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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UNDERCOVER FILMMAKER SUES PLANNED PARENTHOOD FOR CALLING FETAL BODY PARTS VIDEOS “FAKE”
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in Press Statements and on Twitter, Claimed Undercover Videos “Manufacture a Fake” and “Created a False Smear Campaign”

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

NEW YORK, September 17–The Center for Medical Progress and its founder David Daleiden, responsible for the 2015 undercover video series exposing top Planned Parenthood leadership negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted fetal body parts, are suing Planned Parenthood Federation of America for defamation in New York federal court after PPFA falsely and repeatedly accused the filmmakers of “manufacture[d]”, “fake”, and “false” undercover video reporting.

In sworn deposition testimony in 2019, top Planned Parenthood officials admitted that their own actual statements were captured by the undercover video recordings. PPFA itself stipulated during a federal court trial that the words used by Planned Parenthood officials in the undercover videos “were spoken by those persons”.

Yet on September 18, 2019, PPFA issued a press statement claiming Daleiden and CMP filmed and published undercover video “to manufacture a fake smear campaign against Planned Parenthood”. On November 15, 2019, PPFA tweeted that Daleiden and CMP “created a false smear campaign against Planned Parenthood”.

After 30 months of undercover work, CMP began releasing its undercover video footage of documenting Planned Parenthood and its business partners’ participation in the harvesting and sale of human fetuses and their body parts from abortions. With each video release, CMP posted the full footage of the conversation with the Planned Parenthood representative, alongside a shorter summary version presenting the most significant parts of the conversation.

In the first video release, PPFA’s then Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, suggested prices “per-specimen” of fetal tissue, and advised that in her Planned Parenthood clinics, “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.” Dr. Nucatola also described using ultrasound guidance to flip the position of a living fetus to feet-first in order to extract the fetus whole, remarking, “So if you do it starting from the breech presentation, there’s dilation that happens as the case goes on, and often, the last step, you can evacuate an intact calvarium [head] at the end,” and concluding, “We’ve been pretty successful with that, I’d say.”

The U.S. Department of Justice announced three years ago it had opened a federal investigation of Planned Parenthood and its business partners for selling fetal tissue based on criminal referrals from Congress, prompted by CMP’s undercover videos. Two of Planned Parenthood’s business partners in Orange County, CA then admitted guilt for illegally selling aborted tissue from Planned Parenthood in a $7.8 million settlement, and the Orange County District Attorney credited CMP’s undercover reporting with prompting the successful case. In September 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services terminated its contracts with Planned Parenthood partner Advanced Bioscience Resources because it could not be “sufficiently assured” that ABR’s supply complied with the federal law against selling fetal tissue (42 U.S.C. 289g-2). In January 2019, the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled based on forensic analysis that CMP’s undercover footage was accurate, authentic, reliable evidence that Planned Parenthood committed partial-birth abortions and changed abortions in order to sell fetal tissue.

CMP president David Daleiden states, “Planned Parenthood admits my videos are true when under oath in federal court, but when speaking to the public, Planned Parenthood lies and calls the videos fake. I have put my life on hold for five years to report, with video evidence, the trafficking of aborted infants that I and others witnessed at the highest levels of Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry. It is time for Planned Parenthood to face the truth.”

Harmeet Dhillon, counsel for Daleiden and CMP, notes, “Planned Parenthood has tremendous power and influence in our society. But even it must adhere to legal norms. We filed this lawsuit to hold PPFA accountable for damaging falsehoods it uttered concerning our clients’ groundbreaking journalism that exposed shocking practices it would rather keep hidden — for good reason. Planned Parenthood is not above the law. We look forward to the merits litigation of this lawsuit.”

“Instead of coming clean about its ruthless pursuit of profit from selling the remains of aborted children, Planned Parenthood tried to smear David Daleiden, the man who blew the whistle on its dirty secret,” says Peter Breen, Vice President and Senior Counsel for the Thomas More Society, representing Daleiden. “In its earlier lawsuit against David and the Center for Medical Progress, Planned Parenthood fought to avoid scrutiny of its illegal fetal tissue trafficking. This new lawsuit puts Planned Parenthood’s grisly business practices front and center, to prove the truth of the conclusions of David’s investigation, which were also confirmed and echoed by the United States Congress and other government officials.”

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To watch CMP’s undercover video series, visit: centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage

Learn more about Planned Parenthood’s admissions under oath here: https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/fetal-trafficking-under-oath/ 

To learn more about CMP, visit: CenterforMedicalProgress.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PLANNED PARENTHOOD SWORN VIDEO TESTIMONY ADMITS USING PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS TO SELL BABY PARTS
Senior Executive Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Featured in First Undercover Video, Admits PPLA Clinics Were “Pretty Successful” With Feet-First, Intact Extraction of Living Fetuses

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

IRVINE, Aug. 24–The Center for Medical Progress released a third video today featuring unsealed video clips from top Planned Parenthood leaders’ sworn deposition testimony about the way Planned Parenthood abortion doctors change abortions to harvest more usable fetal organs and tissues.

The new video includes unsealed deposition testimony from Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services from 2009 to 2016, who now holds regional leadership positions with the organization.

Dr. Nucatola famously described Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue research programs, casually over wine and salad at a crowded Los Angeles restaurant, in CMP’s first undercover video release in 2015. In the undercover video, Dr. Nucatola described using ultrasound guidance to flip a fetus to a feet-first position for intact extraction and successful organ harvesting at Planned Parenthood. Yet when questioned by Congressional investigators, Dr. Nucatola denied that such abortions were used in Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue research programs.

But under oath in her deposition, Dr. Nucatola confirms, “If I was aware that it was a donation case, yes” she would change where she grasped the fetus with her forceps in order not to crush certain organs. When asked about her description of flipping a fetus to breech position in order to obtain intact organs, Dr. Nucatola first seems to deny doing so. But when confronted with her conclusion on the undercover tape, “We’ve been pretty successful with that,” Dr. Nucatola admits, “I was referring to PPLA.” Asked if that included herself, Dr. Nucatola testifies, “Yes, including me, I worked at PPLA.”

Using ultrasound guidance to manipulate the fetus from vertex to breech orientation before intact extraction is the hallmark of the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure (18 U.S.C. 1531), which attempts to draw a brightline between abortion and infanticide by criminalizing the intact extraction of a living fetus for the purpose of killing the child afterward.

The new video also shows testimony from Tram Nguyen, Vice President of Abortion Access at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston, TX. The federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found in 2019 that CMP’s undercover footage of Nguyen admitting Planned Parenthood could sign a statement disclaiming “intent” to perform an intact extraction abortion, and then go on to procure an intact fetus, was forensically authentic and accurate evidence that Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast had committed partial-birth abortions. Under oath, when shown the video clip and asked if it was her understanding that an abortion provider could provide an intact fetus so long as the form was signed, Nguyen testifies, “Yes,” and when asked if it is true that intact abortions occur in spite of the form, Nguyen admits, “It is true.”

The new video also includes testimony from Dr. Mary Gatter, former medical director for PPLA, admitting that after internal debate in the organization, she “evolved” in her thinking to believe that changing abortion “techniques” in order to harvest higher quality fetal tissue was acceptable. Dr. Gatter testifies that Planned Parenthood makes a distinction between the abortion “technique” and the abortion “procedure,” and that changing the former is allowed while changing the latter is not. The federal law at 42 U.S.C. 289g-1 prohibits any changes to the “procedures used to terminate the pregnancy,” and not simply “the procedure” as a singular category.

Earlier this month, 28 U.S. Senators wrote to Attorney General Bill Barr demanding an update on action the Department of Justice has taken to enforce the laws against trafficking in human fetuses and other violations. In May, the Small Business Administration demanded 37 Planned Parenthood affiliates return $80 million in federal relief loans they fraudulently certified they were eligible for. In late 2017, the DOJ announced it had opened a federal investigation following criminal referrals by Congress of Planned Parenthood and their business partners. The same week, two southern California companies admitted guilt for illegally selling body parts from Planned Parenthood Orange & San Bernardino Counties in a $7.8 million settlement with the Orange County District Attorney.

CMP founder and project lead David Daleiden notes, “Planned Parenthood reflexively proclaims innocence to the public and to a compliant establishment press, but when Planned Parenthood abortion leadership is placed under oath, they testify to crimes against women and infants. Criminality in the national taxpayer-funded abortion industry will continue to spread unless federal authorities hold them accountable once and for all.”

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Watch the new video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POdbu4bp5rQ

View more documents and testimony here: https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/fetal-trafficking-under-oath/

To learn more about CMP, visit: www.CMP.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SWORN VIDEO TESTIMONY DESCRIBES INFANTICIDE IN FETAL ORGAN HARVESTING AND PLANNED PARENTHOOD CLINICS

Under Oath, Procurement Manager Testifies Fetuses “Just Fall Out,” Hearts Beating when Harvested; Planned Parenthood Execs Admit Infants Born Alive and Left to Die in Clinics Depending on “Availability of Interventions”

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

IRVINE, June 30–The Center for Medical Progress released a second video today featuring unsealed video clips from Planned Parenthood and abortion industry officials’ sworn deposition testimony, with disturbing descriptions of infants born alive and either harvested for organs or left to die inside abortion clinics.

The new video includes unsealed deposition testimony from Perrin Larton, the Procurement Manager of Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR), which harvests fetal organs and tissues inside Planned Parenthood clinics in southern California and resells them to taxpayer-sponsored researchers across the country. Larton testified about the fetuses ABR harvests that “They just, sometimes they fall out” of the abortion patient when the patient delivers the fetus entirely intact in the operating room, “once every couple months.” Larton further testified that the fetus is still intact when she receives it in the clinic laboratory and nothing is “done to the fetus” by the abortion provider before providing it intact to Larton, at which point she testified that ABR will “do a dissection to get the tissues that the researchers have requested.” When asked if the intact fetuses that just “fall out” in the operating room have a heartbeat, Larton testified, “It would depend,” because “I can see hearts that are not in an intact P.O.C. [product of conception, fetus] that are beating independently” after removal from the fetus. 

The video also features testimony from Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the previous Senior Director of Medical Services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America who continues to hold regional leadership positions in the organization. When asked if she had “ever had a patient deliver in the operating room a non-viable fetus,” Dr. Nucatola testified, “I’m sure I have.” Asked to define “non-viable,” Dr. Nucatola testified a “non-viable” fetus would be “a fetus that’s not capable of survival.” When asked how to determine whether or not a fetus was viable, Dr. Nucatola testified, “It depends on where you work,” and explained that “the availability of interventions” was one of the criteria she would use to determine whether or not a fetus delivered in the operating room was “viable” or “capable of survival.” During her tenure as Senior Director of Medical Services for PPFA, Dr. Nucatola was responsible for setting PPFA’s national Medical Standards & Guidelines and she performed abortions at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles to provide fetal organs to Novogenix Laboratories, LLC.

The video also includes testimony from Jon Dunn, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties, which was partnered with the admitted criminal fetal tissue companies DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics for nearly 8 years. Dunn testified that he was aware of at least one situation at his Planned Parenthood where a fetus had been born alive during an abortion: “I know they kept it warm and comfortable for the very brief period that it was alive. I don’t think there was even time to call 911.” Dunn also testified that, “This is something that every obstetrician/gynecologist deals with on rare occasion” and “It is their medical judgment what to do in that circumstance.”

Last month, the Small Business Administration demanded 37 Planned Parenthood affiliates return $80 million in federal relief loans they fraudulently certified they were eligible for, and 27 Senators called on Attorney General Bill Barr to broaden the U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the Planned Parenthood affiliates’ activities. Last week, 67 Congressmen wrote to the DOJ demanding an update on the DOJ’s follow-up on Congressional criminal referrals for Planned Parenthood and their business partners.

CMP project lead David Daleiden asks, “How long will public authorities permit Planned Parenthood and their associates to sell living children inside and outside the womb and then kill them through organ harvesting? The DOJ has vigorously prosecuted the sale of eagle body parts. Surely selling human body parts after cutting them out of an infant with a beating heart is at least as grave of a crime.”

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Watch the new video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHh5IFXao-4

View the documents and testimony here: https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/fetal-trafficking-under-oath/

To learn more about CMP, visit: www.CMP.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PLANNED PARENTHOOD TESTIMONY ON SELLING BABY PARTS UNSEALED, NEW VIDEOS RELEASED

Planned Parenthood Officials Testified Under Oath About Financial Incentives in Fetal Tissue Research Programs in Abortion Giant’s Own Lawsuit

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

IRVINE, May 26–The Center for Medical Progress, whose undercover videos exposed Planned Parenthood leadership negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted fetal body parts, released a new video today featuring Planned Parenthood officials’ sworn videotaped testimony about the sales.

The new video release documents the Planned Parenthood officials’ admissions, which came in Planned Parenthood’s own retaliatory lawsuit over the undercover footage and contradict Planned Parenthood’s public claims about both the undercover videos and the abortion provider’s fetal tissue research programs. The testimony was unsealed this spring.

The video shows how Planned Parenthood Federation of America, while under investigation in 2015, told Congress that its Gulf Coast affiliate in Houston had “rebuffed” an undercover proposal to sell fetal livers for $750 per liver and $1600 for liver/thymus pairs. But Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast‘s Senior Director of Abortion Access, Tram Nguyen, testified that she “wanted to move forward with it,” as documented in contemporaneous emails between her and PPGC’s Regional Director Dyann Santos.

The video also features sworn testimony from Dr. Dorothy Furgerson, the longtime Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country. Dr. Furgerson signed PPMM’s contract with StemExpress to sell fetal body parts to StemExpress per specimen “determined in the clinic to be usable”, and Dr. Furgerson’s endorsement appears on a StemExpress brochure handed out at National Abortion Federation meetings advertising “fiscal[] rewards” and “financial profits” to the abortion clinics who provided fetal tissue to StemExpress. When asked if the purpose of the brochure was “to obtain more potential sources of fetal tissue,” Dr. Furgerson testified, “Yes, I understood that that’s what they were trying to do.”

The video shows StemExpress paid Planned Parenthood solely based on the number of “usable” samples that StemExpress could harvest from PPMM’s abortions, at least an extra $65 per abortion if the customer ordered a fetal organ plus a blood sample. PPMM does over 17,000 abortions a year, and unsealed invoices show PPMM making $25,000 in just 3 months from StemExpress. When asked how much money an abortion clinic could make per year from selling fetal body parts, the founder and CEO of Planned Parenthood partner Advanced Bioscience Resources, Linda Tracy, was forbidden by her lawyer to answer.

The video also includes testimony from Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the Senior Director of Medical Services for PPFA from the first undercover video release. When asked when she first found out about Planned Parenthood affiliates “receiving payments for fetal tissue”, Dr. Nucatola testified, “I knew [Planned Parenthood Los Angeles] was getting payments because I was a provider there,” yet testified she never felt the need to check PPLA’s compliance with PPFA policies. Dr. Mary Gatter, the former PPLA Medical Director who established the relationship with “for-profit” biotech company Novogenix, testified that PPFA provided a “waiver” for PPLA to begin the program.

42 U.S. Code 289g-2 broadly forbids the exchange of valuable consideration for fetal tissue. After investigating Planned Parenthood and companies like StemExpress and ABR for over a year, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Select Investigative Panel made criminal referrals for Planned Parenthood and their business partners to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice. In late 2017, the DOJ announced it had opened a federal investigation, and two southern California companies admitted guilt to selling body parts from Planned Parenthood Orange & San Bernardino Counties against the law in a $7.8 million settlement with the Orange County District Attorney.

Last week, the Small Business Administration demanded 37 Planned Parenthood affiliates return $80 million in federal relief loans they fraudulently certified they were eligible for, and 27 Senators called on Attorney General Bill Barr to broaden the DOJ investigation of the Planned Parenthood affiliates’ activities.

CMP project lead David Daleiden notes: “The time has come for federal consequences for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood lied to the public and to Congress, but now there is no longer any reasonable doubt that Planned Parenthood sold fetal body parts, commodifying living children in the womb and treating pregnant women like a cash crop. The U.S. Department of Justice must escalate the enforcement of laws against fetal trafficking to the highest level of priority.”

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Watch the new video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgUULMCzm8c

View the documents and testimony here: https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/fetal-trafficking-under-oath/

To learn more about CMP, visit: www.CMP.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UNDERCOVER VIDEOMAKER SUES PLANNED PARENTHOOD, KAMALA HARRIS, CA AG FOR VIOLATING CIVIL RIGHTS
Lawsuit Claims “Content-Based” Selective Enforcement of CA Video Recording Law To Silence First Amendment Speech and Cover Up for Abortion Industry

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

IRVINE, May 13–The Center for Medical Progress and its founder David Daleiden, responsible for the undercover video series exposing top Planned Parenthood leadership negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted fetal body parts, are suing Planned Parenthood, Kamala Harris, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in Los Angeles federal court for conspiracy to violate First and Fourteenth Amendment civil rights.

The lawsuit states:

“This complaint seeks justice for a brazen, unprecedented, and ongoing conspiracy to selectively use California’s video recording laws as a political weapon to silence disfavored speech. David Daleiden became the first journalist ever to be criminally prosecuted under California’s recording law, not because of the method of video recording he utilized in his investigation—which is common in investigative journalism in this state—but because his investigation revealed and he published “shock[ing]” content that California’s Attorney General and the private party co-conspirators wanted to cover up.”

California’s recording law bans secret videotaping of “confidential” conversations where third parties cannot be expected to overhear the conversation. The lawsuit documents many recent examples of undercover video recording by California news outlets, even recording conversations that could not be overheard by others, that the Attorney General never prosecuted.

The California Attorney General admitted in a filing that Daleiden alone among other undercover recorders was being charged for his videos because “those recordings were edited to enhance their shock value” and thus Daleiden was “culpable to a greater extent” than other journalists.

And then during questioning about the elements of the video recording law used for prosecution at the preliminary hearing last year, the California Attorney General declared in open court, “There is no definition of ‘confidential’ in the statute” on video recording. The California recording law in fact defines “confidential communication” at 632(c).

“The California Attorney General first admitted that they are enforcing the video recording law solely based on how they feel about the message being published, and then further admitted they are not even trying to follow the text of the law as written,” Daleiden notes. “CMP’s undercover reporting has been corroborated by the successful prosecution of fetal body parts sales we reported in southern California, multiple Congressional investigations, and forensic video analysis. It is every reporter’s First Amendment right to underscore the gravity of their findings, especially when the politically powerful disagree with them.”

Harmeet K. Dhillon, lead counsel on the complaint, states: “Our federal civil rights statutes were enacted in the wake of the darkest periods in our nation’s history. They are well-suited for the current civil rights crisis we face, a time when powerful politicians allow their special interest patrons to custom-order prosecutions that violate fundamental constitutional rights, and do so even with the knowledge that their actions are ultra vires.”

Beginning under the leadership of now-U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, the California Attorney General’s office targeted Daleiden’s speech under the video recording law at the urging of Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation, and StemExpress, a fetal tissue procurement company with deep ties to the professional abortion industry. While running for U.S. Senate, Harris had a secret in-person meeting with Planned Parenthood executives in Los Angeles, including witnesses in her investigation, to discuss issues in the investigation as part of Planned Parenthood’s political agenda in California. Two weeks later, Daleiden’s home was raided by the California Department of Justice.

California DOJ reports reveal that they were instructed by Planned Parenthood’s attorney Beth Parker, a defendant in the lawsuit, to seize “the computers used to produce the videos.” Last year, Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation attempted to intervene in the Attorney General’s prosecution of Daleiden to dictate how he would be allowed to present his defense. The California recording law includes an absolute protection for recordings made for the purpose of gathering evidence of violent crimes, and Planned Parenthood and NAF wanted to block off any evidence or testimony that would reveal criminality in their fetal tissue programs.

The publication of CMP’s undercover videos led to two comprehensive Congressional investigations, one in the Senate Judiciary Committee and one in the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Select Investigative Panel. The two investigations issued dozens of criminal referrals for Planned Parenthood and its business partners for transferring aborted fetal organs and tissues for valuable consideration against the law. In December 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had opened a federal investigation of Planned Parenthood, StemExpress, and others based on the referrals from Congress. Two of Planned Parenthood’s business partners in Orange County, CA then admitted guilt for selling aborted fetal organs and tissues from Planned Parenthood against the law in a $7.8 million settlement, and the Orange County District Attorney credited CMP’s undercover reporting with prompting the successful case.

The case is 8:20-cv-00891, The Center for Medical Progress and David Daleiden v. Xavier Becerra, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, National Abortion Federation, StemExpress, Kamala Harris, Jill Habig, Beth Parker, et al. in the Central District of California.

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Read the complaint here.

To watch the undercover videos, visit: centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage

To learn more about CMP, visit: CMP.org

CMP project lead David Daleiden released the following statement today on the news about invoices being unsealed showing Planned Parenthood Mar Monte billing StemExpress for the number of “usable” “Products Of Conception (POCs)” harvested by StemExpress:

Contrary to what Planned Parenthood has long and falsely claimed, Planned Parenthood’s monthly invoices of fetal body parts show zero “reimbursements'” for shipping or packaging. They show Planned Parenthood selling baby body parts based on the number of specimens “determined in the clinic to be usable,” per contract with StemExpress. Planned Parenthood’s contracts and invoices are proof positive that their payments were tied solely to the marketability of aborted baby body parts.

Tying payments to marketable body parts in a quid pro quo is exactly the kind of criminal “valuable consideration” that federal law forbids. The Department of Justice forcefully prosecutes parties who sell endangered animal body parts for far less than the amount of money reflected in these invoices. When abortion businesses can make $25,000 a quarter selling baby body parts, it is long past time for the Department of Justice to do its job and hold them accountable.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CMP SUES DOCTOR FROM UNDERCOVER PLANNED PARENTHOOD VIDEOS FOR CALLING FOOTAGE “FAKE”
Dr. Savita Ginde, In Book and TEDx Talk, Accused Citizen Journalists of Fabricating Evidence

Contact: Matille Thebolt, mthebolt@crcpublicrelations.com, 703.683.5004

DENVER, Nov. 27–The Center for Medical Progress, responsible for the 2015 undercover video series that caught top Planned Parenthood leadership callously negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted fetal body parts, is suing Dr. Savita Ginde, a now-former Planned Parenthood VP and Medical Director featured in the videos, for her false and defamatory claims that the undercover footage is “fake”.

As part of the video series release in July 2015, CMP published undercover footage of its meeting with Dr. Ginde, then the Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, where CMP undercover investigators posed as representatives of a biotech company seeking to purchase and re-sell human fetal organs and tissues, modeling themselves after real-life fetal tissue wholesaler companies like StemExpress, Advanced Bioscience Resources, and DaVinci Biosciences, who partnered with various Planned Parenthood facilities. DaVinci was shut down by a southern California District Attorney on account of CMP’s undercover reporting.

In the footage, Dr. Ginde can be seen responding to CMP project lead David Daleiden’s comparison of a flat fee per fetus versus per-organ pricing for aborted fetal remains, stating, “I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” Dr. Ginde also describes on the footage how frequently a fetus may be delivered intact for organ harvesting: “If someone delivers before we are able to see them for a procedure, then we are intact,” and that, “Intact is probably less than 10 percent.”

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains had previously sold aborted fetal tissue to Colorado State University for $160 per specimen.

At the end of 2018, Dr. Ginde, who left Planned Parenthood in 2017, published a memoir and made a TEDx presentation, in which she falsely claims that the undercover footage is “dubbed”, “spliced and diced”, and even “fabricated” and “fake”, and that it does not reflect her actual statements. Earlier this month in federal court, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and Planned Parenthood Federation of America stipulated that “the words used by [Planned Parenthood’s] personnel and the [CMP investigators] in the video recorded by the [investigators] were spoken by those persons.”

In her book, Dr. Ginde claims the undercover footage is “manipulated” in order to “make it look like I did something that I have actually never done and said things I actually never said”, and declares, “The words and actions are completely false.” Yet Dr. Ginde also admits in the book that she never fully watched the undercover footage and “had no intention of ever doing so.”

“I welcome Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, current and former, speaking honestly and publicly about their work, especially as it regards fetal experimentation and organ harvesting,” states Daleiden. “This is the reason CMP’s undercover footage continues to have such a profound impact on the public conscience. But anyone who tries to attack our undercover reporting by making false statements about our work should expect to make a public correction or be held accountable in a court of law.”

First Amendment lawyer Harmeet Dhillon of the Dhillon Law Group, who filed the complaint on behalf of Daleiden and CMP, notes, “The First Amendment protects the rights of every American, including Dr. Ginde, to disagree with my clients and express their own views publicly–but when someone makes demonstrably false statements and refuses to correct them, as Dr. Ginde repeatedly did in multiple forums, our clients have the right to set the record straight in court, and we look forward to our day in court against Dr. Ginde.”

The case is 2019CV031764 David Daleiden and The Center for Medical Progress, Inc. v. Dr. Savita Ginde, in Jefferson County, CO.

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Read the complaint here.

To watch CMP’s undercover video series, visit: centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage

Learn more about CMP at CenterforMedicalProgress.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AFTER VIDEOS SWORN AS TRUE, BIASED JUDGE DIRECTS PRO-PLANNED PARENTHOOD VERDICT

Top Planned Parenthood Witnesses Admitted At Trial Organization Sold Fetal Organs on Quid-Pro-Quo Basis, But Judge Orrick Blocked Jury From Hearing Video Conversations

Contact: Matille Thebolt, mthebolt@crcpublicrelations.com, 703.683.5004

SAN FRANCISCO, November 15–After a 6-week trial in which the Planned Parenthood-linked judge pre-determined the outcome on key claims, a jury of 10 rubber-stamped Planned Parenthood’s federal civil lawsuit against The Center for Medical Progress over the undercover video series showing senior-level Planned Parenthood leadership discussing the harvest and sale of aborted fetal organs and tissues.

“Justice was not done today in San Francisco. While top Planned Parenthood witnesses spent six weeks testifying under oath that the undercover videos are true and Planned Parenthood sold fetal organs on a quid pro quo basis, a biased judge with close Planned Parenthood ties spent six weeks influencing the jury with pre-determined rulings and suppressing the video evidence, all in order to rubber-stamp Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit attack on the First Amendment. This is a dangerous precedent for citizen journalism and First Amendment civil rights across the country, sending a message that speaking truth and facts to criticize the powerful is no longer protected by our institutions,” notes CMP project lead David Daleiden, one of the individual defendants in the case.

The retaliatory lawsuit against the publication of the undercover videos alleged fraud, trespass, breach of conduct, and eavesdropping as part of a conspiracy under the federal RICO act, and was brought by Planned Parenthood Federation of America and no less than 10 regional Planned Parenthood affiliates–including several subject to Congressional criminal referrals and ongoing federal investigation for their roles in fetal organ trafficking–against Daleiden, CMP undercover investigators Adrian Lopez and Sandra Merritt, CMP itself, its undercover subsidiary BioMax Procurement Services, LLC, and two early board directors.

Planned Parenthood was awarded nearly $470,000 in alleged security upgrade “damages” and $870,000 in punitive damages against the Defendants. Under RICO’s trebling provision, the total fee is nearly $2.3 million.

“Planned Parenthood made clear at trial that their so-called ‘security’ and ‘screening’ protocols before the videos were abysmal to non-existent,” Daleiden explains, “And now somehow they want to make us pay top-dollar for their own long-disregarded upgrades. The rigged verdict Judge Orrick was able to extract from the jury to feed Planned Parenthood’s media narrative is not the last word on this bogus hoax of a lawsuit.”

Although Planned Parenthood received the verdict it sought, the lawsuit and trial subjected the leader of the abortion industry to unprecedented scrutiny and the sworn testimony on the witness stand captured damning and incriminating admissions under oath:

• Planned Parenthood admitted in a stipulation that the undercover videos accurately recorded the words their leadership actually said.
• Emails from Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast abortion leadership in Houston, TX and testimony from PPGC abortion administrator Tram Nguyen revealed they wanted to “move forward” with a draft contract in which “BioMax Procurement Services” would pay PPGC $750 per fetal liver. Dr. Mary Gatter, former Planned Parenthood Los Angeles Medical Director, testified that PPLA was paid a set fee per fetal specimen. Both examples represent an illegal transaction where the volume of marketable fetal body parts is the quid pro quo.
• Leadership from PPFA’s Medical Services department testified they do not disagree with statements on the videos by former PPFA Senior Director of Medical Services Dr. Deborah Nucatola and former Planned Parenthood Orange & San Bernardino Counties Vice President Dr. Jennifer Russo about flipping fetuses in the womb to breech position in order to deliver them intact and harvest more marketable body parts, the hallmark of the criminal partial-birth abortion procedure. Dr. Nucatola testified she did not think there was anything wrong with what she described.
• The leadership of Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. admitted they continue to harvest fetal organs and tissues at Planned Parenthood Pacific Southwest, and that they regularly receive intact fetuses for organ harvesting.
• Planned Parenthood witnesses failed to identify any of the information recorded in CMP’s videos as confidential or proprietary.

Harmeet Dhillon of Dhillon Law Group, representing Daleiden, CMP, and BioMax, states, “While we are disappointed in today’s verdict, we intend to pursue numerous issues on appeal. The jury worked with limited information and with a number of legal and factual outcomes predetermined by the Court. This verdict, if allowed to stand, seriously threatens the ability of undercover journalists – such as David Daleiden, Sandra Merritt, Adrian Lopez, and the ABC journalists in the 20/20 undercover video played in court showing Planned Parenthood’s involvement in fetal tissue trafficking 19 years ago – to document and expose illegal practices, such as Planned Parenthood’s illegal fetal tissue sales and abortion procedures. This verdict will not be the last word on these weighty factual, legal, and moral issues – like life, they are too important to leave undefended.”

“This lawsuit is payback for David Daleiden exposing Planned Parenthood’s dirty business of buying and selling fetal parts and organs,” adds Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society, representing Daleiden. “Rather than face up to its heinous doings, Planned Parenthood chose to persecute the person who exposed it. I am fully confident that when this case has run its course, justice will prevail, and David will be vindicated.”

“This case puts the constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech on trial. It tests the sacred tenet of freedom of the press,” explains Thomas More Society president Tom Brejcha. “Planned Parenthood decided that it was above the law. Planned Parenthood was wrong, and I am confident that we will win on appeal.”

“Planned Parenthood won a temporary victory today and obtained a jury verdict in their favor against David Daleiden and his co-defendants. The verdict is the natural product of Judge Orrick’s erroneous legal rulings,” remark Lead Trial Counsel Charles LiMandri and defense attorney Paul Jonna, of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, representing Daleiden, CMP, BioMax, and Adrian Lopez. “Ultimately, though, this verdict won’t stand. The court made too many mistakes and we have a tremendous record for appeal. We will continue to fight to protect the First Amendment and the rights of the unborn.” 

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Watch the videos at CenterforMedicalProgress.org

 

After 6 weeks of witness testimony full of shocking admissions by top Planned Parenthood officials, the plaintiffs and the defense laid to rest their case in a three-and-a-half-hour-long day of closing arguments.

• Harmeet Dhillon, defense attorney for CMP, Biomax, and David Daleiden, exposed in great detail the many “shortcuts” Planned Parenthood lawyers took in their attempt to convince the jury to “rubber stamp” their claims. These shortcuts, Dhillon stated, are fatal to Planned Parenthood’s case on alleged RICO, fraud, and breach of contract.
• During her closing statements, Dhillon summarized succinctly PP’s blame game, seen on the graphic below. Yet, the plaintiffs want CMP to pay for its own admitted screening and vetting deficiencies and subsequent upgrades.
• Attorney Paul Jonna, representing CMP undercover investigator Adrian Lopez, explained how his client, who is not a prolife activist, wanted to participate in CMP’s undercover investigation because the research he reviewed on Planned Parenthood’s participation in fetal trafficking was so troubling he thought it needed to be exposed.
• The last defense attorney to make his case on behalf of his client was Harry Mihet for CMP undercover investigator Sandra Merritt, was Harry Mihet. Mihet spoke with conviction and told the jury, “The same conscience that God placed inside of Sandra Merritt exists in each and every one of you.”

The jury has until Friday, November 15 to reach a verdict.