For Release: July 29, 2015

Extremist Texas Leaders Escalate Attack on Abortion Providers State hearing on Planned Parenthood to take place in response to deceptive videos

Austin, TXOn Wednesday, the Texas Senate Health and Human Services committee will hold a hearing to address the "business and practices and regulatory structure of Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas." The hearing comes in response to an anti-abortion group with a history of misleading the public and ties to domestic terrorists releasing heavily-edited videos. Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, made the following statement in opposition to the hearing: This is a coordinated attack by anti-choice organizations and extremist Texas leaders who will go to any length to keep people from accessing the reproductive health care they need. The hearing is a witch hunt; its an attempt to vilify abortion providers and justify future efforts to restrict abortion. By calling for this sham hearing and stacking it with biased testimony, our states leaders are wasting taxpayer money on malicious lies and dangerous tactics. Every person deserves to make their own personal and private medical decisions without interference or judgment from extremist activists and politicians. The group that released the undercover and heavily-edited videos of Planned Parenthood employees calls itself the Center for Medical Progress and is using the videos to misrepresent fetal tissue donationthe legal practice of donating fetal tissue for medical research. The group created a fake biomedicine charity and used illegal tactics to get the undercover videos. David Daleiden, the individual from the Center for Medical Progress who released the videos, has ties to violent anti-abortion groups that have been behind clinic bombings and the murders of doctors in their homes and churches. The Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing on Planned Parenthood will take place in Austin on Wednesday, July 29 at 9 am. The committee has invited only Attorney General Paxton, the Department of State Health Services, the Health & Human Services Commission, four anti-abortion groups and two Planned Parenthood medical directors to testify.

### Contact: Zoey Lichtenheld, NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, zoey@prochoicetexas.org, o: (512) 462-1661, m: (512) 920-2046