Physicians Criticize Planned Parenthood in Sting Video Lying About Abortion
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 11, 2009
Appleton, WI (LifeNews.com) — Two physicians are responding to a new sting operation video produced showing staff at a Wisconsin Planned Parenthood center lying to women about fetal development and abortion. The undercover footage from Live Action shows abortion center staff, including the abortion practitioner, misleading women.
The Planned Parenthood staffers encourage pregnant women posting as potential abortion customers to obtain an abortion because "women die having babies."
In the undercover video, two women posing as potential abortion customers ask a Planned Parenthood counselor if the pregnant woman’s 10-week-old unborn child has a heartbeat.
The counselor emphasizes "heart tones," and answers, "Heart beat is when the fetus is active in the uterus–can survive–which is about seventeen or eighteen weeks."
Now, two physicians are stepping forward in response to the video and, as they say, to correct the "absurd and scientifically erroneous" information Planned Parenthood presented the women.
The physicians are embryologist Dianne Irving, Ph.D, a former bench research biochemist with the National Institutes of Health and a Professor of Medical Ethics at Georgetown University, and Ward Kischer, Ph.D., Professor emeritus of Cell Biology and Anatomy specializing in embryology at the University Arizona.
Irving and Kischer demonstrate the medical consensus against Planned Parenthood’s statements, citing what they call "the number-one human embryology textbook," Human Embryology & Teratology published by Wiley-Liss: "The heart begins to beat by 4 weeks."
When asked at what point the fetus becomes a baby, the counselor answers, "At birth."
Later, when asked the same question, the abortionist, Dr. Prohaska claims that the fetus becomes a baby at "6 or 7 months."
Irving and Kischer conclude that the Appleton Planned Parenthood counseling practices "would violate legally valid ‘informed consent’ on both the ‘information’ level and on the ‘consent without duress or pressure’ level," and call for the parties involved to "be held accountable for their inherently unethical and destructive lies and procedures."
The doctors point out that Wisconsin informed consent law requires that women receive medically accurate information before undergoing an abortion.
They also note that the Medical Association’s Code of Ethics says "the physician’s obligation is to present the medical facts accurately to the patient."
Live Action’s president, UCLA student Lila Rose, told LifeNews.com today that the new video underscores the contradictions between Planned Parenthood and the mainstream medical and scientific communities.
"Every day Planned Parenthood violates the most basic medical, ethical, and legal codes in order to sell more abortions to vulnerable women," she said. "Planned Parenthood confuses medical terms and lies outright about medical facts to hide the humanity of the woman’s unborn child and make ‘the pregnancy’ more ‘abortable.’"
In the video, the Grand Chute Planned Parenthood counselor then says, "A fetus is what’s in the uterus right now. That is not a baby."
Dr. Polhaska, the abortion practitioner, insists "It’s not a baby at this stage or anything like that."
He goes on to say that having an abortion will be "much safer than having a baby," warning, "You know, women die having babies."
Meanwhile, Pro-Life Wisconsin has revealed that the Planned Parenthood in question received taxpayer funds from both the state and county government.
The video is the first in Live Action’s new a multi-state undercover audit documenting Planned Parenthood’s abortion counseling that is illegal, unethical or not factual.
Planned Parenthood has come under fire recently after Live Action’s investigations found its centers willing to conceal sexual abuse and accept donations targeted to abort African-Americans only.
Related web sites:
See the new video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIXHrusvMDw
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