Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee temporarily overpowered their GOP colleagues to block testimony from an anti-Planned Parenthood witness during a hearing Thursday.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), protested a graphic video about abortion procedures that was shown to the committee by Dr. Anthony Levatino, who has performed abortions.
“This witness has played a tape that he has now admitted under oath was not prepared in connection with Planned Parenthood at all and I ask that it be stricken from the record of this hearing,” he said, sparring with Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who controlled the hearing at the time.
The video, which was about five minutes long, included a recording of a graphic phone conversation between a clinician and a young woman who sought an abortion at 27 weeks of pregnancy. The clinician said the abortion, at that term in pregnancy, would cost about $8,000 and increase by $1,000 each week.
But when questioned, Levatino acknowledged that the clinic in question was not Planned Parenthood.
In a rare move, Cicilline called a vote to strike the video from the hearing’s record. And with more Democrats in the hearing room than Republicans at the time, it passed.
Nine Democrats voted to strike the video from the record, compared to seven Republicans who voted against it.
Their victory, however, was short-lived. About five minutes later, several of the committee’s Republican members, including Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), returned to the hearing and called another vote.
The testimony was put back into the record.
“It was just a little bit of parliamentary maneuvering by Democrats there,” a Republican committee aide said.
" Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider”
§“In the weeks or months prior to their public release, Mr. Franks and others in the Majority—including, we have learned, his subcommittee staff—received and previewed these surreptitiously recorded videos.
§“On July 15, 2015, the first video was released to the public. Others were posted online over the August break.
§“Three different House committees then launched simultaneous congressional investigations.
§“On September 9, this Committee held its first hearing on the topic—at which the Majority’s witnesses refused to discuss the videos at the heart of the matter.
§“There have since been two other hearings on this topic, making this hearing the fourth in the House in less than a month.
§“And, finally, the Majority has announced that it will create a new, taxpayer-funded select committee to extend this so-called ‘investigation’ indefinitely.
“As I reflect on these events, I think we are able to draw a few conclusions.
“First, there is no evidence in the record whatsoever of illegal activity at Planned Parenthood.
“On behalf of its 59 affiliates, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America has provided this committee with hundreds of pages of documents. The organization is cooperating fully with all three investigations in the House.
“The documents we have reviewed so far allow us to go point-by-point to correct the false impressions created by the highly edited, highly misleading videos that nominally inspired these investigations.
“Chairman Chaffetz, who sits on this Committee and is running his own investigation into these matters in the Oversight Committee next door, has agreed with this conclusion.
“Last week, Wolf Blitzer asked the gentleman from Utah: ‘Is there any evidence . . . that Planned Parenthood has broken any law?’ Mr. Chaffetz answered with the truth: ‘No, I’m not suggesting that they broke the law.’
“Second, I am led to conclude that this hearing—much like the Majority’s broader attack on Planned Parenthood—is largely political theater, designed to rally the conservative base and roll back the constitutional right to choose wherever possible.
“In practice, these investigations have had little to do with the videos—which the Majority went to great lengths not to discuss at our last hearing. They have everything to do with appeasing the most extreme elements of the Republican Party during an intraparty leadership crisis and a fractious presidential primary.
“We may have a legitimate difference of opinion on Roe v. Wade, but it remains the law of the land—and the Majority’s attempt to re-litigate a forty-year-old decision places thousands of lives at risk.
“Many women enter the health care system through a family-planning provider. In fact, 6 in 10 women who receive services at a publicly funded family-planning center consider it their primary source of medical care.
“Planned Parenthood alone serves 2.7 million Americans every year. Abortion procedures make up an incredibly small amount of the services it provides—only 3 percent.
“For example, in 2013, Planned Parenthood provided 900,000 cancer screenings to women across the country. 88,000 of those tests detected cancer early or identified abnormalities that might signal a greater risk of cancer. In short, in this way and so many others, Planned Parenthood saves lives.
“The attempt to defund Planned Parenthood places each of those lives at risk. We should be grateful that the effort has been almost entirely unsuccessful, at least at the federal level.
“Finally, it is important to observe all of the good work this Committee might be doing instead of meeting for the second time on this subject in thirty days.
“As we head into our second election season since Shelby County v. Holder, this Committee has done very little to restore the enforcement mechanisms of the Voting Rights Act.
“We have done nothing to advance comprehensive immigration reform, even though the proposal remains overwhelmingly popular and would easily pass the House.
“11 million men and women are waiting to come out of the shadows and contribute to our economy and communities. At this pace, I fear they will wait much longer.
“Although the scourge of gun violence has touched every one of our districts—including yours, Mr. Chairman—we have all but ignored calls to strengthen background checks and close the gun show loophole. All of these solutions would save lives; and all of them are consistent with our constitutional rights.
“The list of missed opportunities is long, Mr. Chairman, and our time is short. We should not spend one more minute—or one more taxpayer dollar—vilifying Planned Parenthood without a speck of evidence to back these claims.
“This Committee simply has too much important work to do. I urge my colleagues to put this moment of political theater behind us. We can do better. I thank the Chairman, and yield the balance of my time.”
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Click HERE to read the testimony of Democratic witness, Caroline Fredrickson, President, American Constitution Society for Law and Poverty.
Washington, D.C. – Last night, during an appearance on CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, admitted that he has not identified any evidence that Planned Parenthood has violated any laws:
Despite this stunning admission, the House Judiciary Committee has announced its intent to hold its second hearing in thirty days to examine the medical services provided by Planned Parenthood and its affiliates.
Today, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr., released the following statement in response:
Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives John Conyers, Jr.
“I am somewhat relieved that Mr. Chaffetz has admitted what Democrats have been arguing all along: there is no legal basis whatsoever for the allegations against Planned Parenthood. Ultimately, these ideologically-charged attacks are part of a broader campaign to change existing laws that protect a woman’s right to access safe and affordable healthcare.
“Now that we agree these hearings have been pure political theater, perhaps we can move on to the important work facing this Congress—finding a long-term solution for funding the government, enacting comprehensive immigration reform, tackling the scourge of gun violence, and restoring the Voting Rights Act.”
Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives John Conyers, Jr.
“As today’s one-sided hearing title suggests, we will likely hear a series of allegations leveled against Planned Parenthood that it engaged in unlawful conduct based solely on a series of deceptively-edited undercover videos.
“Notably, the Center for Medical Progress – the entity that filmed these videos and which could answer significant and troubling questions about their accuracy and veracity -- is not here today.
“In addition, the Majority chose not to invite Planned Parenthood, the target of today’s attacks.
“As we hear from our witnesses, we should keep in mind the following points.
“To begin with, there is no credible evidence that Planned Parenthood violated the law.
“The videos wrongly imply that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue and organs for profit.
“The law governing fetal tissue research - which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in 1993 - provides, in part, that no one can ‘knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration.’
“In short, for-profit sales and purchases of fetal tissue are illegal. Similarly, federal law prohibits for-profit sales and purchases of human organs.
“In both cases, however, ‘valuable consideration’ does not include reasonable payments to cover certain costs associated with either fetal tissue or organ donations.
“The Center for Medical Progress’s doctored videos do not support the allegation that Planned Parenthood sought profit from fetal tissue or organ donations.
“Rather, they show, among other things, discussions over payments for costs associated with fetal tissue or organ donations, payments that the law clearly allows. “The videos also wrongly suggest that doctors at Planned Parenthood violated the law by altering the procedures used to perform abortions so as to preserve fetal tissue or organs. There is no evidence that Planned Parenthood has altered methods.
“Moreover, the statutory prohibition on changing the timing, method, or procedures of an abortion to preserve fetal tissue applies only to certain federally-funded research, and such research has not been funded since 2007.
“In other words, that legal prohibition did not apply to Planned Parenthood at the time the Center’s undercover videos were filmed.
“Finally, no evidence supports the suggestion that Planned Parenthood doctors may have violated the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
“The fact that Planned Parenthood officials refer to ‘intact’ fetuses and tissue specimens in many of the videos is immaterial.
“To violate the Act, the physician must partially deliver a living fetus and have the intent to terminate that fetus after this partial delivery.
“None of the videos show any Planned Parenthood official engaging in or suggesting the use of such a procedure.
“In short, no reliable evidence demonstrates that Planned Parenthood violated federal law.
“What is troubling about the videos is the manner in which they were produced.
“The Center for Medical Progress created a false tissue procurement company to use as a front in order to infiltrate Planned Parenthood facilities and to create the undercover videos, and may have deceived any number of state and federal authorities to do so.
“Additionally, the Center heavily edited the videos to present a misleading picture of the surreptitiously-recorded conversations in order to suggest illegal conduct by Planned Parenthood and to maximize the videos’ shock value.
“A forensic analysis submitted to Congress has concluded that ‘thorough review of these videos in consultation with qualified experts found that they do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict.’
“And, even the alleged ‘full footage’ released by the Center includes – and I quote – ‘cuts, skips, missing tape, and changes in camera angle,’ as well as ‘more than 30 minutes of missing video’ and took dialogue out of context ‘so as to substantively and significantly alter the meaning of the dialogue.’
“Finally, we must step back and look at the context in which this hearing is being held.
“The real purpose of the videos is to undermine one of the Nation’s leading providers of high‑quality health care for women.
“Planned Parenthood serves 2.7 million Americans a year, and 1 in 3 women will have used Planned Parenthood services by the age of 45.
“Some abortion opponents are attempting to use these videos as a pretext to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood. If successful, this effort would hurt those who rely on Planned Parenthood’s services and doing so would not prevent abortions.
“It is already the case that no federal funds may be used to pay for abortions with certain limited exceptions.
“Instead, federal funding pays for Planned Parenthood’s many critical health services, such as annual wellness exams, cancer screenings, contraception, and to further the study of sexually transmitted diseases.
“Surely, the Congress has better things to do than spend its time helping to undermine an organization that provides vital health services. Thank you.”
Washington, D.C. (Sept. 3, 2015)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. John J. Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary, sent a lettercalling on their Chairmen to suspend their “one-sided” investigations of Planned Parenthood, or to also fully investigate multiple allegations of illegal activity by the Center for Medical Progress and its founder, David Daleiden, who engaged in an unsuccessful three-year effort to secretly entrap Planned Parenthood officials.
Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives John Conyers, Jr.
“As the Ranking Members of two House Committees that have launched congressional investigations against Planned Parenthood, we are writing to request that you suspend these investigations, which are based on the potentially illegal actions of a radical anti-abortion group that has admitted to falsifying documents, lying to their own contributors, and deceptively editing secretly-recorded videos in a three-year crusade against Planned Parenthood,” the Ranking Members wrote.
“However, if you choose to move forward, we request that our committees also investigate the actions of David Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress, which—in contrast to Planned Parenthood—may have violated numerous state and federal laws in their clandestine effort to roll back the rights of millions of women across the country who rely on the legal and critical healthcare services provided by Planned Parenthood every day,” they added.
The Ranking Members cited aforensic analysisof videos secretly recorded by the Center for Medical Progress that concluded that even the “full footage” released by the group contains “cuts, skips, missing tape, and changes in camera angle,” as well as “more than 30 minutes of missing video.” The analysis also found that the video transcripts contain “numerous errors, discrepancies, and omissions” that “render them useless as ‘evidence.’”
The letter from the Ranking Members noted that, “within the last two weeks, attorneys for Mr. Daleiden have indicated that he and others involved in this scheme intend to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights rather than defending the dubious actions of their organization.”
“Our committees are actively pursuing aggressive investigations of Planned Parenthood even though we have seen no credible evidence that the organization has done anything unlawful,” the Ranking Members wrote. “Yet, thus far our committees have taken no action whatsoever to investigate the potentially illegal actions of Mr. Daleiden and his group.”
“Based on these facts, we call on you to halt these one-sided investigations immediately,” the Ranking Members wrote. “Millions of women across the country rely on Planned Parenthood for critical health services, and they should not be denied their rights under the law and the Constitution based on the Center for Medical Progress’s warped—and ultimately unsuccessful—effort to entrap Planned Parenthood.”
