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SALT LAKE CITY — The Center for Medical Progress last week released the 11th video in a series of undercover videos claiming to show how the Planned Parenthood organization sells baby body organs.
Multiple investigations are underway to determine whether these videos prove Planned Parenthood profited from fetal tissue donations. But a legal advocacy group argues the videos actually reflect the possibility of multiple violations of federal law, including infanticide.
Members of a legal team for Americans United for Life say they analyzed every piece of raw video and submitted to Congress an extensive 24-page analysis identifying six different areas where the video documents potential felonies.
"The first is the profit concern. The second is one of the things the videos document … that doctors are going in and changing their procedure in order to get more saleable parts," said Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life.
Yoest recently told Deseret News reporter Eric Schulzke the change in procedure moves towards partial birth abortion, which is illegal in all states.
"Basically, partial birth abortion is a sonogram procedure where you flip the baby and bring it out by its feet first and kill it at the last possible moment," she said.
Yoest said the procedure provides a more intact specimen.
She focused her testimony before Congress on partial birth abortions and infanticide.
"The side effect of that is that sometimes the baby does come out alive … and there are several conversations in the videos that are very, very disturbing, as abortion doctors kind of laugh about accidentally delivering babies," Yoest said.
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards also testified before Congress and argued that the videos have been deceptively edited.
"The outrageous accusations leveled against Planned Parenthood based on heavily doctored videos are offensive and categorically untrue," Richards told lawmakers.
"When people say these videos were heavily and deceptively edited … let me ask when you went through all of these videos, did you see raw footage without any editing?" Schulzke asked Yoest in their interview.
"We've seen the unedited video," she said. "In fact, all of your viewers can see the unedited, full, raw footage, which is posted online … there is complete transparency here."
Five different Congressional committees are now pursuing investigations into Planned Parenthood practices, as are officials from more than a dozen states.
"Our hope is that eventually we'll be able to see evidence coming from the states that buttresses the videos and provides actual evidence," Yoest said.
After the release of the controversial videos, Gov. Gary Herbert decided to withhold about $272,000 in grants from Planned Parenthood of Utah, and Planned Parenthood has sued. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order forcing the state to keep funding in place through the end of the year.
