Analysts Say Group’s Planned Parenthood Videos Were Altered

A review of an anti-abortion group’s undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood concludes that the recordings were manipulated and unreliable as evidence for official inquiries, The New York Times writes.

Planned Parenthood, which commissioned the external analysis, presented the findings Thursday to congressional leaders and a House committee investigating the organization’s provision of fetal tissue for medical research.

The Center for Medical Progress claims its secretly shot videos of meetings with Planned Parenthood officials show the organization sells organs from aborted fetuses for profit. Planned Parenthood says it only donates tissue with patient permission, in accordance with federal law, and that the recordings were deceptively edited. The videos have spawned numerous state and federal inquiries and a drive by conservatives to strip Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood.

The analysis by Washington-based research and corporate-intelligence firm Fusion GPS says the videos “do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict,” citing “undisclosed cuts and edits” shown by time stamps, frame counters, and omissions from transcripts released by the Center for Medical Progress.

In a statement on the center’s Web site, David Daleiden, the anti-abortion group’s leader, attributed the gaps to “bathroom breaks and waiting periods between meetings” and dismissed the review as an “11th-hour attempt” by Planned Parenthood to debunk the center’s allegations.