Carly Fiorina connects Iran and Planned Parenthood and the crowd loves it

Liz Goodwin
·Senior National Affairs Reporter
Updated

Carly Fiorina connects Iran and Planned Parenthood and the crowd loves it

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina somehow managed to connect Planned Parenthood and Iran in a brief but deft moment in Wednesday’s debate.

Fiorina’s near flawless delivery has stood out, as she’s been able to fit more policy and personality in her answers than many of her competitors have. Fiorina interjected in the debate and said she would like to “link” two unlikely issues: Planned Parenthood and Iran.

“One has something to do with the defense of security of this nation. The other has something to do with the defense of the character of this nation,” she said.

Fiorina said she would put “the United States of America back in the leadership business” by cracking down on Iran, and then suddenly switched gears to the recent controversy over Planned Parenthood transferring fetal tissue to researchers. (The videos have set off a congressional fight to defund Planned Parenthood.)

“I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes,” she said, and slowed down to a staccato tempo. “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.” The crowd went wild as Fiorina said, “If we do not stand up and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us.”

UPDATE: Sarah Kliff at Vox reports that the scene Fiorina describes does not exist in the 12 hours of tape released by the anti-abortion group the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). In a separate, CMP-produced documentary, a technician describes a scene where she saw a fetus with a beating heart, and another incident when she was told to extract brain tissue from an aborted fetus. But images of those incidents do not exist, and the technician never mentions being told to keep a fetus alive to harvest brain tissue. Fiorina defended the comments on Good Morning America Thursday morning, saying only, “Rest assured, I have seen the images I talked about last night.”