Who’s Really Lying About The Planned Parenthood Videos? Carly Fiorina Or The Factcheckers?

September 20, 2015 Kent Off Decision '16,

Fact-checking the fact-checkers: Why is the media in denial about what the Planned Parenthood videos show?

When Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina referenced video footage of a baby that survived an abortion who was filmed “on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking” during the second GOP debate on Wednesday, the media called her a liar.

Amanda Marcotte of Slate said that the video didn’t exist:

It was quite a performance, and it opens the question of what Fiorina was inhaling before she watched those videos. There is nothing in the videos made by CMP, either in the edited or full-length versions, that has anything approaching images of legs kicking or hearts beating.

Sarah Kliff of Vox called it “pure fiction:”

But the things Fiorina describes — the legs kicking, the intact “fully formed fetus,” the heart beating, the remarks about having to “harvest its brain” — are pure fiction.

Refinery 29 has also claimed that the videos don’t exist in a piece entitled: “Fiorina’s Planned Parenthood Comment Was Graphic, Upsetting — And Totally Made-Up.”

Fusion also joined the media’s bandwagon of denial and nearly copied Planned Parenthood’s talking points in their report:

To be clear, Fiorina, like the other Republicans attacking Planned Parenthood, doesn’t have her facts straight. None of the videos have anyone talking about “harvesting” brains. The supposedly macabre video she’s talking about was highly, selectively edited by right-wing activists.

In the video in question, a technician is talking about harvesting the brain of an alive, fully formed fetus. While she tells her story, there is footage of another baby of roughly the same gestational age as the one whose brain she harvested. This baby is seen still kicking and its heart still beating.