Christian Headlines Blog Christian Blog and Commentary

Get guidance on Bible study from C.S. Lewis - Free Course!

CMP Appeals Removal of Undercover Planned Parenthood Videos

  • Samantha Gobba Religious persecution, missions, Christianity around the world
  • Updated Jun 02, 2017

Last week, lawyers for The Center for Medical Progress released more footage of abortionists discussing late-term abortions at National Abortion Federation conventions.

The video, along with other footage under temporary injunction after a civil suit filed by the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and Planned Parenthood, disappeared from YouTube after U.S. District Judge William Orrick ordered it taken down.

Orrick said he may hold David Daleiden, the founder of The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), and his attorneys in contempt of court, ordering them to appear at a hearing on June 14.

Videos taken by CMP and released in 2015 initiated a congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood and StemExpress, a tissue-procurement company, for harvesting and illegally selling baby body parts.

CMP also sparked a new era of abortion facility regulation legislation and a nationwide push to strip Planned Parenthood of government funding.

The latest video, which I viewed before it was removed, opens with Lisa Harris, medical director of Planned Parenthood of Michigan, telling a chuckling audience, “Our stories don’t really have a place in pro-choice discourse and rhetoric, right? The head that gets stuck that we can’t get out. The hemorrhages that we manage. You know, those are all parts of our experience. But there’s no real good place to share those.”

Harris says later in the video, “Given that we actually see the fetus the same way, and given that we might actually both agree that there’s violence in here, let’s just give them all the violence. It’s a person, it’s killing, let’s just give them all that.”

The video also shows Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s Ann Schutt-Aine describing how she narrowly avoids a partial-birth abortion: “I might ask for a second set of forceps to hold the body at the cervix and pull off a leg or two.”

Planned Parenthood of New York City’s Stacy De-Lin, also seen in the video, openly admits, “We certainly do” partial-birth abortions, a procedure banned by federal law.

“How can the country stand by while we commit these atrocities against our own children?” asked pro-life advocate Lila Rose, founder of Live Action, in a statement. “The searing injustice of our time is not the selling of those parts, but the fact that a doctor can legally tear apart a fully formed baby as long as that child remains in his or her mother’s womb.”

CMP is appealing the injunction against the videos.

A representative of CMP’s attorneys told National Review that they had the right to post the video, and that Orrick did not have clear authority to demand the removal of the videos or threaten contempt charges.

Earlier this year, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra charged Daleiden and fellow activist Sandra Merritt with 15 felony counts for allegedly illegally recording conversations with abortionists.

 

Courtesy: WORLD News Service

Photo: David Daleiden, a defendant in an indictment stemming from a Planned Parenthood video he helped produce, speaks to the media after appearing in court at the Harris County Courthouse on February 4, 2016 in Houston, Texas. Daleiden is facing an indictment on a misdemeanor count of purchasing human organs, and along with defendant Sandra Merritt, is charged with tampering with a governmental record. 

Photo courtesy: Eric Kayne/Getty Images

Publication date: June 2, 2017