The Center for Medical Progress today released their seventh video, and the third in their documentary series, Human Capital. In it, a former employee of Planned Parenthood’s most prominent (until now) research partner describes a prima facie case of vivisection.

Have a heart!

Abortion stops a beating heart. Sign outside St. John’s Catholic Church in Onawa, Iowa. Photo: User wht_wolf9653 on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic License

Holly O’Donnell, formerly of StemExpress LLC, again tells of her experiences as a “procurement officer” at the San Jose Planned Parenthood clinic. This time she describes the one case that, she says, moved her to resign.

A supervisor almost casually asked her whether she “wanted to see something cool.” Holly said yes. So the supervisor showed her a recently delivered, mid-term (about twenty weeks) unborn child. (CNAV refuses to use the Latin word fetus or foetus. That word properly describes an unborn calf. Human beings are not cattle.) Then, using a metal instrument Holly had never seen before, the supervisor “taps the heart, and it starts beating.” Imagine the shock Ms. O’Donnell must feel. Her superiors had told her that at worst she would be looking at a stillborn. Instead she is looking at a still-living human being.

Unruffled, the supervisor calmly says she and Ms. O’Donnell will “procure” the infant’s brain. And she hands Ms. O’Donnell a pair of scissors and tells her to cut through the middle of the child’s face.

Nor does the video stop with one incident of this kind. Dr. Ben Van Handel, the Executive Director of Novogenix Laboratories, LLC, says flatly: sometimes the heart of an unborn child still beats when the abortion provider takes it out of the womb. A “procurement manager” of one of StemExpress’ competitors (Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc.), describes abortion cases so late in term that the unborn child is already on its way out!

Again the abortion endpoint

David French, writing in National Review, compares Planned Parenthood to the Aztecs of Hernán Cortéz’ day. Most schoolchildren don’t hear today what kind of monsters Montezuma led. When he wasn’t drinking chocolate (he reserved that strictly to himself), he was overseeing human sacrifice. In the typical case, the priest cut the still-beating heart out of the victim without anesthesia.

At least the Aztecs had the excuse of being deluded by false gods, by supernatural dictates. Planned Parenthood serves the god of the self — along with its attending deities of career, convenience, and hedonism. When they cut open the heads of living children, they’re no better — and indeed more banal — than the priests of old.

Mr. French called for a criminal investigation. As well he might. We now have evidence not only of infanticide but also of vivisection.

But of course, we also have the abortion endpoint. Once anyone excepts an “inconvenient life” from the full protection of the law, anything goes. That goes double when those doing the killing, pretend to “give the bodies to science.” Which becomes a neat way to dispose of the evidence. Tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice – doesn’t the FBI charge just that when mobsters “rub out” their rivals and fit them out with “cement overshoes”?

As CMP makes clear, Holly O’Donnell saw a baby born with a beating heart. That makes it alive according to federal and California law.

Aside: StemExpress LLC seem now to have decided to cut their losses. Jennifer Haberkorn at Politico.com reported Saturday: they’re getting out of any relationship with Planned Parenthood. Everyone’s asking too many questions. Answering them now takes too much of their time. They even say Planned Parenthood represents a small part of their business. What about the larger part? They won’t say. They did try to limit the damage, by enjoining the CMP from releasing any more videos featuring their executive officers. But maybe they didn’t say anything about an interview with someone who used to work for them, then quit. (California is one of the few “two-party consent States.” All parties to a conversation must consent to any recording of it. But these recordings now show clear evidence of crimes.)

The damage extends beyond StemExpress or Planned Parenthood. We all must answer for letting such a drama play out. We all must answer for our hedonism, for “letting the good times roll,” and for using abortion as a way to “take care of problems.” And even for giving currency to a racist like Margaret Sanger. She founded Planned Parenthood to get rid of the “inferior races.” And could never have done that if the people of her time hadn’t let her.

And we will need more than a criminal investigation to repair the damage. We must repent of tolerating abortion, and of even thinking abortion necessary or useful.