CMP counters Planned Parenthood offensive

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released 28 minutes of raw video footage today to counter criticism that it manipulated recordings for its investigative series on Planned Parenthood.

CMP said the exclusion of the footage from the original release resulted from human error. The pro-life group made the footage available in full on YouTube. It features actors talking with Melissa Farrell, research director of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC), about the harvesting of aborted babies’ body parts for scientific research.

“The missing file, which begins at timestamp 07:46:48 and ends at 08:15:13, includes several key admissions from Farrell about PPGC’s arbitrary budgeting practices for tissue collection charges and willingness to modify abortion procedures to get more intact specimens,” CMP stated.

CMP has published a series of undercover videos that show officials from Planned Parenthood and tissue procurement companies discussing the financial benefits of harvesting aborted tissue. Buying or selling fetal remains is against federal law.

CMP released the latest footage in response to a report that Planned Parenthood published last week in an attempt to discredit the investigation.

The report by Fusion GPS, a research firm known for helping craft political smear campaigns, said CMP had doctored the videos to make Planned Parenthood look worse. The report noted time gaps in the footage and the fact that the camera angles changed during the videos.

The gaps in time, CMP said, represent bathroom breaks taken by the subjects or when the actors were waiting and discussing “logistics” between themselves. CMP said it would provide the original video to law enforcement, but would not make those portions of the recordings public to protect the actors.

The Fusion GPS report concluded the videos did not have “evidentiary value” and would be inadmissible in court, according to forensic experts hired by the firm. But CMP disagrees.

“In reality, the use of multiple cameras corroborates the scenes recorded and enhances the evidentiary value of the footage,” the group said.

In the raw footage released today, Farrell discusses the budgeting and procurement process for fetal tissue. She describes her organization as “risk-averse but strategic,” in deciding which organizations to procure aborted remains for. Farrell notes Planned Parenthood avoids federally funded research because of the potential for audits of their patient consent process.

Planned Parenthood’s publicizing of the Fusion GPS report comes amid an expensive damage-control campaign. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, sent a letter to congressional leaders last week defending the agency’s practices and citing the Fusion GPS report. Her organization has spent an estimated $517,000 on TV ads in Washington, D.C., and states where lawmakers are considering defunding the organization, The Washington Post reported.