Planned Parenthood is stepping up its defense that a series of undercover videos detailing the sale and procurement of aborted fetal parts were heavily edited.
The advocacy arm of the women’s health organization funded and submitted a report to congressional leadership Thursday, just as both the House and the Senate are investigating the organization.
“A thorough review of these videos in consultation with qualified experts found that they do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict,” according to the report conducted by the research firm Fusion GPS.
The Center for Medical Progress has released five undercover videos that feature Planned Parenthood officials discussing the donation of aborted fetal body parts — and compensation for it. Another video interviews a woman who was previously employed by StemExpress, a California company that acquired fetal parts from Planned Parenthood before cutting all ties earlier this month.
It is illegal under federal law to sell such body parts for profit, but Planned Parenthood argues that it did not break any laws.
Each video contains snippets detailing a particular aspect of a conversation between the organization’s officials and activists posing as employees of a fake biomedical company.
The center also released the full videos of each conversation, which totaled more than 10 hours.
The report charges that both the short and full footage videos were deceptively edited to misrepresent statements made by Planned Parenthood officials.
Fusion GPS analysts looked at the videos. The report conceded that the analysis did not reveal “widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation, but we did identify cuts, skips, missing tape and changes in camera angle.”
It took the suspicious segments of the tape to a forensic video expert named Grant Fredericks to be reviewed.
The report argues that the five videos of Planned Parenthood representatives have “at least 42 splices where content is cut and edited together to create the appearance of seamless conversations.”
For example, a Planned Parenthood staff member’s remarks in one video about lab protocols were edited to make it sound like she was talking about changing abortion procedures, the organization said in a press release.
The center responded that the report “is a complete failure.” The absence of bathroom breaks and waiting periods between meetings “does not change the hours of dialogue with top-level Planned Parenthood executives,” a statement from the group said.
The center added that the report found no evidence of audio manipulation.
“If Planned Parenthood really wants to disprove the now-overwhelming body of evidence that their affiliates traffic in baby body parts, they should release their fetal tissue contracts with the for-profit company StemExpress,” the group said.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the group’s advocacy arm that paid for the report, sent the report and a letter to Senate and House leadership detailing the laws surrounding fetal tissue research.
Four congressional committees in the House and Senate are investigating Planned Parenthood and whether it broke any laws.
It is not clear whether the report will be enough to sway the heads of those committees. Planned Parenthood has said the videos were heavily edited and taken out of context since they were released, but that has not deterred lawmakers from initiating the investigations.
• This article, which was originally published at 11:33 a.m., has been updated to include a response from the Center for Medical Progress.
