On August 27, Planned Parenthood released what they claimed was a “forensic analysis” report on CMP’s published investigative footage. In reality, the report is a pseudoscientific production by Fusion GPS, a political opposition-research company that has no forensic certifications. While the report, which contains multiple errors, set out to delegitimize CMP’s video evidence, it only provides evidence of the opposite: the report admits that “This analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation” and that it “shows no evidence of audio manipulation.”
Planned Parenthood’s review of the undercover meetings with Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Dr. Mary Gatter, Dr. Savita Ginde, and Melissa Farrell identifies sections in the full footage of these conversations where bathroom breaks or waiting time between meetings were removed to protect the investigators. The Center for Medical Progress provides original recording files to law enforcement and official investigators, but endeavors to present our findings to the public in the most accessible way possible. This brief will review the specific cuts and other issues raised by the Planned Parenthood report.
Video 1: Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Senior Director of Medical Services, PPFA
The Planned Parenthood report notes that two different camera angles recorded the meeting with Dr. Nucatola. In the full footage of this conversation, the primary camera (Actor 1) is used throughout, until Actor 1 needed to use the restroom at encoded timestamp 14:32:07 (framecount ~038200). At this point, footage from the second camera (Actor 2) is supplemented so viewers can follow the conversation that continued between Dr. Nucatola and Actor 2, while Actor 1 uses the restroom. When Actor 1 returns, the primary camera footage does as well. The timestamp on the primary footage reads 14:37:43 when Actor 1 returns–the approximately 5.5 minute change in timestamp corresponds to the 5.5 minute discussion Actor 2 has alone with Dr. Nucatola.
At 14:38:06, Dr. Nucatola leaves to use the restroom, and returns at 14:41:08. The logistical discussion between the actors is not part of the conversation with Dr. Nucatola and like discussions between only the actors arriving and leaving the meeting, it is not included. Viewers following the conversation between Nucatola and the two actors hear the continuous dialog about using the restroom at these points in the video.
The bathroom breaks and actors’ logistics do not change Dr. Nucatola’s statements, and the brief change of camera footage allows the viewer to see and hear the full conversation with Dr. Nucatola.
Video 2: Dr. Mary Gatter, President of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors’ Council, PPFA
Again, the Planned Parenthood report attempts to cast aspersions on the investigative footage because of the use of two cameras. In reality, the use of multiple cameras corroborates the scenes recorded and enhances the evidentiary value of the footage. CMP provides law enforcement and official investigators with the original files from all recording devices.
Each actor uses the restroom at the beginning of the meeting with Dr. Mary Gatter. While Actor 2 uses the restroom, Actor 1’s camera documents the beginning of the conversation with Dr. Gatter. When Actor 2 returns to the table and Actor 1 leaves to use the restroom at 12:04:53, the camera changes to Actor 2’s footage, and remains there for the rest of the conversation.
As in Video 1, the continuous dialogue around the camera transition makes it clear there is a bathroom break.
Video 3: Dr. Savita Ginde, VP and Medical Director, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains
The actors spent almost an entire work day at the Planned Parenthood facility shown in this video, with only a fraction of that time spent in conversation with Dr. Ginde. The full footage of their conversation with Dr. Ginde begins in a conference room meeting with her, and this conversation continues until the Planned Parenthood staff break for lunch at timestamp 10:27:07. The actors were not taken into the path lab until after abortions began and Planned Parenthood was making fetal tissue available for review at timestamp 11:01:40. The actors recorded several periods of “down-time” between abortion cases where they were alone in the path lab or in break rooms discussing logistics. Again, bathroom breaks and logistical discussions between only the actors are only presented to law enforcement and official investigators in order to protect the actors.
At 11:45:46, the Planned Parenthood so-called “forensic report” erroneously identifies a stop in the recording device. Dr. Ginde leaves the actors alone in a waiting room, and so the conversation footage resumes when Dr. Ginde returns for the one of the actors at timestamp 12:21:55.
Planned Parenthood also takes issue with two statements recorded in the dialogue: first, Dr. Ginde’s sad remark over a dismembered 11.6-week fetus that, “It’s a baby,” and second, the medical assistant’s excited exclamation that a 10-week aborted fetus is “another boy.” The Planned Parenthood report does not mark out by timestamp or framecount exactly where these statements occur in the recording, but only gives vague estimates of where they occur in the video run-time.
While the first remark from Dr. Ginde, at timestamp 11:05:07, is faint, careful listening makes the dialogue clear beginning at 11:04:52:
Actor 1: “Was that crack, was that the, just the little bits of the skull?”
Medical Assistant: “Mhm. I’m looking for–I guess we’re missing one leg. And a foot.”
Dr. Ginde: “It’s a baby.”
Dr. Ginde’s distinctive voice can be heard after the Medical Assitant references the leg and the foot of the baby, murmuring in a low, despondent tone, “It’s a baby,” and the bilabial “B” sound can be heard clearly at the end of the phrase. This is consistent with other remarks made by Dr. Ginde during the site visit, including her description of a 12-week aborted fetus at timestamp 13:54:50 as “war-torn.” The Medical Assistant also referred to the aborted 11.6 fetus as “cute” at 11:04:31, which elicited an inaudible response from Ginde.
At timestamp 14:08:29, the Planned Parenthood Medical Assistant exclaims, “And another boy!” when examining a 10-week aborted fetus. This same Medical Assistant referred to an 11.6-week aborted fetus as “cute,” frequently described looking for fetal extremities as “legs” and “feet,” and was also looking for “twins” in several of the abortion cases. The sex of fetuses was never brought up by the actors.
It is significant that Planned Parenthood singles these two statements out for special scrutiny: they are admissions from Planned Parenthood abortion workers about the violence inherent in their work. But the way the report focuses on them while simultaneously refusing to precisely flag them seems to indicate Planned Parenthood also has a guilty conscience for child-killing.
Video 4: Melissa Farrell, Director of Research, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast
The Planned Parenthood report identifies a missing recording file from timestamp 07:46:47 to 08:15:15. This was due solely to human error, as the missing file, which begins at timestamp 07:46:48 and ends at 08:15:13, includes several key admissions from Farrell about PPGC’s arbitrary budgeting practices for tissue collection charges and willingness to modify abortion procedures to get more intact specimens (which even Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards has admitted). The missing clip has been supplemented here.
From 8:44:26 to 8:48:39 (mistakenly notated in the Planned Parenthood report as 8:44:39), Actor 1 uses the restroom while Farrell leaves the room to grab documents off of the printer. This is clear from the dialogue. Actor 2 also left to use the restroom during the same time. At 12:58:34, Farrell led the actors to a break room, and actors took the time to swap out recording equipment batteries and discuss logistics with each other. Farrell returns to take the actors to the clinic’s path lab at 13:50:18.
The Planned Parenthood report erroneously cites a clip of a “credit card” at 13:11:59 for the Farrell video, which is actually from the Gatter video.
Conclusion:
The Planned Parenthood report contains multiple erroneous statements and conclusions, yet by its own words finds no “substantive video manipulation” and “no evidence of audio manipulation.” CMP’s investigative video recordings are high-quality and reproducible evidence that can be provided to law enforcement and official investigators in original recording format.
