A pro-life activist who was investigated for possible criminal wrongdoing by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris in 2015 released undercover footage on Tuesday that shows Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of late-stage fetus body parts, some of which had been delivered alive and largely intact.
David Daleiden Center for Medical Progress Posing as a lab wholesaler with a colleague at the National Abortion Federation’s trade show in 2015, CMP videotaped two conversations with Dr. Anh Sut Aine, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s chief medical officer, and Nurse Tram Nguyen, the chapter’s vice president for abortion access.
While CMP has consistently maintained that Daleiden’s videos revealed illegal activity, Planned Parenthood has said that at the time the original videos were released, officials were discussing the legal, non-profit donation of fetal tissue to research companies.
But Daleiden argues that the newly released videos further demonstrate that Planned Parenthood’s claims at the time were false and that its officials engaged in misconduct.
“Schutt Aine and Nguyen said they dismembered the fetus after birth to avoid potential violations of federal partial-birth abortion law,” Daleiden, who describes himself as a citizen journalist, told The Washington Post.
During a conversation“There is a shortage of demand for livers,” an undercover CMP operative told Nguyen and Schut Aine, outlining a competition for fetal organs and cells based on what is “more profitable” for suppliers.
“You told me about the proposal, so now every time we do a D&E, [dilation and evacuation abortion]”I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got lungs, I’ve got kidneys,'” Schut Aine tells Nguyen in the video.
Nguyen later apologized to Daleiden for showing him the dismembered fetus on a previous visit, and explained that aborted fetuses are sometimes born missing one limb.
“We had to hurry. On any other day, he’d probably only have one arm, sort of amputated at the joint, but he’s more intact,” Nguyen said.
Later in the video, Nguyen can be heard saying: “I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’ve got the perfect legs!’ But I think if other people heard that, they’d think you were a really evil person.”
Neither Schut Aine nor Nguyen responded to calls from The Washington Post. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast Chapter Tuesday in Houston. Planned Parenthood’s national office did not respond to an email from The Washington Post.
In the second of two recorded conversations,Daleiden asks Schutt-Aine and Nguyen how to obtain the most intact late-term aborted fetuses for organ harvesting.
““A lot of it has to do with the dilation of the mother’s cervix, the opening to the uterus,” Schutt-Eine says. “If the cervix is fully dilated or softer and more pliable, then when you’re lowering the baby, you can get more of the baby out before separation happens.”
Typically, it takes three or four “passes” of the forceps through the birth canal to remove the fetus, Schutt-Eine says in a second video.
Nguyen adds: “Some people say, ‘One more pass, one more pass.'”
Schutt-Ainé explained that it was “to avoid the PBA,” with Nguyen adding: “It’s a bit of a hassle. “Yeah, I was like, ‘Uh, that was a little too close!'”
The P.B.A. Federal Partial-Birth Abortion Act.
Schutt Eine further explains: “If you are having surgery and feel scared that it will reach your navel, [navel]I might ask for a second pair of forceps to hold her down by the cervix and pull out a leg or two to keep her from getting PBA.”
Federal partial-birth abortion law prohibits the delivery of a live fetus below the umbilicus and any subsequent intended act to kill the fetus.
In June 2015, CMP went undercover and sent emails to Nguyen and Melissa Farrell, vice president of research at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, purportedly offering contracts for $750 for each fetal liver and $1,600 for each fetal liver and thymus pair.
The Post reviewed the unsealed emails provided by Planned Parenthood as evidence in a lawsuit it filed against Daleiden and CMP in San Francisco federal court.
Daleiden faces eight felony charges and possible prison time in California for making the videos without the executives’ permission and for “fabricating” a fake driver’s license to gain entry to a Planned Parenthood office in Houston. A trial is tentatively scheduled for December in San Francisco Superior Court.
According to court documents, Nguyen forwarded the purported contract to Dian Santos, director of PPGC’s regional medical-surgical services.
Santos asked, “Is this what you want to do?” Nguyen replied: “Yes ma’am.”
“Planned Parenthood has repeatedly told Congress, the courts and the public that it has ‘denied’ the opportunity to sell fetal body parts aborted in Texas,” Daleiden told The Post.
After Daleiden released the first video of the CMP undercover investigation in 2015, the National Abortion Federation, which represents Planned Parenthood, obtained a federal injunction preventing the release of the footage.
Around the same time, the office of then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, at the request of Planned Parenthood, launched a criminal investigation into Daleiden and the CMP, which has continued for nine years.
Daleiden accused Harris of “weaponizing” her office by deciding to prosecute him at the request of Planned Parenthood.
In March 2016, agents from the California Department of Justice searched Daleiden’s Orange County home and seized the videos.
Congress also subpoenaed the CMP for the footage in late 2015.
In May of this year, a San Francisco district court ruled that it could not block CMP from re-releasing the footage requested in the subpoena.
