Planned Parenthood Action Fund to Carly Fiorina: Stop lying
For Immediate Release: Oct. 15, 2015
To: Interested Parties
From: Eric Ferrero, Vice President, Communications, Planned Parenthood Action Fund
Today, Planned Parenthood Action Fund told Carly Fiorina that her statements this week about Planned Parenthood are completely untrue and asked her to stop making false statements.
Just today, at a Town Hall in South Carolina with Senator Tim Scott, Fiorina doubled down on her flat-out lies about Planned Parenthood:
FIORINA: Why is it Planned Parenthood cannot and will not deny late-term abortions are being performed for the purposes of obtaining brains and other body parts? Because it’s happening. It’s happening.
She'd also made these same untrue claims Wednesday night on Fox News:
FIORINA: And by the way, up until this point in time -- up until this point in time -- I'm sorry to interrupt, Sean, but up until this point in time, not only am I not lying, but Planned Parenthood has not, will not, cannot deny that this is happening because it is.
The question that I would ask over and over and over again is, number one, why have they not denied that this isn't happening? They cannot.
This is not true. Carly Fiorina is lying about Planned Parenthood, and she knows it.
In fact, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other Planned Parenthood organizations have repeatedly and consistently said that the outlandish claims about Planned Parenthood are simply and completely false. In two states, Planned Parenthood helps patients who want to donate tissue for fetal tissue research, following clear guidance that goes well above and beyond the legal requirements in this area. This work is not about “harvesting” or “selling” or “profiting” – it is about helping facilitate patients’ wishes to support medical research that can help treat and cure serious diseases. It is important, noble work that Planned Parenthood affiliates in just two states do.
None of that matters to Carly Fiorina. She continues to lie – over and over again.
When she was caught lying about a Planned Parenthood video during the debate last month – “daring” people to watch a video that doesn’t exist – her team went into the editing room to try to create a video after the fact. In the process, they tried to pass two separate images of miscarriages or premature deliveries as abortions, and the media largely let them get away with it. In case you missed it, here’s a post by a doctor explaining that the latest piece of video, released this week, is a premature delivery, not the abortion that Carly Fiorina and anti-abortion extremists claim (and certainly nothing having to do with Planned Parenthood).
Below is a letter sent today to Fiorina from Planned Parenthood Action Fund Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens.
October 2, 2015
Carly for President
1020 N Fairfax Street, Ste. 200
Alexandria, VA 22314
Via fax and email
Dear Ms. Fiorina:
Several times this week, you have claimed that Planned Parenthood has not denied your baseless, outrageous, and totally false claims about “harvesting” body parts of fetuses for sale. Wednesday night, you said that Planned Parenthood “has not, will not, and cannot deny that this is happening, because it is.”
This statement is completely false.
Planned Parenthood has been clear and unequivocal that these claims are untrue. In fact, we have, can, and will continue to say that this is untrue – and have said so to you directly. In letters to you over the past two weeks and in public statements for the last months, we have said that these claims are false, but you continue to say otherwise. Once again, to be clear: Planned Parenthood provides preventive health care to 2.7 million people a year. In two states, Planned Parenthood health centers help women who want to donate fetal tissue for lifesaving medical research. Planned Parenthood guidance, in place for more than a decade, goes above and beyond the legal requirements and says that the only financial payment to Planned Parenthood is for the actual costs of facilitating tissue donation.
Again, your claims about Planned Parenthood are completely false.
In the debate two weeks ago, you looked into the camera and lied about Planned Parenthood. You spoke with tremendous fervor about a video that simply does not exist, in order to indict Planned Parenthood health centers for something that they simply do not do. When you were called out for lying, you dug deeper – insisting that a video existed when it actually doesn’t. When questions about your lie didn’t go away, a so-called “Super PAC,” which many have alleged functions as your campaign, edited footage to try to create the video you claimed existed.
We now know that the video footage you were talking about, and that your SuperPAC used to edit a new video, doesn’t show anything at Planned Parenthood and doesn’t even show an abortion. From all accounts, two separate images of miscarriages or stillbirths were passed off as abortions, first by extreme anti-abortion activists who are engaged in a fraudulent smear campaign and then by you and political operatives working on your behalf.
It is clearer than ever that you are not telling the truth about this video or about Planned Parenthood. If you would like to discuss or debate any aspect of Planned Parenthood’s work or women’s ability to access safe, legal abortion or other reproductive health care, name the time and the place and I will be there. In the meantime, I am writing to you today to demand that you directly to stop knowingly lying about Planned Parenthood and women’s health.
Sincerely,
Dawn Laguens
Executive Vice President , Planned Parenthood Action Fund