This morning, on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, Planned Parenthood President and CEO Cecile Richards appeared in her first TV interview to address two videos released from the Center for Medical Progress. The videos show top executives from the abortion giant discussing their fetal parts business.
During the video, Richards is barely able to answer basic questions, and instead focuses on claims against her group’s opponents. She portrays Planned Parenthood as she wants it to be, but not as it is – almost as if she’s giving a sales pitch instead of answering factual questions. Richards’ statements reek of desperation throughout, but there are a few claims specifically worth mentioning:
What I want to make clear, George, Planned Parenthood has broken no laws. We have the highest standards. The care and safety of our patients is our most important priority.
Despite what Richards may “want to make clear,” the two videos suggest that Planned Parenthood has very likely broken four laws, as analyzed in a previous piece by Live Action News. The laws include: 1) profiting from the sale of fetal parts and organs; 2) performing the illegal partial-birth abortion technique; 3) modifying the abortion procedure and; 4) knowing that the baby’s “tissue” will be donated while performing the abortion.
A point that Richards continually repeats is that the videos are edited. As Stephanopoulos points out in the interview, there are full, unedited versions of the videos available online, as well as transcripts. These complete versions are actually more damning to Planned Parenthood, though it’s not a concept Richards seems to understand:
…doctored videos that it’s all been edited out.
I think what’s not told is, of course, these are highly selectively edited…
Now, they’re using these very highly edited videos, to try to impugn and smear the name of Planned Parenthood.
That’s why they’re showing these highly edited videos to be sensationalized… It’s completely taken out of context.
Well it’s because these tapes have been edited…
There is not an issue with editing or words being “completely taken out of context.”
In both the edited and unedited version of the second video, Dr. Mary Gatter laughs, “I want a Lamborghini.” Her words are not only callously barbaric, but also, no context could change what they are. Gatter likewise refers to an abortion procedure which is “less crunchy” and helps an abortionist more easily remove intact organs and body parts from the baby. To use Richards’ own words, Planned Parenthood does not need help to “impugn and smear”: its top officials have already done that.
Richards discusses the modification of the abortion procedure with Stephanopoulos, who tell her that “it does appear that’s what’s being described in these tapes.” Again, Richards’ response is that the video is “edited.”
In both the first video featuring Dr. Deborah Nucatola and the second video with Dr. Gatter, clear statements are made that the procedure is modified. Another piece from Live Action News breaks down such statements.
Richards, however, denies this quite emphatically during the interview. She either has not seen the videos then, or is incredibly confused as to what a lie actually is. Richards declares that, despite the clear descriptions of modified abortions by her top doctors on video, it just doesn’t happen.
Richards: To me, this isn’t something that actually should be criticized or made fun of. This is actually laudable that women and their families choose to make fetal tissue donations in order to potentially save lives of other folks. And I think that–
Stephanopoulos: As long as the procedure is never altered, and you’re stating that unequivocally?
Richards: That’s right.
This occurs towards the end of the interview, and it is clear that Richards very much wishes to move on. Her goal is to drive home her point that Planned Parenthood is a legitimate health care facility for women, as she mentions earlier. In this interview and in others, Richards has a nasty habit of making it seem as if Planned Parenthood is the only place for certain healthcare services for women:
And if they had their way, women could no longer come to Planned Parenthood for birth control services, for breast cancer screenings or any other health care issues.
Richards cannot even answer a simple question asked about reforms her organization is willing to undergo, and continues to criticize the efforts of pro-lifers and call them names. Perhaps Richards did answer the question then. If no changes are forthcoming, we can surely expect her organization to continue on in its gruesome behavior.
Cecile Richards also likes to claim, throughout, that it’s all just “taken out of context.” No issue of context could hide the truth about Planned Parenthood’s barbaric practices – no matter how desperately those in charge try to cover up and explain it away.
For Richards to say, “women trust Planned Parenthood,” and to claim they use the “highest standards” and that “the care” of women is actually a priority to them is what’s really the sad lie. What Planned Parenthood “provides” is not “essential” to women or their other patients, who are certainly not “first and foremost the most important thing.”
First and foremost is a profit for themselves, no matter what Cecile Richards says or how desperately she tries to spin it.
