HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CONTINUES HEARINGS INVESTIGATING
PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S ABORTION BUSINESS

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary today held a second hearing examining Planned Parenthood’s abortion business. The hearing, titled "“Planned Parenthood Exposed: Examining Abortion Procedures and Medical Ethics at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider,” comes on the heels of a series of videos by The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) exposing the gruesome business of baby-body-part harvesting and trafficking, often involving affiliates of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the nation’s largest abortion provider

“Planned Parenthood now commands about one-third of the total abortion 'market',” said Carol Tobias, National Right to Life president. “We fully support investigations into many aspects of this grisly business. Planned Parenthood equals abortion.”

Among today’s witnesses testifying before the Committee on the Judiciary were former abortionist Anthony Levatino, M.D., J.D. and Susan Thayer, former center manager of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s Storm Lake, Iowa clinic.

In his written testimony, Dr. Levatino described, step-by-step for committee members, a second trimester “D&E” (dismemberment) abortion procedure:

A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The baby can be in any orientation or position inside the uterus. Picture yourself reaching in with the Sopher clamp and grasping anything you can. At twenty-four weeks gestation, the uterus is thin and soft so be careful not to perforate or puncture the walls. Once you have grasped something inside, squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard – really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg about six inches long. Reach in again and grasp whatever you can. Set the jaw and pull really hard once again and out pops an arm about the same length. Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart and lungs.

The toughest part of a D&E abortion is extracting the baby’s head. The head of a baby that age is about the size of a large plum and is now free floating inside the uterine cavity. You can be pretty sure you have hold of it if the Sopher clamp is spread about as far as your fingers will allow. You will know you have it right when you crush down on the clamp and see white gelatinous material coming through the cervix. That was the baby’s brains. You can then extract the skull pieces. Many times a little face will come out and stare back at you.

Ms. Thayer observed, “I started working at Planned Parenthood believing that I could serve young women and make their lives better. Over nearly two decades inside Planned Parenthood, I learned that was a lie. Planned Parenthood is more concerned about its bottom line than it is about the health and safety of women.”

Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest provider of abortions – at least one-third of all abortions in the U.S. are performed at Planned Parenthood-affiliated facilities. According to their most recent annual report, Planned Parenthood received at least $528 million annually from the federal government or state and local governments.

Based on data from their own annual report from 2013-2014, nearly one in eight women walking through the door of a Planned Parenthood clinic has an abortion. A background memo from National Right to Life is available here: http://www.nrlc.org/communications/ppfamediabackground

Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

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