Here's what
CNN said about it:
CNN said:
Fact check: Carly Fiorina says a Planned Parenthood video shows a "fully formed fetus on the table, with its heart beating, its legs kicking."
Carly Fiorina said, "Anyone who has watched this video tape -- I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain."
Fiorina was referring to a video released by the anti-abortion group The Center for Medical Progress last month, in which a former worker for StemExpress, a biomedical research company, said she saw a fully formed fetus's heart beating.
"This is the most gestated fetus and closest thing to a baby I've ever seen," Holly O'Donnell, a former procurement technician for StemExpress, said in the video. "I'm sitting here looking at this fetus and its heart is beating and I don't know what to do."
The clip does show what appears to be a fully formed fetus on an operating table with its legs twitching. But the clip Fiorina references is not part of the CMP sting video but was instead taken by another anti-abortion group and was added to the sting video. The Center for Medical Progress, however, doesn't explain where the fetus video was shot, so it's not clear whether it was taken at a Planned Parenthood clinic. For its part, the women's health organization has flatly denied the accusations.
VERDICT: True, but misleading
There are, in fact, a few mistakes with what Fiorina described. First, the "fully formed fetus"
shown kicking his legs was
not on a table, but in a stainless steel bowl of some kind. Second, while that clip is shown, only the following statements are heard:
Holly O'Donnell said:
And its nose was very pronounced. It had eyelids. And its mouth was pronounced. And then, since the fetus was so still-intact
And that's it. CNN is right to note that the clip shown is not the fetus O'Donnell procured organs from. But, before the clip, O'Donnell says her supervisor tapped on the chest of the fetus O'Donnell saw, causing his heart to beat. ("I don't know if that constitutes it's technically dead, or it's alive," O'Donnell explained.) After the clip ends, O'Donnell finishes her sentence, continuing as follows:
Holly O'Donnell said:
she said, "OK, well this is a really good fetus and it looks like we can procure a lot from it. We're gonna procure a brain."
So, the moment I hear [that], I'm like, "That means we're going to have to cut the head open. We're going to have to cut the head open."
So, she's like, "OK, so what you do is you go through the face."
And I'm thinking, "No, don't make me do this."
And she takes the scissors and she makes a small incision right here [gesturing at her chin], and goes, I would say, to maybe a little bit through the mouth. And she's like, "OK, can you go through the rest of the way."
And I'm like, [sighs], "Yes." And I didn't want to do this. So she gave me the scissors, and then told me that I have to cut down the middle of the face, and, I can't even like describe what that feels like.
I remember picking it up, and finishing going through the rest of the face, and Jessica picking up the brain and putting it in the container with the media[.]
So, Fiorina got some details wrong, particularly the most inflammatory part of her summary ("we have to keep it alive" and the use of the word "harvest"). On the other hand, her description is close enough that it's clear what part of the videos she's talking about.
