CBS News reported Monday that a pro-life activist group’s years-long undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood’s is “now-discredited,” but congressional investigators don’t see it that way.
The Center for Medical Progress’ work on shedding light on Planned Parenthood’s controversial practice of salvaging organs from the remains of aborted children for donation has come under further scrutiny following a mass-shooting event in Colorado Spring, Colo., this weekend.
A gunman, Robert Lewis Dear, opened fire at a clinic, killing three people, including a police officer, and wounding nine more.
In its ongoing coverage of the attack, cbsnews.com quoted Planned Parenthood as saying pro-life Republican presidential candidates are responsible for supposedly inspiring the attack. CBS also reported offhandedly that CMP’s Planned Parenthood investigation had supposedly been debunked.
“On Sunday, Planned Parenthood said Dear’s words matched the ‘hateful rhetoric’ GOP presidential candidates and many conservative leaders have been using since now-discredited, secretly taped videos discussing the procurement of fetal body parts for medical research,” the group reported [emphasis added].
The article, which carries no byline, does not go on to explain how the CMP investigation has been “discredited.”
CMP has released 11 short videos this year showing Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing reimbursement for procuring organs salvaged from the remains of aborted children. CMP has also released more than 10 hours of raw, uncut footage, as well as audio transcripts and several lengthy mini-documentaries.
One undercover video shows Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services since 2009, Deborah Nucatola, discussing “doing a little better than” breaking even for donated organs.
A separate video shows Planned Parenthood affiliates seemingly discussing performing partial birth abortions so as to avoid damaging specific organs.
It is illegal to profit from the donation of fetal tissue. It is also illegal under federal law to perform partial birth abortions.
The videos, which come after a nearly three-year-long sting operation organized by the group’s founder, David Daleiden, have prompted investigations in both chambers of Congress, and spurred renewed efforts from lawmakers to see the women’s healthcare provider defunded.
Lawmakers in the nation’s capital confirmed this week they will continue to investigate Planned Parenthood, the attack in Colorado notwithstanding.
Planned Parenthood’s go-to defense has been to claim that the CMP videos have been “selectively edited,” and that they paint a deeply unfair and inaccurate picture of the nation’s largest provider of abortions. Several reporters have repeated this claim, but many of them have also declined to say whether they have actually watched all of footage released by CMP.
A third party research firm, Fusion GPS, said earlier this year that CMP videos had been deceptively edited, but that same group also said that it watched only four of the more than 10 videos.
Planned Parenthood commissioned the Fusion GPS study.
Though there are no confirmed details regarding Dear’s motivation, multiple newsrooms, including CBS, have cited an anonymous law enforcement officials who claims Dear was responding to anti-abortion rhetoric.
Spokespersons for CBS News did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
