LifeSiteNews reports that, in a surprising move, Dr. Forrest Smith, an abortionist for 50 years, took the stand to support pro-life undercover Center for Medical Progress (CMP) investigators David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt during their criminal preliminary hearing. Under oath during the hearing, Smith testified that babies are “no question” being born alive in order for their organs to be harvested.
Smith is an obstetrician-gynecologist and abortionist in California who has committed 50,000 abortions, according to LifeSiteNews. He was originally angered by the undercover videos but soon came to realize that Daleiden and Merritt were actually exposing the truth.
“I’m going to take down that son of a bitch. He’s f**king with me now,'” Smith said of his initial response to Daleiden’s undercover videos. He planned “to expose David Daleiden as a fraud.” However, after meeting Daleiden and watching the videos, he realized Daleiden was being honest but yet “he didn’t know the half of what was going on.”
Smith was taken on as an expert for the defense to review video of a presentation by Alisa Goldberg at a 2014 Planned Parenthood conference. She spoke about using large doses of the drug misoprostol in order to carry out second-trimester induced abortions in one day rather than the four it usually takes. Smith testified that this would lead to a live birth. Large doses of misoprostol, said Smith, would cause “tumultuous labor” that leads to “fetal expulsion” – meaning the baby would be born without any assistance from the abortionist and no instruments would be used. He testified that very few abortionists other than Planned Parenthood do this.
“In this case clearly the intent is same-day surgery. They fully intend to put the uterus into labor,” said Smith.
According to LifeSiteNews, Daleiden’s lawyer, Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society, asked Smith if this would lead to a live birth. Smith replied:
There’s no question in my mind that at least some of these fetuses were live births.
Breen then asked whether the baby would be born alive in cases where the drug Digoxin – which stops the fetal heartbeat – was not used. Smith said, “No question it’s alive.”
Digoxin is the drug used in late-term abortions in order to ensure the baby has died before being born, as explained in the video below by former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino. The procedure takes up to four days. If digoxin were not to be used, the child would not die before the abortion.
READ: CDC data proves babies still being born alive during abortions
Daleiden said in court last week that he began the investigation into fetal body parts trafficking after learning that some of these babies were born alive in order to harvest their organs. It was his conversations with doctors that convinced him of this.
“In his investigation, David Daleiden had extensive conversations with neurobiologist Dr. Hurlbut, stem cell scientist Dr. Deisher, and Dr. McCurdy. Each indicated a fetus needed to be born alive in order to collect the specimen required for research,” said CMP in a tweet on Monday.
According to Smith, a beating heart equals life, but that isn’t how the abortionists seen in the CMP investigation videos are acting.
“All testimony we have seen, no breathing, no movement, no cord” or the “cord clamped,” or “arms, legs torn off, the assumption is: that is fetal demise. But that’s completely wrong,” explained Smith. He went on to say that Doe 9 “is having live births although she doesn’t know” because she is looking at the death of the fetus as being a “lack of pulsation of the fetal cord,” but that, he said, is “not fetal demise.”
Doe 9 was difficult on the stand, according to CMP, refusing to answer questions or clarify a statement she made in an undercover video about altering abortion procedures in order to keep the baby’s head intact.
“Doe 9 refused to acknowledge or explain her statements on the undercover video describing using ultrasound guidance to flip a baby in the womb to breech position in order to extract it with the head intact for brain harvesting and then saying, “We’ve been pretty successful with that, I’d say.” A clearly irritated Doe 9 pretended to not understand the question and refused to give a direct answer about the meaning of her words,” said CMP.
Partial-birth abortion.
While the undercover videos revealed that Planned Parenthood abortionists may have been using the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure in order to procure intact children to allegedly sell to researchers, Smith testified that to get around the partial-birth abortion ban, he implemented a rarely mentioned method of abortion — “exsanguination” — or draining of the child’s blood while still in utero.
He testified that he extracts and cuts the umbilical cord and then “watches with my ultrasound” for the baby’s heart to stop beating. This usually takes “six-and-a-half to seven minutes,” he said. He has been doing this for 25 years.
In addition to testifying that babies are definitely born alive to be harvested for their organs and tissue, LifeSiteNews reports that Smith said abortionists seen in the video – such as Doe 10 – are illegally changing the abortion procedure from electric to manual vacuum aspirator in order to get intact babies and organs. They are doing this, he explained, despite the fact that it increases blood loss for the mother, requires more cervical dilation at a greater risk to the mother, and makes the procedure last longer. All negatives for the women.
According to LifeSiteNews, Smith then admitted that abortion is killing.
“You can kill a human being, which I admit abortion is, but you have to do it in certain ways,” he said. He added that the mother should be given the chance to “choose the mechanics of the death” for her baby.
Judge Christopher Hite asked Smith if he had been retained by the defendants and how much they were paying him to appear in court. Smith said he would be paid $5,000 for testifying as the expert witness for the criminal preliminary hearing and $5,000 for the trial. Hite replied, “If there is one.”
Daleiden told LifeSiteNews that Smith is a “very honest” person who has “no illusions” about abortion or the business of abortion. He feels that Smith’s testimony shows clearly that Planned Parenthood is violating medical ethics and standards of care with their harvesting of fetal organs and tissues.
“[Smith’s testimony] definitely proved that these babies are being deliberately born alive for the purposes of harvesting, the changes in the method and the refusal to use digoxin, which stops the heart,” Dr. Theresa Deisher to LifeSiteNews. “They want those babies coming out with beating hearts. [His testimony made it] very clear that this is intentional.”
Daleiden and Merritt are charged with 14 felony counts of recording confidential information during their investigation of fetal body parts trafficking by Planned Parenthood. The criminal preliminary hearing concluded on Wednesday.
“Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!
