CMP Sues Doctor from Undercover Planned Parenthood Videos for Calling Footage “Fake”

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.

###

Read the complaint here.

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

Learn more about CMP at CenterforMedicalProgress.org