While Cecile Richards didn’t say much after the release of the fifth damning Planned Parenthood video – apart from a birthday greeting to President Obama, that is – the affiliate did make a statement.
President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Melaney A. Linton, offered a statement that begs the question of whether or not they actually saw the same video:
The footage released today doesn’t show Planned Parenthood staff engaged in any wrongdoing or agreeing to violate any legal or medical standards. Instead, the latest tape shows an extremely offensive intrusion and lack of respect for women, with footage of medical tissue in a lab. These extremists show a total lack of compassion and dignity for women’s most personal medical decisions.
Researchers are playing around with a dead twin, extracting body parts, altering procedures to get better quality parts to sell, but according to Planned Parenthood, pro-lifers are the extremists who committed the greatest wrongdoing: intruding on privacy and showing a lack of respect for women. They seem to miss that they are the ones who have shown a lack of respect for women by their altering of procedures and attitude toward the fetal parts. But they chalk that up to science. Linton says:
The video released today will be difficult for many people to see. Medical procedures and medical research are often difficult to watch. The video shows a Planned Parenthood staff member with an actor posing as a medical researcher handling fetal tissue in a lab. It is standard medical practice to review tissue to ensure the health and safety of patients, and this tissue was being examined and handled under the false pretense of a standard laboratory site visit for people purportedly conducting qualified medical research.
Of course the statement went right to blaming the editing:
The latest tape has at least 20 substantial and unexplained edits. Previous tapes released by this extremist group were heavily edited in order to distort what the people on the tapes actually said. These videos are intended to shock and deceive the public. For example, one video was edited to make it look like a doctor said she would “sell” fetal tissue for a profit — when in fact she said the exact opposite, 10 separate times, and nearly all instances were edited out of the tape.
Linton fails to acknowledge that the full transcript was also posted, and the full unedited video is being uploaded. Linton makes it sound as if the Center for Medical Progress dubbed other voices into worker’s mouths. In fact, she did not take time to read the entire transcript, or apparently to conduct an investigation herself. The truth is, Planned Parenthood would be taken more seriously if it issued a statement that said, “We deny these allegations; however, based on the serious nature, we will do our due diligence to investigate them for the sake of the public’s assurance.” But they have no intention of investigating. They are quick to deny, displaying a lack of interest in even listening, and showing they have done nothing but watched the video enough to accuse the producers of editing it poorly.
Once again, Planned Parenthood tried to finish its job with a libelous statement:
The group behind these videos has close ties with organizations and individuals who have firebombed abortion clinics and threatened the physical safety of doctors who provide abortion. The real agenda of these attacks has become totally clear: to ban abortion and limit women’s access to reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood. The vast majority of the public rejects this extreme political agenda and rejects the fraudulent campaign behind it.
Cecile Richards pulled the same stunt on her disastrous ABC News interview, and as Live Action reported then:
She’s alluding to Dr. George Tiller, the late-term abortion doctor who was murdered in church by a man who acted independently. Scott Roeder, who killed Tiller, would call Operation Rescue on the phone (as any member of the public can do), but he was not part of their group. Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman, sits on the board of CMP, so the abortion giant is trying to tie CMP to murder.
In fact, Operation Rescue denounced Roeder, saying:
Then came Scott Roeder, who acted in frustration borne out of ignorance… He shot and killed Tiller on May 31, 2009, claiming that all legal avenues had been exhausted and that his action was necessary to save the lives of pre-born babies. Nothing could have been further from the truth… Roeder was no hero.
WND reported last week that Newman was actually considering suing Planned Parenthood for these attacks. Planned Parenthood is so eager to defend itself, it’s accusing pro-lifers who have no association with crime at all of bombings and murders. It seems the leaders think they are above the law, from their clinics to their statements.
In truth, this statement will do little to appease the growing doubt of even abortion advocates, as evidence by the Senate vote yesterday in which a majority of senators, including two Democrats, voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
Saying, “liar, liar pants on fire” to its critics isn’t going to cut it anymore for Planned Parenthood.
