In an on-camera interview with The Hill, Planned Parenthood Vice President Dawn Laguens says the video discussing a born-alive baby boy being killed and his face being cut open with scissors:
“It’s a new video, old news. There’s nothing new.”
If taken literally, this is a horrifying admission. Committing infanticide in Planned Parenthood abortion clinics is “old news”? Good to know. Let’s hope law enforcement officials take note of that.
Laguens makes another accidental admission when she says:
“Well, we have been attacked with malicious edited videos that say something very disturbing and horrible…”
Realizing her mistake – admitting that what the videos show is indeed “disturbing and horrible” – Laguens quickly follows up, explaining that the videos “suggest that about us, which is not true.”
Laguens is clearly highly dismayed that the videos were ever shown to the American public. In her opinion:
If they were really concerned about the health and safety of women in this country, they would take all the video, the source footage, unedited, and they would hand it to Congress, or they would hand it to law enforcement but that’s not what they do.
I wonder… does Laguens think that any other news story showing a large organization, funded by taxpayers, breaking federal laws should only be shown to “Congress” or “law enforcement.” Does Laguens really believe the public does not deserve to know what is being done with their money?
Yet something else for the public to ponder about Planned Parenthood. Perhaps the video makers are so concerned about the “health and safety of women in this country” that they went directly to the women themselves, the public, so women could see the truth about Planned Parenthood with their own lives.
It’s clear that Planned Parenthood refuses to be upfront with women, constantly withholding facts, and threatening women with a loss of health services if Planned Parenthood is defunded.
Like NARAL President Ilyse Hogue, Laguens directly lies to the American people. She says:
The services they’re talking about cutting with a defunding message that they have are STD tests, breast cancer screening, birth control, education, and not anything to do, actually, with abortion.
In fact, the bill that a majority of the U.S. Senate voted for, to defund Planned Parenthood, would not have taken a single cent away from the programs and services Laguens mentioned. The bill specifically stated that all the money would stay with women’s healthcare. The only difference? Planned Parenthood wouldn’t be allowed to receive the money. Instead, every single dollar would follow American women into the thousands of federally qualified and community health centers that stand ready to serve them around the nation.
Yet, despite the irony of Laguens directly lying to the American people while objecting to supposed deceit in the undercover videos, Laguens threatens the Center for Medical Progress with a lawsuit. Later admitting she is not an attorney, Laguens goes on:
I absolutely do believe they have violated laws in terms of how they secured these videos. But the really, the fraud is in how they also have presented them. …
We are considering everything, but mostly what we want to do is make sure the American people are reassured. … Everything is on the table, when you look at these videos and the fraud and conspiracy behind them.
The problems with Laguens’ assertions are many. For starters, investigative journalism – and journalism in general – always employs the use of shortened, edited footage. If this is “fraud” and “conspiracy,” Laguens and Planned Parenthood ought to bring suit against all their favored media buddies and news stations. Name a single news station that does not show “edited” footage to the American people.
Another problem arises in the ironic fact that the unedited footage is available online, for anyone who has hours upon hours to watch it. There is no conspiracy: only facts, ready for the public’s viewing. The only fraud involved is Planned Parenthood’s, as they continue to spout lies and false denials to the American people.
Laguens is even unable to admit the pro-life tide that is turning in the nation. Kevin Cirilli explains, “Your critics will say that, quite frankly, that the videos show an out-of-touch organization.” Yet Laguens is quick to cover her tracks by telling yet another lie:
[T]he American people are speaking, and our patients, the many patients, 1 in 5 American women who rely on Planned Parenthood…
Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood President, also used the “1 in 5” rely statement. Yet it’s patently untrue. 1 in 5 American women may have, at some point in their lives, walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic. Yet this includes women who have a regular healthcare provider, women who were turned away when they asked for help to keep their baby (like my sister-in-law), minor girls who were turned over to their rapists, and women who Planned Parenthood forced to have an abortion and then botched the procedure. It can hardly be claimed that this growing crowd of women relies on Planned Parenthood.
When Cirilli presses Laguens, asking, “Polls indicate that Americans are increasingly becoming less supportive of late-term abortions, after four months for example, so do you that think the national discourse is moving away from your side of the argument?” Laguens evades the question:
No, the polls that I’ve seen actually show great stability for the number of people who support Roe v. Wade, which is well over the majority.
“Well” over the majority? This, too, demonstrates Laguens’ and Planned Parenthood’s propensity for deceit. A Gallup poll released in January, 2013, showed that only 53% of Americans supported Roe v. Wade. The same poll showed that only 28% of Americans believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances, a convenient fact for Laguens to ignore.
Cirilli also asked Laguens to address Senator Marco Rubio’s assertion in the first GOP presidential debate that history would one day look back on us as barbarians for killing so many innocent children. Laguens responded:
I think if you look at what the American people believe is what’s more important than what Marco Rubio believes. … In fact, if every woman who had an abortion in this country stood up, this debate would be over. Uh, right now, what we know is that the Republican presidential candidates are completely out of step with the American people. Two-thirds or better of the American people say they support Planned Parenthood.
We can agree with Laguens that “if every woman who had an abortion in this country stood up, this debate would be over.” CNN asked women who had abortions to share their experiences, and hundreds responded. An overwhelming number of women shared their regret, the horror of abortion, and even that they had been pressured or forced into ending the lives of their children.
The more women who speak up, the more we see that Planned Parenthood has not only been acting like a barbarian to innocent children, but to women as well.
Despite the bravado attempted by Laguens, the truth about Planned Parenthood’s barbarism continues to come out. And suit or no suit, the facts will continue to see the light of day, as the videos have given countless women the courage to speak up, telling the truth about how Planned Parenthood harmed them and killed their children.
