Dems fail to kill abortion video in congressional hearing
Attempt comes just as Planned Parenthood baby body parts documentation to arrive
Published: 9 hours ago
Democrats, perhaps fearing a flood of Planned Parenthood body-parts trade videos appearing at congressional hearings, took a shot at killing one such video at a hearing this week.
And failed.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rule has subpoenaed all of the videos made by the Center for Medical Progress for its undercover investigation.
Most already have been released to the public, and the few that were identified in a suppression order by a California judge now have been cleared for submission in response to the subpoena.
The videos include Planned Parenthood executives talking about how to carefully remove body parts for maximum payment, haggling over prices – one executive said, “I want a Lamborghini” – whether “intact” specimens are available and the profitability of the trade.
Meanwhile, Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., a registered nurse, blasted Democrats for refusing to even watch the videos.
Read the tested and proven strategies to defeat the abortion cartel, in “Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time.”
She was urging support for a plan that would suspend federal taxpayer subsidies to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s biggest abortion provider, while the videos are investigated.
She said: “I know that some of my colleagues across the aisle have so far refused to watch the undercover videos implicating Planned Parenthood in the trafficking of fetal tissue. And perhaps they haven’t seen this independent forensic report confirming their authenticity.”
But she said if Congress fails to act, the wishes of voters won’t be carried out.
The most recent statement by Democrats of full support for the abortion industry came this week when there were several GOP members of the House Judicial Committee temporarily absent.
Democrats took advantage to vote to banish one video about abortion from the committee record.
They were reversed a short time later when the GOP members returned, but the Hill headlined the article, “Dems catch GOP off guard with Planned Parenthood vote.”
It explains how Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., protested “a graphic video about abortion procedures that was shown to the committee by Dr. Anthony Levatino, who has performed abortions.”
Cicilline noted the witness said the video, which had a graphic phone conversation about a business charging a woman $8,000 for an abortion at 27 weeks, was not prepared in connection with Planned Parenthood.
The Democrats won a 9-7 vote to strike the video from the record, but the vote was reversed only minutes later.
Still to come for Congress are the hours of videos from CMP, which set up a fake company and dispatched undercover operatives with video cameras to Planned Parenthood operations and others related to the body-parts trade.
While there never was a question that most of the videos would be submitted to Congress, several were under a cloud until recently because a federal judge had ordered them concealed at the request of the National Abortion Federation, whose members apparently appear in the videos.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick approved sending even those videos to Congress, as long as NAF was provided with the same information.
The judge said that to “refrain from creating needless friction with a coordinate branch of government,” he would allow CMP to provide the subpoenaed materials.
The subpoena from Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, commanded CMP Executive Director David Daleiden to produce documents, communications and video footage relating to the “acquisition, preparation and sale of fetal tissue.”
The videos and other information come from CMP’s undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood’s exchange of the body parts of unborn babies for “fees” or other payments. While the exchange is allowed under federal law, any compensation must only cover costs. Making a profit is illegal.
Yet the videos reveal numerous Planned Parenthood executives haggling over prices, with one expressing her desire for higher prices, because “I want a Lamborghini.”
The videos at issue include an NAF meeting. The judge said CMP investigators signed confidentiality agreements but then allegedly breached them.
The ruling eliminates the potential for a fight between the judge and Congress, as Chaffetz had expressed the opinion that Congress has the “power of inquiry” that cannot be canceled even by a court order.
“Congressional subpoenas that seek information pertinent to a valid legislative purpose within the jurisdiction of the particular committee are constitutionally protected activities of the legislative branch,” he wrote in a letter to CMP.
House rules require full House authorization if a committee is going to force compliance, but Orrick said the rules don’t apply when the compliance is voluntary.
WND reported when a forensic analysis confirmed the videos “are authentic and show no evidence of manipulation.” The analysis was delivered to the Alliance Defending Freedom, which hired Coalfire Systems Inc. to analyze the “raw video and audio data files” that have been creating havoc for America’s largest abortion provider.
Read the tested and proven strategies to defeat the abortion cartel, in “Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time.”
Planned Parenthood has contended the videos, 10 released so far, were manipulated.
However, Coalfire’s conclusion was consistent with a previous analysis commissioned by Planned Parenthood.
Fusion GPS, hired by Planned Parenthood, concluded that while “cuts, skips, missing tape, and changes in camera angle” were “suspicious,” its analysis commissioned by Planned Parenthood “did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.”
One video shows a Planned Parenthood executive worried about being “low-balled” in the sale of the body parts of aborted babies. In another, a Planned Parenthood executive explains the availability of “intact” fetal bodies. Another revealed an abortion executive talking about altering procedures to obtain the human organs that researchers would want.
One video features a former abortion worker explaining how she was told to remove the brain from an aborted child whose heart was still beating.
Several investigations have commenced at the state and congressional levels.
In the first undercover video released by CMP, Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on crushing babies.
“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact,” she said.
See the first video:
Read more at
http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/dems-fail-to-kill-abortion-video-in-congressional-hearing/#ZfHOQUyiylIv5R4Z.99
