Also on Meet the Press this morning, Chuck Todd interviewed Carly Fiorina and began by accusing her of citing a video of a born-alive fetus termination that did not exist.
Fiorina described the videos in a series the Center for Medical Progress has called “Human Capital.” The video features Holly O’Donnell, an “ex-procurement technician” for StemExpress, a company that procures fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood clinics, describing the removal of organs from an intact fetus. She says that a Planned Parenthood doctor “taps the heart and it starts beating,” and then instructs her to remove its brain for collection.
The video features two images, and critics appear to be conflating the two:
The video shows two different babies, neither of whom are stillborn. One was an image of Fretz, who was not a stillborn baby, but was born born prematurely at 19 weeks and died in his parents arms. This image of Fretz appeared during the 8:59 minute mark of the video, where he appears to be wrapped in a blanket and have a clip on his umbilical chord to keep it from getting infected.
Earlier in the video, around the 5:56 mark, there is footage of another baby boy around the same gestational age as Fretz who is not stillborn either, but a baby who survived an abortion and was left in a metal bowl to die. In the footage, he kicks his legs and twitches his arms during the final moments of his life, and a pair of forceps lays beside him. The footage was provided by The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, a pro-life organization headquartered in Lake Forrest, California.
Chuck Todd pressed Fiorina, ”The people who made the videos admitted it’s stock footage–”
Fiorina responded, ”Do you think this is not happening? Does Hillary Clinton think this is not happening? So sad that you missed the opportunity to ask Mrs. Clinton why she said late-term abortions were only performed for medical purposes. That is patently false. This is happening in America today. And taxpayers are paying for it. That is a fact. That is reality, and no one can run away from it.”
Fiorina is using the gruesome footage in a campaign video to counter critics who accuse her of lying about the existence of the video. Despite the disturbing images — or perhaps because of them – the video has been watched more than 329,000 times.