Fox News host Megyn Kelly misleadingly defended videos smearing Planned Parenthood as well as previously debunked falsehoods about the videos pushed by GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.
During a November 30 segment on Fox's The Kelly File, Kelly discussed whether videos released by the anti-choice Center for Medical Progress influenced the alleged gunman who attacked a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, killing three people and injuring others. Kelly criticized assertions that “rhetoric” stemming from the anti-choice videos drove the shooter. She also defended Fiorina's much-debunked claims that those who watch the videos would see “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.”
Kelly conceded that Fiorina “made a claim ... that was a bridge too far” by “sort of meld[ing] two different sets of videos.” But she added “in Fiorina's defense, she did not see on those tapes, because it didn't exist, the live fetus having its organs harvested. The reason the fetus wasn't alive is because it had just been killed by a Planned Parenthood doctor.”
This is an outright falsehood. None of the videos released by the Center for Medical Progress show an abortion procedure, a fact even the group's founder David Daleiden admits. The Center for Medical Progress did misleadingly insert in one of their videos an unrelated image from a woman's stillbirth and a separate undated, unsourced video from an unknown miscarriage. Neither of the inserted materials had any connection to Planned Parenthood nor with abortion procedures.
Kelly also questioned reports that the videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress were “debunked.” She implied the reports of debunking stemmed exclusively from Fiorina's statements and claimed that “even ... Planned Parenthood's own investigation” hasn't proven the videos have been debunked.
In fact it's been thoroughly demonstrated that videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress, particularly the shorter edited videos that misleadingly used secretly recorded footage of Planned Parenthood employees, removed statements made by Planned Parenthood officials that would cut against the smears the anti-choice group wished to propagate -- that Planned Parenthood profits from the sale of fetal tissue and will change abortion procedures for that purpose.
Multiple state investigations and the Department of Health and Human Service have found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood nor found any violations of federal fetal tissue laws, which also cuts against claims presented by the Center for Medical Progress' videos. In short, the videos do not depict what their creators claim they show: illegal activity on the part of Planned Parenthood involving fetal tissue donation or collection.
While much is not yet known about the motives of the shooter in Colorado Springs, he reportedly used the phrase "no more baby parts" in an interview with law enforcement following his arrest. “Baby parts” is a term used extensively by the Center For Medical Progress' videos and press releases. What is also known is that in September -- following the release of the videos -- the FBI reported an increase in attacks on reproductive health care facilities and stated that “it is likely criminal or suspicious incidents will continue to be directed against reproductive health care providers, their staff and facilities.”