When I first saw The Center for Medical Progress‘ Planned Parenthood videos one year ago this week, I was nauseated. I turned away again and again, saying, “Oh my God!” I didn’t want to see any more, but I forced myself to watch. There are some things a man just has to do, such as bearing witness to a malevolent atrocity.
As I saw image after image of tiny arms and legs, and yes, heads of human babies piled together in pan after pan of “pie dishes,” as they called them, I was revolted. I have seen images of Nazi concentration camps, of the lynchings and scarred backs of African-American slaves. I have seen newsreels of blacks (and whites) being beaten, fire hosed, and spit on in the 50’s and 60’s battles against segregation. I have seen the images from Viet Nam of a young girl running naked in torment, her body flaming from napalm. I was in New York during 9/11 and saw the footage of burning human beings leaping from the inferno of the great towers. But nothing ever killed my spirits like this. Nothing.
Planned Parenthood Executive: “I Want a Lamborghini”
Last June, The Center for Medical Progress released the first of sixteen videos made by two undercover citizen journalists, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. The project was titled Human Capital, and they posed as research company employees seeking babies’ organs from abortions. Senior executives from Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, and baby organ middlemen StemExpress, among others, were caught on camera blithely talking about trying to get the highest prices for babies’ organs. President of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors’ Council, Dr. Mary Gatter, said it was because “I want a Lamborghini.”
PPFA’s Senior Medical Director, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, spoke of using “less crunchy” abortion procedures to be able to better harvest organs as she chomped away on her salad and sipped wine. Both of the following are crimes: Title 42 USC § 289g-2 makes it a 10-year felony to sell human fetal tissue for a profit. It is also illegal to alter abortion procedures to harvest organs.
Some Babies Born Alive
Some in the videos appear to admit to performing partial birth abortions. Some seem to admit that a few babies survive abortions and are in fact born alive. These children are required by law to be given full medical attention. My question is—what happened to those babies? Were they killed—which is another crime, infanticide—or just left to die? It certainly doesn’t appear that they were given “full medical attention.” Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell is in prison for 30 years for killing babies who were born alive.
A survivor of a saline solution late-term abortion, Gianna Jessen, says, “The baby is burned inside and out, blinding and suffocating the child who is then usually born dead 24 hours later.” Gianna has Cerebral Palsy from experiencing oxygen deprivation of the brain as a result of her mother’s attempted abortion. She miraculously survived because, she says, “Thankfully, the abortionist was not at work yet. Had he been there, he would have ended my life with strangulation, suffocation, or leaving me there to die. Instead, a nurse called an ambulance, and I was rushed to a hospital. Doctors did not expect me to live. I did.”
“If Abortion is about Women’s Rights, What Were Mine?”
Ms. Jessen testified September 9 before the House Judiciary Committee investigating Planned Parenthood’s harvesting and possible selling of baby organs—even from those that may have been born alive. “If abortion is about women’s rights,” she asked, “what were mine?”
Representative Marsha Blackburn chairs the House Selective Investigative Panel investigating Planned Parenthood and its middlemen. She pointed out that according to a StemExpress price list, a baby’s brain can sell for up to $1300. [On one middleman’s brochure it’s $3340. Source: US House Select Investigative Panel] That’s a 500 to 700% profit. Blackburn stated,
…There’s a business contract between StemExpress and the abortion clinics under which both sides make a profit from the baby body parts inside a woman’s womb. This business contract changes the way both entities view the woman: Her aborted baby is now a profit center. This is precisely why I referred both of these matters to the inspector general of the Federal Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS identifies and arrests perpetrators of health care fraud.
Some of the organs are even harvested from live babies. In one video, StemExpress ex-procurement specialist, Holly O’Donnell, says that she was ordered to cut through a baby’s face with scissors, “who still had a beating heart,” to harvest its valuable brain.
Planned Parenthood Videos Haunted Me
For months after seeing these horrors, there was a dullness, a dark heaviness in my soul that wouldn’t lift. I thought to myself, this is being done in our beloved country, right now? Not in some third world wilderness? It’s illegal, and no one seems to care? This is the blessed outpost of grace and goodness that my dad and my uncles fought to save against the Nazis and Imperial Japan? “Oh dear God, please forgive us, have mercy on us,” came to my mind again and again throughout the days. And to think that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates were selling these tiny babies’ organs for profit. I have never heard of anything so vile. Nothing.
While the mainstream media has nearly ignored the videos, many others have not. Twenty-four states have enacted some form of legislation defunding or restricting abortion, most of them since the videos went public. On June 23, a group of pro-life leaders sent a letter to Congress asking it to try again to the defund Planned Parenthood. U.S. tax payers fund the organization to the tune of $528 million a year.
Undercover Citizen Reporters Stormed Gates of Hell
CMP’s valiant David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt have stormed the gates of hell to shine a light on this madness. And now the bloody forces of death are coming after them with all their fury, as David and Sandra knew they would–as we all knew they would. Lawsuits have been filed against them in Texas (one already thrown out) and San Francisco, and Daleiden’s home in California was searched. Listen to an interview with him regarding the matter on the Kresta in the Afternoon radio show, here.
I thought it was the story of the century. What horrendous deeds had been done right in our own so-called civilized country. Right in our own neighborhoods. I imagined 24-hour coverage with reporters crawling all over one another to get more gristly details, interview the perpetrators, and follow every step of the prosecutions. I could see hour-long special reports day and night about this ghoulish practice of picking through “pie dishes” full of human baby parts to be sold for the highest price. But I was stunned to see the media burying the story, or just giving a one or two minute summary, and their quick pivot to mouthing the Planned Parenthood talking points that they were “highly edited” videos, or “doctored,” or “staged,” or “illegal.” Yet, none of the claims was true.
“The Abortion Issue is the Morally Defining Issue of Our Generation”
Al Kresta, the President and CEO of Ave Maria Radio, said this week that “I think most Catholic listeners would agree that the abortion issue is the morally defining issue of our generation.” I realize now a year later that the media buried it because it didn’t fit the Left’s narrative. “Liberal secularism is the new religion” for the Left, says Robert P. George, “that has its own dogma and ideologies, its own practices, liturgies and saints.” Its own sacraments of abortion, and same-sex ‘marriage’ (Listen here, minute 50).
I also realized that this story came just three weeks after the Supreme Court ruling on so-called same-sex “marriage.” This new story threatened to eclipse that story–another reason for it being tabled.
Truly virile and honorable men, who truly represent the best in manhood, love and protect babies and children, and women. It is such a loss to our society to see some males – I won’t call them men – cackling like witches in the comment boxes about killing little babies and taking out their organs. And to see women arguing that for them to fulfill their dreams, babies must be sacrificed, is horrifying.
Pro-Life Demonstrators outside Planned Parenthood Clinics
A final note: Many of the gallant pro-life soldiers who have demonstrated and counselled outside abortion clinics for 43 years, ever since Roe v. Wade, and all of those who write and speak up for the unborn, see these videos as a new dawn, a new birth for their cause. The clinics are closing, one by one. One day all the clinics will close. And then there were none.
One day historians will write about what a barbaric and evil culture this technologically advanced people had become. And wonder why. And wonder how nine unelected Supreme Court Justices could enact an abortion law that overruled laws that existed in 46 states at the time.
It was not the forces of good. And it would not be the last time.
Case in point: this week’s disappointing U.S. Supreme Court decision nullifying Texas’ abortion clinic safety regulations. A quote from the National Director of Priests for Life Fr. Frank Pavone:
“The abortion industry is in collapse, and that is why we will see the end to it, no matter how the Court wants to prop it up… You can’t practice vice virtuously. If you kill children, you’ll be violating all kinds of other norms as well.”
A number of people have left the industry, some with great remorse. Let’s pray that all of our brothers and sisters one day will come home. And Then There Were None is an organization founded by former abortion clinic director Abby Johnson, who walked away. They help other abortion workers leave also.
9 thoughts on “Planned Parenthood Videos Haunted Me–Still Do”
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Jamey-Thank you, bro, for this fine article-perfect for Independence Day. Not even the Nazis harvested body parts from living human beings. Slave auctions sold only whole living slaves, never sold slave parts. In an exorcism rite, at the beginning the demon(s) are asked, in the name of Jesus, “what is your name?” For our time, the answer is “We are legion, we are Planned Parenthood, we are the Party of Death, the democrats.” Then today the rite would proceed, “Who else is there possessing this nation, what are your names?” and the answer is the name of each voter who votes for any democrat. Now the correct spelling is “demoncrat.” Long have I heard the left attempt to assume power by castigating others for what they have, in their empathy, discovered as “social sin.” But now I think that there really is a “societal” sin in America- We all as this society have a role in this communal sin that occurs in the thousands daily in our country – and I am one of these sinners – to paraphrase: because no baby is an island and each baby’s death diminishes me. We will win, in a sense, when diabolical technology advances to the point that no demonic abortion procedures as we know them are used anymore. There will be do it yourself take-home abortion “kits”, with a two page fine-print listing of side effects that make no mention of a murdered child. Once the cash flow from mothers, grandparents, and boyfriends to Planned Parenthood to [mostly] democrat politicians and office holders dries up [and the return of tax money back to Planned Parenthood] , we will see how “absolute” [see demoncrat party platform] the court-created “right to abortion” is. Jamey-muchas gracias! Have a glorious 4th! Guy McClung, San Antonio TX
Thanks, Guy. This malignancy eats into every aspect of our culture. How 7 of the 9 unelected, elitist Justices could find a Constitutional right, in Roe v. Wade, to kill unborn children is pathological. And this current macabre enterprise of picking through “pie dishes” of mangled aborted children to harvest body parts, to sell at a hefty profit, is so vile I can hardly write about it.
But maybe we can put that aside for one day, and celebrate Independence Day—for some of us. For those of us whose mothers “chose” not to dismember us in their wombs.
The real moral question raised by these videos is the question of the commodification of the bodies of aborted human fetuses by Planned Parenthood, as discussed in this editorial from the Jesuit magazine, America:
http://americamagazine.org/issue/selling-unborn
As the editorial states, the question of whether or not CMP’s approach to revealing these gruesome practices is justified is distinct from the question of the morality of what Planned Parenthood is doing. We can and should be disturbed by the revelations in the videos even if we are also troubled by some aspects of how the videos were made. But without these videos, without the efforts put forward by CMP, the truth of what Planned Parenthood has actually been doing with respect to the commodification of aborted human fetuses might very well have never come to light.
I choose to be outraged by, and I choose to first focus on, the inhumane practices that Planned Parenthood perpetuates in its efforts to commodify the bodies of aborted human fetuses. Others may choose, for whatever reason, to comment on the details behind the reality with respect to the CMP videos, as if that somehow mitigates the reality of what Planned Parenthood actually has been doing.
Planned Parenthood has been commodifying the bodies of aborted human fetuses. We should all be haunted by this reality.
A good article from America Magazine and your comment was well thought out (A number of videos were released after the America article). I would go a step further and add that the possible illegal selling of baby organs adds the extra dimension of a profit motive to these gristly operations. In the OP the middlemen’s price for a baby’s brain is between $1300 and $3340—exponentially higher than what it cost them. That’s why it is illegal.
You are obviously pro-life; I am pro-life. That’s where it stops. The CMP videos are highly and selectively edited, deceptively produced, images of aborted kids photoshoped from still born children. No investigative body found that any law was broken and there were many investigations in many states. We can maintain our moral positions without relying on deceptively produced media. We do not need to rely on lies for the truth. The end in itself is never justified by the means…there are far better and more transparent ways to convey the pro life message.
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/09/30/cnn-david-daleiden-producer-doctored-planned-parenthood-videos-admits-fraud.html
Please honestly answer 2 questions. Did you see the videos? If you didn’t, each is only 10 minutes long, so check them out. Second question: Did you read the link about the analysis of the videos?
Here are some excerpts:
“Coalfire is a respected and internationally recognized digital and forensic firm that does work for Fortune 500 companies and analyzes evidence in civil and criminal investigations. It also supports its conclusions with detailed findings and even screenshots of the videos. This is in contrast to the report Planned Parenthood paid for from a Democratic opposition research firm…”
“Coalfire’s analysis of the recorded media files contained on the flash drive indicates that the video recordings are authentic and show no evidence of manipulation or editing…”
“The Fusion GPS report commissioned by Planned Parenthood confirms that the audio is not tampered with and that its ‘analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.’ Coalfire confirms that finding,”
You state “No investigative body found that any law was broken”
In the OP Rep. Blackburn “referred both of these matters to the inspector general of the Federal Department of Health and Human Services. HHS [inspector general] identifies and arrests perpetrators of health care fraud.”
These findings are being investigated as we speak.
We might have different approaches to Pro-Life. I think this is a horrific story that has been buried by the media and needs to be told.
(1) I watched the short and long “unedited” versions
(2) Coalfire report I read, maybe manipulated is a better word. The “aborted fetus” was not an aborted fetus, but a picture imported of of a still born fetus. Baby parts were stack photos and not from PP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlG0v_wPcKc as admitted by the CMP head man.
Like I said I am pro life….the object I raise was to fraudulently obtain and selectively arranged interviews. All sorts of laws were broken and the gathering of info was illegal and obviously not transparent. There are clearly other ways to communicate a pro life message that I can support. No one has found PP did anything illegal…numerous syaye investigations confirmed that. Not one state investigation found PP broke the law.
None of that is my point. Mt point is that my position is prolife …I DO NOT EVER FEEL THAT THE END CAN BE USED TO JUSTIFY THE MEANS , A great deal off evil can be done under the guise of benevolence.
As David Daleiden explained, (didn’t you watch your own video?) the video of the 17 to 19 week baby—that was moving– was to show a similar, live baby to the one Holly O’Donnell was talking about. The one in the OP that she was ordered to scissor through his face to take out his valuable brain. There were no videos of the baby she killed.
Isn’t it tragic that people would kill these vibrant little babies and then possibly illegally sell their body parts for profit?
Dr. Savita Ginde is shown in this video picking through baby body parts as she exclaimed, “Look, another boy! It’s a boy.” Not a “stack photo.”
http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2015/07/planned-parenthood-vp-says-fetuses-may-come-out-intact-agrees-payments-specific-to-the-specimen/