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SAN FRANCISCO, California, September 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A Planned Parenthood abortionist exposed in a Center for Medical Progress (CMP) undercover video as a baby body parts trafficker admitted the CMP video clips played in court Thursday were not altered.
But she made every effort to avoid admitting the videos implicated her personally in the buying or selling of human body parts, which is a federal felony.
Watch this special report where LifeSite Managing Editor Patrick Craine speaks with reporter Lianne Laurence who is on the ground in San Francisco covering the criminal case against pro-life investigators David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt.
The former director of medical services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, identified in court as Doe 9, was a prosecution witness at the criminal preliminary hearing of CMP’s David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt.
The pro-life investigative journalists are facing 15 felony charges of illegal taping of confidential information in connection with undercover videos they released in 2015 that unmasked Planned Parenthood’s involvement in selling baby body parts.
Their legal team is arguing the law stipulates that conversations that can reasonably be expected to be overheard are not confidential, and that surreptitious taping of confidential information is allowed when those doing so have reason to believe they are investigating violent crimes.
Doe 9 is infamous for drinking wine and eating salad while telling Daleiden and Merritt in a covertly recorded video that, among other things, she and Planned Parenthood abortionists dismember babies in utero in such a way as to keep marketable organs intact.
“I’m not gonna crush that part. I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact,” she told the pair, who were posing as owners of a fetal tissue procurement firm.
Particularly as the CMP video evidence spoke for itself, defense lawyer Brentford Ferreira regarded their examination of Doe 9 as successful, even though deputy attorney general Johnette Jauron frequently objected to their questions as irrelevant, and Judge Christopher Hite tended to agree.
“With some success – the judge shut me down quite a bit – with some success, we got evidence of babies born alive and dying, and of partial-birth abortion and of changing the technique without the consent of the mother, and in a way that creates a battery on the woman,” he told LifeSiteNews.
“If the only reason…to change the [abortion] technique is to get the baby parts that you want to sell to the supplier, then that is battery.”
Ferreira’s initial interrogation established that Doe 9 did not regard the lunch meeting with Daleiden and Merritt as confidential.
“It was a business meeting and she fully intended that people who were not present would hear about it,” he said. “She put Mr. Daleiden in touch with other affiliates, she wrote emails for him.”
“She actually was texting another doctor during the interview,” Ferreira said.
“It was no different than if she’d called her on the cell phone and said, ‘hey, I got this Robert Sarkis here; he’d like to buy body parts from you.’”
The defense also moved to impeach Doe 9 twice because her testimony contradicted her deposition in the Planned Parenthood lawsuit against CMP.
In the first instance, Ferreira asked Doe 9 if she’d ever had “a complete fetal expulsion” occur in her presence during an abortion.
“No, I have not,” answered Doe 9.
Ferreira then produced a transcript of Doe 9’s deposition, in which she was asked if she had encountered “complete fetal expulsion” in her career.
“I’m sure I must have had one at one point” in 20 years as a doctor, Doe 9 said then.
In the case of a fetal expulsion, did Doe 9 check the baby for signs of life, Ferreira then asked.
“Sir, I don’t recall observing fetal expulsion,” Doe 9 replied. “I said it must have happened. I didn’t say I recalled or observed it.”
Doe 9 later admitted when questioned by Jauron that “hypothetically,” if there is a fetal expulsion during an abortion, then “hypothetically” there is a fetal heartbeat.
Horatio Mihet of Liberty Counsel, who is representing Merritt, also caught Doe 9 contradicting previous testimony.
She testified Wednesday she was “shocked” by the CMP video when it was released four years ago because it was edited to misrepresent what she said at the lunch meeting.
But in her deposition in the civil case, Doe 9 said she “didn’t get the big deal” about the video, Mihet said. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong in the video,” she said then.
Under questioning from Mihet, Doe 9 admitted the video clips were accurate depictions of her conversations with Merritt and Daleiden and not edited or altered.
Doe 9 explained the discrepancy by telling the court she “didn’t get the big deal” about the “content” of the video.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t be shocked that people lied about who they said they were,” she said.
“I don’t think she’s an honest person at all, and I think the judge got that,” Ferriera told LifeSiteNews.
In the secretly recorded CMP video, Doe 9 explained that Planned Parenthood abortionists would change the baby’s position to breech, or feet first, in order to extract an intact calvarium, or head.
That fits the description of the federally banned partial-birth abortion method.
Doe 9 told the court that when she described switching the baby’s position to breech, she was referring to “some people, not talking about myself.”
“Have you ever switched to breech to obtain an intact calvarium?” Ferreira asked.
“No, I have not in that context,” she said.
Mihet asked Doe 9 if she informed women when she altered the abortion procedure in order to obtain intact fetal tissue.
“I do not tell the patient where I’m going to grasp the tissue so I don’t tell them about a change,” she said.
The preliminary hearing continues on Tuesday, and the defense intends to recall Doe 9 after their expert witnesses testify.
CMP refers to the prosecution as the “Kamala Harris Planned Parenthood Videos Case” because it was initiated by Harris, now a Democratic presidential nominee, when she was California’s attorney general.
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Former Planned Parenthood medical director caught in contradiction at undercover video hearing