Planned Parenthood Files Lawsuit In Fetal Tissue Hidden Camera Videos
DENVER (CBS4)- Planned Parenthood is taking legal action against an anti-abortion group that used hidden cameras to claim fetal tissue was being illegally sold. Planned Parenthood strongly denied that claim.
One of the locations recorded was in Denver which is not one of the named plaintiffs.
The lawsuit claims anti-abortion extremists "conceived and executed a complex criminal enterprise to demonize Planned Parenthood." Its regional leader suggested all that may have played a role in last November's attack in Colorado Springs.
The Center for Medical Progress posed as a company wanting tissue from aborted fetuses.
They claimed the videos showed Planned Parenthod illegally offering it for sale. The Denver Stapleton Clinic was one of the locations visited.
Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood CEO Vicki Cowart says the videos were distorted and violated their "sacred space."
"It was a ruse and they tricked us into talking with them," Cowart told CBS4's Rick Sallinger.
When he asked, "Do you feel violated?" She replied, "Totally, totally and completely."
She said the videos may have incited others to attack Planned Parenthood verbally and physically.
That includes the November 2015 attack on the Colorado Springs clinic where three people were killed and nine others left wounded.
"I won't be surprised if we learn that individual was somehow encouraged to his bad deeds because of this," Cowart said.
The person who claimed responsibility for the attack was quoted by law enforcement as saying, "No more baby parts" when arrested.
That man, Robert Dear, spoke with Sallinger by phone from the El Paso County Jail.
In the 15-minute interview he said, "They got 4,000 babies get aborted every day. I guarantee you they had a lot of cancellations and I might have saved 1,000."
Planned Parenthood says here is wrong about the cancellations.
On Thursday, it was business as usual with demonstrators urging those entering the Denver Clinic to not have abortions.
The Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden, referred to the lawsuit with the words, "Game on. I look forward to deposing all the CEOs, Medical Directors and their co-conspirators who participated in Planned Parenthoods illegal baby parts racket."
The organization called it a last ditch move of desperation. Planned Parenthood says it has no fetal tissue donation program in the Rocky Mountain Region. It adds, 10 states investigated and found no evidence of profit from fetal tissue donation in those locations.
CBS4's Rick Sallinger is a Peabody award winning reporter who has been with the station more than two decades doing hard news and investigative reporting. Follow him on Twitter @ricksallinger.
