A Planned Parenthood-commissioned study may show that its ongoing fetal harvesting scandal is nothing but a smear job, a handful of eager newsrooms reported this week.
Fusion GPS has been tapped by the “women’s health organization” with the job of downplaying a series of secretly taped videos showing Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing salvaging organs from the remains of aborted children.
The undercover tapes, which were recorded and produced by the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life activist group, have been “selectively edited” and poorly transcribed, the research firm claimed, repeating what has so far been Planned Parenthood’s go-to defense. The study comes after Planned Parenthood executives have argued at length that nothing said on tape is really scandalous or untoward.
Politico added language in its write-up of the study that seemingly aimed to legitimize the nature of the Planned Parenthood-commissioned report.
Fusion GPS was careful to bring in “video and transcription experts” who are “not associated with Planned Parenthood,” Politico reported, adding that their “findings” are the first “comprehensive account of the video’s discrepancies.”
The New York Times also added similarly legitimizing language to its report, writing that the transcript experts were brought in “without being told that Planned Parenthood was the client.” The Times’ headline declared simply, “Planned Parenthood Videos Were Altered, Analysis Finds.”
The Huffington Post claimed in a far less subtle headline, “‘Sting’ Videos Of Planned Parenthood Are Totally Manipulated, Forensic Analysis Finds.”
“Even the supposedly unedited ‘full’ footage is misleadingly altered, experts say,” HuffPo reported.
None of these reports mention Fusion GPS’ strong ties to the Democratic Party.
The Center for Medical Progress has released eight videos so far, including what it says is all of its raw, unedited footage. The pro-life group has also provided audio transcripts with each video.
Fusion GPS, which has reviewed only four of the released videos, maintains that even the supposedly raw footage has been edited. The videos that it reviewed have been manipulated so badly that they have no “evidentiary value” as far as the law concerned, the Planned Parenthood-commissioned group said in a note to Congress.
Committees in both the House and Senate have responded to CMP’s undercover videos by launching investigations into Planned Parenthood’s fetal organ harvesting practices. Thirteen states have also moved towards defunding the group.
Outside of the claim that the footage was somehow edited, the Fusion GPS study does not address questions surrounding a CMP video showing Planned Parenthood’s Deborah Nucatola, who has served as the organization’s senior director of medical services since 2009, discussing “doing a little better than” breaking even for donated organs.
The commissioned study also fails to address a video showing Planned Parenthood affiliates seemingly discussing performing partial birth abortions so as to keep specific organs intact.
It is illegal to profit from the donation of fetal tissue. It is also illegal under federal law to perform partial birth abortions.
CMP’s founder, David Daleiden, is unimpressed with Planned Parenthood’s latest attempt to exonerate itself.
This is “a desperate, 11th-hour attempt to distract from the conversations and admissions that are documented really clearly on the video and in records,” Daleiden said.
He told Politico that the video discrepancies highlighted by Fusion GPS mark either “bathroom breaks” and “waiting periods,” adding that nothing of substance has been cut from the group’s tapes.
Daleiden also said he has four more videos that he plans to release in the coming weeks.
