GOP Rep Repeats Fiorina’s Bunk Claim About Planned Parenthood Videos

UNITED STATES - APRIL 14: Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, listens as House GOP leaders speak to reporters following the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Tuesday, April 14, 2015. (Photo By Bill Clar... UNITED STATES - APRIL 14: Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, listens as House GOP leaders speak to reporters following the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Tuesday, April 14, 2015. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images) MORE LESS
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Carly Fiorina came under fire this week for claiming during the GOP debate that the Planned Parenthood “sting” videos released by anti-abortion activists included a scene where one can watch “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”

The campaign has not been able to point to such a scene, nor can the makers of the film.

But that hasn’t stopped others seeking to use the videos to block the reproductive rights organization’s federal funding, including a conservative lawmaker ahead of a vote on a bill that would defund Planned Parenthood, from making similar claims.

In perhaps one of the most chilling videos we see one of these so-called ‘intact fetal cadavers’ with its heart still beating, Madame Speaker. Its heart was still beating,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) said from the House floor Friday.

The footage Hensarling appears to be referring to the Center for Medical Progress — the maker of the videos — has admitted it did not film itself, but rather attained from another anti-abortion group to “illustrate” the claims made by one of the video’s participants. The videos nor the Center for Medical Progress offered no proof that the footage was filmed in a Planned Parenthood, or even if it was of an aborted fetus. The Center for Medical Progress previously came under fire for using an image of a stillborn without the mother’s permission.

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