The video depicting a live fetus allegedly being kept alive to harvest its organs that Carly Fiorina described during the last Republican presidential debate has been published in full online, according to its creator.
Gregg Cunningham, the founder of the group that collected the footage, called the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, told TIME magazine that the full video was released on Tuesday, as a YouTube clip titled “Carly was right.”
Cunningham declined to tell TIME where or when the footage was taken, or who recorded it, citing confidentiality agreements. It’s unclear, too, whether the footage has anything to do with Planned Parenthood, which Republicans — including Fiorina — are calling to be barred from federal funding following the release of a series of controversial videos that appear to depict representatives of the women’s health services provider negotiating for the sale of fetus tissue and parts.
RELEASE: Carly Fiorina stands by Planned Parenthood criticism
The videos were found to be highly edited, splicing together stock footage with surreptitiously recorded conversations and photos used without permission of the owner.
Cunningham says he is “neither confirming nor denying the affiliation of the clinic who did this abortion.”
TIME describes what it says is an “extremely graphic” video, and while it does depict a fetus that shows signs of life, there are cuts in the video that make it difficult to tell definitively what’s happened. Some have speculated the fetus was from a miscarriage; Cunningham disputes that because, he says, there’s no indication any effort was made to save its life, suggesting it was an intentional abortion.
Fiorina has taken considerable criticism for her claim that she viewed, as part of the Center for Medical Progress videos, “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.” And despite multiple media reports raising doubts about the existence of that specific scene, Fiorina’s stood by her description, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this weekend that it “absolutely exists” and she’s seen it.
While Fiorina’s insisted the clip she described exists, in response to questions about the discrepancies she’s largely pivoted to what she says is the bigger issue — that the practice of keeping fetuses alive to harvest their organs does exist, and taxpayers are footing the bill for the practice at Planned Parenthood.
The release of the full Center for Bio-Ethical Reform video does not, however, put the controversy to rest.
There is no sound to the video, and David Daleiden, who created the Center for Medical Progress videos targeting Planned Parenthood, has said he used the clip of the fetus to illustrate a procedure he had been told about by a medical technician, layering the sound of the latter over the visuals of the former.
Fiorina’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
