In three previous posts yesterday and today, I have noted obvious distortions and untruths in Cecile Richards' testimony this week before a House committee.
I didn't mean to save the best (really the worst) for a fourth post, but I came across an jaw-dropping item at LifeNews.com this afternoon. It covers an assertion Richards made during the House hearing that is either one of the biggest lies of the 21st century thus far or its most glaring example of hermetically sealed ignorance. Either way, the fact that it hasn't made its way into the establishment press virtually proves that their mission is to protect Richards and her organization, not to tell its readers, listeners and viewers what is really happening.
In previous posts, we've seen that Richards:
- Claimed that "less than 1 percent" of Planned Parenthood's less than 700 facilities currently "retrieve fetal tissue" ultimately forwarded to medical researchers. That's only conceivably true if at least several PP facilities have exited that line of work in recent months. Richard was at best dissembling, and at worst flat-out lying.
- Denied that she ever claimed that PP provides mammograms. A 2011 LiveAction.org video proves otherwise.
- Contended that the Center for Medical Progess videos exposing PP's involvement in the baby body parts for compensation business were "heavily doctored" and "heavily edited." Unfortunately for her and PP, an independent firm with forensic expert ruled the videos "authentic in a report released yesterday."
As damning as the items just described are, they're nothing compared to what Steven Ertelt at Life News reported yesterday:
Cecile Richards Claims No Baby Has Ever Been Born Alive Following a Botched Abortion
Technically, based on her full testimony, Ertelt should have added "at Planned Parenthood" at the end of his headline.
But far more fundamentally — Good heavens, Cecile. The reality that some babies survive abortion goes back to 1999, if not earlier:
(Jill) Stanek gained initial prominence in 1999 when she testified that, while she worked as a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, infants that survived induced labor abortions were abandoned to die in a utility room. These allegations led to a formal investigation by the Illinois Department of Public Health, which stated that the hospital violated no state laws. Shortly thereafter, Advocate Health Care changed its policy on induced labor abortions, barring its use against fetuses with non-lethal developmental issues.A Christ Hospital spokesman admitted "that between 10 percent and 20 percent of fetuses with genetic defects that are aborted survive for short periods outside the womb."
There would be no need for legislation like the Born Alive Infant Protection Act if such an event never happened.
Additionally, we would have to believe that the two people Ertelt described in his opening paragraphs, along with very many others, have been brainwashed about the circumstances of their births:
... Despite the fact that two abortion survivors testified in Congress during the first hearing into Planned Parenthood selling aborted babies, the CEO of the abortion business claims no baby has ever been born alive after a botched abortion attempt.
Members of the committee and viewers of today’s hearing into the Planned Parenthood abortion business were shocked when Richards told members of Congress she had never heard of a baby surviving a failed abortion.
But in recent weeks, at a Congressional hearing over Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted babies and their body parts, pro-life advocate Melissa Ohden, an abortion survivor, told Congress that Planned Parenthood would have killed her if given the chance. The LifeNews writer said there are many other abortion survivors like her who are speaking up against abortion.
It would seem that Richards must believe that there's a giant conspiracy to invent all this born-alive stuff up out of thin air.
Here, via the Media Research Center, is related video of her testimony:
Transcript (bolds are mine):
Congressman Ron DeSantis: Ms. Richards, if a child survives an abortion attempt, should it be given nourishment and medical care?
Richards: I’ve never heard of such a circumstance happening.
DeSantis: Really?
Richards: Yes. I mean, I certainly (crosstalk) I can say that at Planned Parenthood, I am aware of no instance where - we don’t provide abortions after viability. So, but it certainly, in my experience at Planned Parenthood, we haven’t ever had that kind of circumstance.
DeSantis: But you would say that medical care would be in order at that point? Forget about Planned Parenthood, just generally?
strong>Richards: Well I’d say, again, I want to be responsible for Planned Parenthood and what we do there, and certainly in that situation in, which again has never occurred that I know of, a baby born, um, that baby should as the mother should, get appropriate medical care from the physician. And would.
Ertelt also added: "The federal government confirms a large number of babies survive failed abortions. In 2011, the CDC recorded 1,298 cases of infant death in the U.S. due to 'Other perinatal conditions,' which includes ICD-10 category P96.4, death subsequent to a failed 'termination of pregnancy.'"
I don't know what definition of "viability" Richards is using, but it's neither the legal or medical definition.
Legally, viability is "the potential of the fetus to survive outside the uterus after birth, natural or induced." Medically, the medical "limit of viability ... is the expectation that a fetus has an equal chance of surviving and not surviving outside his or her mother's womb" — a threshold preborn babies typically reach at 24-25 week's gestation.
Planned Parenthood certainly has performed thousands of abortions "after viability" among the many millions done at their facilities during the past four-plus decades. Cecile Richards doesn't get to define "viability" as meaning the same thing as "present outside the womb," and certainly was not telling the House committee the truth when she said that "we don’t provide abortions after viability." Oh yes you do.
As to the more immediately pertinent born-alive issue, the CMP videos contradict Richards stated ignorance of the existence of infants born alive after failed abortion attempts at PP facilities. Or, as stated at LiveAction.org, "Yes, Planned Parenthood kills infants born alive during abortions."
I found no evidence in searches done at roughly 7 PM ET at Google News, the Associated Press, or the New York Times that any establishment press outlet has reported Richards' utterly incredibly claim that she has "never heard of" a baby being born alive at a Planned Parenthood facility.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
