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for one year after enactment of the bill.
Ultimately, Congress should send the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which the House passed in January, to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature.