Pro-life leaders reacted to a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing Texas to end its Medicaid relationship with Planned Parenthood in exclusive comments to National Review during the Washington, D.C. March for Life.
David Daleiden, the head of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), and Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, celebrated the court’s affirmation of CMP’s undercover Planned Parenthood videos showing executives haggling over the price of fetal body parts and discussing illegally altering abortion procedures to better obtain the parts.
The court’s decision allows the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to end its Medicaid contracts with the state’s Planned Parenthood affiliates, based partly on the questionable behavior on display in the undercover videos.
Those videos first inspired a call to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider back in 2015. Currently, the mammoth organization receives half a billion dollars annually in federal funding.
The court stated that the videos are “authentic and not deceptively edited,” despite Planned Parenthood’s oft-repeated accusation that they are “heavily” doctored to make the organization look like they are engaged in illegal activity.
David Daleiden, the head of the Center for Medical Progress, revealed to National Review’s Yoder that he held the hand of a 20-week-old aborted baby which was pictured in court documents citing his undercover footage.
“There is nothing like holding the hand of a child who’s just been killed by abortion,” he said, calling it, “one of the most tragic things that you can experience as a human being.”
“You don’t get over it. It stays with you forever. And the only silver lining in it is that you can see exactly how beautiful they are,” he continued. “The only silver lining is that you can at least say, you know, ‘Hello, goodbye, I love you, it’ll be better on the other side.’”
The ruling, Daleiden said, confirmed that “CMP’s undercover videos are authentic and accurate and reliable” as well as acknowledged that “they show evidence that Planned Parenthood was using illegal partial-birth abortions to harvest marketable body parts.” Later, on Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States, CMP released a special report on “Planned Parenthood’s Partial Birth Abortion Business.“
He called the ruling a “huge vindication for CMP’s undercover work” as well as for “citizen journalism across the country.”
“It’s going to have a big impact in Planned Parenthood’s cases against me in California and I think in further enforcement actions that we’ll see taken against Planned Parenthood soon,” he concluded.
Dannenfelser excoriated Planned Parenthood’s “masters and mistresses of deception” in an interview with National Review’s McArdle.
“The reason they felt this lie was so important was that the Center for Medical Progress videos really came out at a real important tipping point in the movement,” she remarked. “They came out right before the election. They came out around the time of that Gosnell horror in Philadelphia.”
“They picked a smart lie, and it was to try to somehow really scourge the reputation of David and undermine the authenticity of the videos,” Dannenfelser said.
“When we saw those videos came out, it was a refresh of our resolve all over again. It was as if the whole movement was beginning again,” she remembered.
Dannenfelser concluded with a word of kindness for those who might feel bitterness or anger at pro-life victories.
“Having been pro-choice, I can say that one thing I never wanted to see and never wanted to project was judgement or harshness,” “If you’re feeling any iota of pain and you need help, the movement is here for you.”