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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FOIA DOCUMENTS CONFIRM FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATION OF ABORTED BABY ORGAN HARVESTING AT UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
NIH Documents Released Under FOIA Show HHS Office of Inspector General Agents Issued Subpoena to Pitt Concerning Aborted Fetal Kidney Harvesting Program

Contact: David Daleiden, media@centerformedicalprogress.org, 949.734.0859

WASHINGTON, D.C. Dec. 12—Newly released FOIA documents confirm the existence of a federal law enforcement investigation of an NIH-funded program at the University of Pittsburgh that harvested fetal kidneys from late-term abortions performed by Planned Parenthood doctors.

The documents include email exchanges from late 2021 and early 2022 between NIH leadership, the University’s Senior Vice Chancellor for Research, and an HHS Office of Inspector General agent, which reference a subpoena issued by OIG to investigate fetal organ harvesting in the NIH-funded “GUDMAP” program at Pitt.

In the emails, in September 2021, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research Dr. Michael Lauer asks Pitt’s Senior Vice Chancellor for Research Dr. Rob Rutenbar for further information about the “fetal tissue collection procedures associated with the GenitoUrinary Development Molecular Anatomy Project (GUDMAP) Tissue Hub and Collection Site at the University of Pittsburgh.” On November 5, 2021, Pitt’s Dr. Rutenbar writes back to NIH::

“With regard to your request for documentation/information, please be aware that we received a subpoena from HHS OIG requesting similar documentation on October 28, 2021.”

Subsequent emails discuss a conference call about the subpoena and document production schedule. On November 10, 2021, an OIG agent copies NIH on an email titled, “OIG Subpoena – Health Sciences Tissue Bank” and writes: “As far as the OIG subpoena production, please respond in accordance with the date on the subpoena”.

The emails confirm for the first time the existence of a federal law enforcement investigation of the Planned Parenthood-assisted aborted human fetal tissue transfers at the University of Pittsburgh. The Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General describes itself as “the world’s premiere health care law enforcement agency” which “conducts criminal, civil, and administrative investigations of fraud and misconduct related to HHS programs” and whose agents have the authority “to make arrests, conduct surveillance, serve search warrants, seize evidence, and testify in State and Federal proceedings.”

NIH produced the emails earlier this year in response to a FOIA request by Judicial Watch and The Center for Medical Progress. In August 2021, CMP reported on disturbing statements in Pitt’s grant application to be the fetal tissue “distribution hub” for the GUDMAP program, in which Pitt advertised to NIH that it would use labor induction abortions to harvest fetal kidneys, record the time the kidneys were disconnected from blood supply and “minimize” this “warm ischemic time”, and disproportionately target Black and minority patients for this live-abortion harvesting. Planned Parenthood officials run the abortion services in the University of Pittsburgh’s health system, and provide the abortions to supply fetuses for the Health Sciences Tissue Bank at Pitt.

Further information about the operations of the Pittsburgh GUDMAP program continues to surface in CMP’s ongoing FOIA requests with Judicial Watch. In litigation with NIH over the documents, the government has produced the un-redacted version of the scientific references cited in Pitt’s grant application for the GUDMAP program. The references for Pitt’s advertisement “Ischemia time is minimized” are two scientific papers that describe minimizing ischemia time by harvesting tissue samples from donors who are still alive, rather than from organs that have already been cut out of the body. Furthermore, the judge in the FOIA case found, based on admissions submitted by the NIH itself, that the redactions in the documents are meant to protect Pitt’s “commercial interest” and “commercial fortunes” in harvesting aborted fetal organs.

CMP founder and president David Daleiden notes, “Pitt’s own statements indicating its Planned Parenthood partners use criminal partial-birth abortions to harvest fetal organs to sell for NIH grant money are serious enough that a federal law enforcement agency opened a formal investigation following CMP’s reporting. If this investigation has been conducted honestly, the facts uncovered may be more horrifying than we ever imagined. Planned Parenthood has cloaked its human atrocities committed against vulnerable mothers and infants under its ‘research’ program for decades—it is time for justice under the law for every level of the taxpayer-funded enterprise of selling aborted baby body parts.”

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Watch a new video report about the new public records findings here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDcQaPd7Q_8

Find more of CMP’s reporting on fetal experimentation at the University of Pittsburgh here: https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/human-capital/fetal-experimentation-at-the-university-of-pittsburgh-and-planned-parenthood/

Learn more about CMP at www.centerformedicalprogress.org

In a filing last night, Planned Parenthood admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time that their leaders, caught negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted fetal body parts on undercover video by The Center for Medical Progress, “spoke the words recorded in the videos.” This crucial admission came in Planned Parenthood’s opposition filing to CMP’s petition for the Supreme Court to hear the appeal of Planned Parenthood’s nearly $16 million lawsuit retaliating for the videos, and it is the first time Planned Parenthood has acknowledged the authenticity of the footage to the Supreme Court.

CMP’s appeal to the Supreme Court is based on the failure of the San Francisco federal court where Planned Parenthood brought the lawsuit to apply any First Amendment protections to the case, when the evidence showed that Planned Parenthood sued based on the public impact of the video reports on its business. Planned Parenthood also admitted in its filing that the facts of the case would not support a defamation claim over the videos.

Read CMP’s petition to the Supreme Court here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FULL PRODUCTION OF ABORTED BABY HARVESTING PUBLIC RECORDS SECURED FROM UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, DISMISSING LAWSUIT
Planned Parenthood and UW Representatives Sued in 2016 to Prevent Release of Records on Government-Sponsored Fetal Experimentation, 12 Years’ Worth Will Now Be Produced

Contact: David Daleiden, media@centerformedicalprogress.org, 949.734.0859

SEATTLE, Dec. 13—The University of Washington, and associated individuals from Planned Parenthood and the University, have settled a federal lawsuit with The Center for Medical Progress’ founder and president, David Daleiden, over the release under the Washington Public Records Act of the University’s documents concerning taxpayer-funded experiments on aborted fetuses. Daleiden first filed a PRA request for the documents in February 2016.

Under the terms of the settlement, the taxpayer-funded public University will produce extensive records concerning its harvesting, use, and distribution of aborted fetuses and their organs and tissues, from 2010 to present, and pay $30,000 in attorneys’ fees to Daleiden’s counsel. Individuals associated with the University and Planned Parenthood will dismiss their lawsuit preventing the release of the documents, and Daleiden will dismiss his cross-claim against the University for violation of the Public Records Act.

“Public entities’ good faith compliance with public records laws is crucial to promoting public trust, holding bad actors accountable under the law, and safeguarding democratic values,” notes Daleiden. “State actors’ transparency and accountability under freedom of information laws is even more important in the realm of government-sponsored experiments on aborted human fetuses, where laws against infanticide and organ trafficking, the systemic exploitation of the vulnerable, and the irreversible life-or-death abortion decisions of new families are at stake. The Center for Medical Progress will continue to monitor and report on these issues to educate the public and advocate for more just and humane abortion and research policies.”

The University of Washington has operated an NIH-funded center for harvesting and distributing aborted fetal organs and tissues, the “Birth Defects Research Laboratory” (BDRL), for over 50 years. Like many University hubs for fetal experimentation, UW also hosts Planned Parenthood’s abortion training program, the “Fellowship in Complex Family Planning”. Since 2015, Planned Parenthood has held out the University of Washington program as its gold standard for participating in the supply of aborted fetuses for government-sponsored experiments.

Daleiden’s public records request sought documentation and communications concerning the relationship between Planned Parenthood and UW, the approval of fetal experimentation projects, the volume of business and kinds of fetal organs harvested and distributed at the BDRL, and NIH involvement in fetal experimentation at UW. Individual representatives of the University and Planned Parenthood sued UW and Daleiden in late 2016 seeking to enjoin the release of the public records. The records will now be produced.

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Learn more about CMP’s investigative reporting at www.centerformedicalprogress.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CALIFORNIA ABORTION PROVIDER OPPOSES PROP 1 “MONSTROSITY” FOR “KILLING VIABLE, HEALTHY BABIES”
Pro-Choice Dr. Forrest O. Smith, OB/GYN and Abortion Provider for 53 Years, Opposes Proposition 1 For Legalizing Abortions of Viable, Healthy Babies Up To Birth in New Ad

Contact: David Daleiden, media@centerformedicalprogress.org, 949.734.0859

IRVINE, Nov. 1—Dr. Forrest O. Smith, a pro-choice OB/GYN and the longest-continuously practicing abortion provider in America, urges Californians to vote No on Proposition 1 in a new ad series by The Center for Medical Progress. Proposition 1 will overrule existing California abortion laws to expand late-term abortions on healthy, viable babies through a full 9 months of pregnancy.

In the full version of the advertisement, pro-choice Dr. Smith explains that existing California law already “guarantees the right to abortion but only to the age of fetal viability, which means the age at which the baby can live outside of the mother’s body.” Dr. Smith urges Californians to vote No on Proposition 1 because, “Proposition 1 is really just the same 2003 law, but with the fetal viability clause eliminated. If Proposition 1 is put in our state constitution, abortion doctors will have a right to legally kill viable and healthy babies up to the moment of birth.”

The existing California Reproductive Privacy Act of 2003 limits abortion to “before the viability of the fetus.” The text of Proposition 1, however, embeds a “fundamental right to choose to have an abortion” without any limits or qualifications about viability of the fetus.

“No matter how you feel about abortion, whether you are a pro-lifer or a pro-choicer, what Proposition 1 will do is legalize the killing of viable, healthy babies, and that is the moral monstrosity that we cannot allow into our state constitution. Please join me in voting No on Proposition 1 on November 8th,” Dr. Smith concludes.

Dr. Smith began providing abortions during his residency at Duke University in 1970, and has been in abortion practice continuously since then, providing OB/GYN and abortion care in California for the past several decades. Dr. Smith has also served as a medical expert for CMP, providing testimony in lawsuits by Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation.

“Proposition 1’s taxpayer-funded expansion of late-term abortion on healthy, viable infants, through a full nine months of pregnancy, is so extreme that even committed California abortion providers are coming out against it,” notes David Daleiden, founder and president of The Center for Medical Progress. “Through strategic digital media placements, we hope to reach up to 1 million Californians by election day with the message that Proposition 1 goes too far.”

CMP is also running ads with its undercover reporting on the illegal sale of fetal body parts in California, urging Californians to vote No on Proposition 1’s extreme taxpayer-funded expansion of late-term abortion.

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Watch the advertisements here:

Dr. Smith full ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jran-vFOSxg

Dr. Smith short ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPHgYQd0drY

CMP short ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtC-7WWcw-c

Learn more about CMP here: centerformedicalprogress.org

A Ninth Circuit panel decided with this ruling today that protecting Planned Parenthood’s barbaric practices of partial-birth abortion and trafficking of aborted fetuses for government-sponsored experiments is more important than protecting the First Amendment rights of journalists and of the public. In order to do this, the panel had to contradict its own precedents about undercover reporting on any other topic, disregard other Circuits’ en banc findings of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood, and bless the increasing weaponization of the justice system against pro-life speech. The tide of history is turning against the panel’s obsolete pro-abortion exceptionalism, and we will appeal until the constitutional rights of reporters and the public prevail.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW FOOTAGE SHOWS ORGAN HARVESTING COMPANY WORKING AT PLANNED PARENTHOOD IN PITTSBURGH
The University of Pittsburgh and Planned Parenthood Both Denied Under Oath Fetus Harvesting At Clinic

Contact: David Daleiden, media@centerformedicalprogress.org, 949.734.0859

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 10—New photographs and video recorded by pro-life advocates with 40 Days for Life in Pittsburgh, PA document a University of Pittsburgh-linked organ harvesting and tissue procurement company, the Center for Organ Recovery and Education (CORE), working at Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania’s abortion clinic in the city.

The footage shows a vehicle displaying the CORE logo parked in the driveway of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, next to the clinic’s “bubble zone” entrance markings on the sidewalk, and a man wearing an identification badge lanyard carrying what appear to be specimen bags from the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic and storing them in a cooler inside the CORE vehicle.

CORE is based in Pittsburgh and supplies organs and tissues for research in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh’s Health Sciences Tissue Bank, which is a long-established distributor of human fetal organs and tissues from elective abortions for government-sponsored experimentation. Yet in sworn testimony before a Pennsylvania House of Representatives hearing in 2021, the University of Pittsburgh insisted it “does not obtain fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood”.

“The University of Pittsburgh swore under oath that it did not harvest fetal organs from Planned Parenthood—so what is the University’s organ harvesting company doing parked at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic with coolers?” asks David Daleiden, founder and president of The Center for Medical Progress. “The lies from Pitt and Planned Parenthood must stop now and elected officials in Pennsylvania must demand the truth.”

Previously, CMP questioned Pitt’s denials because Planned Parenthood abortion providers operate the University’s abortion program, Planned Parenthood is a satellite clinical location of the University, and Planned Parenthood’s medical director is Vice Chair of the Pitt Institutional Review Board (IRB) overseeing all fetal experimentation at Pitt.

CMP is the investigative journalism organization responsible for the 2015 series of undercover video reports exposing Planned Parenthood leadership’s participation in the trafficking of aborted fetuses and has covered fetal experimentation at the University of Pittsburgh and Planned Parenthood over the past few years. The photos and video of CORE at Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania were provided by local advocate Katie O’Brien with 40 Days for Life Pittsburgh and Sidewalk Advocates for Life of Pittsburgh.

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See the photographs below and watch the new footage here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iCT1uPS-f74

Watch CMP’s reporting on fetal experimentation at Pitt and Planned Parenthood here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-JUzqswKZs

Learn more about CMP here: centerformedicalprogress.org

“Just as discrimination on the basis of religion or race is forbidden by the Constitution, so is discrimination on the basis of the exercise of protected First Amendment activities.”
—(Murgia v. Municipal Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 286, 303)

On July 27, attorneys for CMP founder and project lead David Daleiden filed a motion to dismiss, as an unconstitutional discriminatory prosecution under the California Supreme Court’s Murgia vs. Municipal Court case, the unprecedented felony criminal charges brought by Kamala Harris against Daleiden under the California video recording law. The motion presents new evidence these unprecedented charges were brought solely to chill Daleiden’s exercise of First Amendment rights on behalf of the private interests of Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, in violation of the California Supreme Court’s People v. Eubanks case.

Read the court filings here:

Motion to Dismiss
Application to Exceed Pages
Exhibits

The Center for Medical Progress will continue to fight for the First Amendment rights of all Americans to report, speak, and publish critical messages against the harvesting and trafficking of aborted fetuses for experimentation.

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Founder and President of The Center for Medical Progress, David Daleiden, released this statement today about the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson overruling the faulty 1900s-era Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey abortion decisions:

CMP’s undercover videos exposing the barbaric sale of aborted fetuses and their body parts at Planned Parenthood demonstrated the dehumanizing cruelty of industrial-scale abortion to the whole country. Now, the national tragedy of industrial-scale, state-sponsored violation of the human right to life of infants in the womb is ending because the need for common sense limits on abortion forced the Supreme Court to look at the equal human dignity of our brothers and sisters before birth. A new bigger, better, brighter chapter begins today as the responsibility to empower women and protect infant lives returns to the people. Together, we will make our communities safe for the two lives, mama and infant, who need help in every unplanned or challenging pregnancy, and we celebrate the dawning era where there is no longer a price tag put on human life.

—David Daleiden, Founder and President, The Center for Medical Progress

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Watch the undercover videos and learn more about CMP’s investigative reporting here: https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org

David Daleiden is available for further comment or interview at media@centerformedicalprogress.org

The bodies of the five late-term aborted infants recovered from Dr. Cesare Santangelo’s Washington Surgi-Center in Washington, D.C.—Christopher X, Harriet, Holly, Ángel, and Phoenix—are prima facie physical evidence that these babies died the victims of criminal partial-birth abortions and infanticide. There is no evidence these infants were aborted legally. Instead, the available evidence indicates they were delivered alive and killed in the rush to supply them to a medical waste energy plant to burn for electricity. We demand an independent autopsy to confirm the cause of death of these infants, and we call on public authorities to hold criminal providers who commit partial-birth abortions accountable under the law.

#JusticeForTheFive #DCPDAutopsyNOW

Attributable to investigative reporter David Daleiden, founder and president of The Center for Medical Progress

MEDIA ADVISORY: New Video From The Center for Medical Progress Explains Why Supreme Court Must Uphold State Abortion Limits

Contact: David Daleiden, media@centerformedicalprogress.org, 949.734.0859

This week, The Center for Medical Progress released a new video about the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson case on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion limit, explaining why the Court must uphold state abortion limits. The video is based on the amicus curiae brief that CMP and its founder David Daleiden wrote and filed in the case, and highlights the disturbing facts from CMP’s undercover videos and investigative reporting on the trafficking of aborted infants, to argue:

“CMP’s undercover videos make this case simple—if a baby is old enough to be trafficked for body parts, he or she should be old enough to be protected from abortion by a state law.”

The new video also examines the tragic and lethal consequences that unlimited, legalized abortion has brought to American communities, such as the demand for late-term fetal organs, racist quotas for harvesting aborted fetuses for experiments, and the enabling of infanticide by pro-abortion government policies as in the Kermit Gosnell case.

CMP’s founder and president David Daleiden notes, “Top abortion industry leaders caught on undercover video admit in their own words that the 15-week babies in the womb whose human vulnerability is now before the Supreme Court are the most at risk for organ trafficking for experiments. There is only one answer the Supreme Court can give in the Dobbs case, which is to recognize the obvious, overriding constitutional interests the people of this country have in protecting infants in the womb from lethal abortion. The discriminatory, unequal, and violent treatment the Court once authorized toward so-called ‘pre-viability’ human infants has led to tragic and lethal consequences for our communities, and it is totally inconsistent with who we are supposed to be as a country. Now at last is the time for a new and more humane way forward.”

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Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n96f2swYCCk

To learn more about CMP, visit: https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org