Planned Parenthood officials appear to discuss mutilating the bodies of living babies to bypass federal law against partial-birth abortions in previously unseen undercover videos obtained by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress.
Center founder and self-described journalist David Daleiden told The Daily Signal that the footage, revealed Tuesday at a House hearing, adds to Planned Parenthood’s record of barbarism toward premature babies.
“The new videos show Planned Parenthood’s financial interest in selling the body parts from aborted babies is even bigger than previously discussed and their criminal intent is irrefutably documented,” Daleiden said. “The new footage also shows the barbaric lengths Planned Parenthood will go to in order to cover up their illegal abortion harvesting.”
“Finally, Planned Parenthood abortion providers know their business is based around killing babies,” he added, “but they are lying to the public about this fact.”
The previously unseen videos were screened at a hearing, titled “Investigating the Black Market of Baby Organ Harvesting,” hosted by House Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Chip Roy of Texas, and Mary Miller of Illinois.
One video, Daleiden said, records his conversation with both the chief medical officer and vice president of abortion access at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston.
In it, the officials at the Planned Parenthood clinic describe abortionists who skirt federal law against partial-birth abortion by using forceps to pull off the legs of babies who are about to be born alive, he said, so that the bodies may be sold for thousands of dollars.
Daleiden said that video originally was shot in April 2015 at an off-site reception at the National Abortion Federation’s trade show in Baltimore, Maryland. He identified the officials as Dr. Ann Schutt-Aine, chief medical officer, and Tram Nguyen, vice president of abortion access.
“What the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast is describing in that clip is mutilating a 4- or 5- or 6-month baby while it’s being delivered in order to cover up their violation of the partial-birth abortion law to sell more aborted baby body parts,” Daleiden said during the hearing.
The federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 prohibits abortion providers from taking any action intended to end the life of a partially delivered, living baby.
In another video, officials at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast discuss gathering 30 to 50 “tissue samples” per month from second-trimester unborn babies, including lungs, organs, and other body parts. Daleiden said that video also was shot by an undercover associate at the National Abortion Federation conference in 2015.
Daleiden told The Daily Signal that he expects Planned Parenthood to continue to evade the media in any coverage of the newly released footage.
Neither the Planned Parenthood Federation of America nor Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment.
Planned Parenthood previously has claimed that other undercover videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress were “heavily doctored.”
“They will have to be subpoenaed by Congress in order to force them to explain themselves,” Daleiden said.
“It’s really important for Congress to lean on their investigative oversight powers at this point, because these crimes are still ongoing,” he said, “and Planned Parenthood is only increasing their abortion numbers, increasing their taxpayer funding, and they’re not being held accountable under the law.”
Every abortion provider he has talked to was willing to change procedures to harvest more sellable fetal organs, Daleiden said.
Planned Parenthood’s apparent willingness to dismember babies for sale is illegal, Daleiden said. Federal law prohibits the alteration of abortion procedures solely for the purpose of obtaining fetal tissue.
“They are explicitly transferring human fetal tissue for valuable consideration and committing partial-birth abortions in order to do so,” he said of Planned Parenthood officials.
Planned Parenthood has high-paying contracts with companies and schools that do research on aborted babies’ bodies, Daleiden said. He described the organization’s partnerships with the University of California and the University of Pittsburgh, in which the abortion provider sells body parts to researchers.
On March 5, Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress shared documents released under the Freedom of Information Act that the organization says show Planned Parenthood transferring “proprietary” aborted fetal body parts to University of California, San Diego for “valuable consideration.”
Planned Parenthood retains ownership of the university’s “patents” and “intellectual property” developed by experimenting with the body parts, the center said.
The pro-life organization also obtained documents in December that it says show the U.S. government began investigating the University of Pittsburgh’s protocols in its program to harvest fetal organs.
The Center for Medical Progress plans to continue to “follow the money trail” to uncover more about how Planned Parenthood turns aborted babies into profit, Daleiden told The Daily Signal.
“There are multiple streams of income that are going into multiple places within Planned Parenthood and multiple people within Planned Parenthood,” he said.
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