Following the release of seven undercover videos by Center for Medical Progress showing Planned Parenthood representatives discussing the extraction and selling of fetal organs to research facilities, over 40,000 assembled to mark the "National Day of Protest Against Planned Parenthood" held outside the premises of 320 clinics in 50 states, and at five international locations.
Eric J. Scheidler, Executive Director at Pro-Life Action League, told Christian Post, "[Americans] deserve to know the truth about Planned Parenthood, an organization that receives over half a billion dollars every year from taxpayers. It is time for this corrupt organization to be deprived of all taxpayer funding and investigated by the US Justice Department."
Mandy Odom, one of the protestors at Houston, said she was always a pro-life person but had ignored the dealings of the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood. Previously, she had never participated in a pro-life protest, which was an emotional experience for her.
"It's unbelievable what happens here.. It just can't continue. The killing of live babies has to stop," Odom said.
A protestor at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Richmond, Virginia, noted that the turnouts are more than previously witnessed in pro-life demonstrations. "We had over 500 people here and that's great. Usually, you're lucky to get 10. At Forty Days for Life, sometimes you might get 20, but never the crowds like this. It's been exciting - just nonstop response," Leslie Blackwell, a representative with Silent No More Awareness Campaign, told the Christian Post.
Louisville, Kentucky, also saw a crowd of over 500 activists protesting against abortion.
Alejandro Capote, a speaker at the protest said, "Planned Parenthood believes babies are worth more dead than alive. Women and children are not for sale. Planned Parenthood should not be allowed to continue to treat children like a commodity."
In a small village in Canton, New York, the Christian Fellowship Center in Potsdam participated in the protests outside local clinic, where Pastor Daniel Paladin was quoted as saying by Watertown Daily Times, "It is our role today to stand here and to appeal to our community that there are some things that are wrong, and that's one of them. What Planned Parenthood provides, in my opinion, is definitely not health care. They are profiting off of a woman's pain, a woman's crisis."
The videos that were obtained over a period of three years show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the extraction of baby organs, often in partial abortions when the baby is still alive, to sell them to Biologics companies for research. The eighth video, which has not yet been released online, shows Planned Parenthood selling intact babies to research firms, according to reports.
The last video released taped cutting a baby's face to get its brain while the heart was still beating.
Planned Parenthood argued the videos are heavily edited and claimed trafficking of baby parts is legal if it "covers the administrative and transport costs."
The transcript of the one of the videos released by CMP shows a Planned Parenthood representative saying "Federal Abortion Ban is a law, and laws are up to interpretation." The transcript further suggests that live babies are extracted and then killed, a violation of Born Alive Infant Protection Act 2002, and Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act 2003.
