1 00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:01,920 This investigation of Planned Parenthood, 2 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:04,940 who's based on false premises, one after another after another. 3 00:00:04,960 --> 00:00:07,650 Time to stop wasting time, get on with meaningful work. 4 00:00:07,680 --> 00:00:11,180 And stop picking on women and trying to take their choice away. 5 00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:12,940 I yield back the balance of my time. 6 00:00:12,970 --> 00:00:15,180 The time of the gentleman has expired. 7 00:00:15,210 --> 00:00:17,700 We welcome our distinguished witnesses today. 8 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:19,100 Do you and each of you swear 9 00:00:19,120 --> 00:00:21,740 that the testimony that you are about to give shall be the truth, 10 00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:25,180 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 11 00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:27,620 And I'll now begin by introducing today's witnesses. 12 00:00:27,650 --> 00:00:29,220 The first witness is Dr. 13 00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:31,020 Anthony Levatino. Dr. 14 00:00:31,050 --> 00:00:35,220 Levitino is a board certified obstetrician gynecologist. 15 00:00:35,250 --> 00:00:37,100 Over the course of his career, Dr. 16 00:00:37,130 --> 00:00:39,820 Levitino has practiced obstetrics 17 00:00:39,850 --> 00:00:43,220 and gynecology in both private and University settings, 18 00:00:43,250 --> 00:00:48,620 including as an associate professor of OB GYN at the Albany Medical College. 19 00:00:48,650 --> 00:00:50,880 And Dr. Levitino will begin with. 20 00:00:50,910 --> 00:00:51,620 You welcome. 21 00:00:51,650 --> 00:00:54,860 Thank you, chairman and members of the committee. 22 00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:57,660 I only have five minutes, so I'm going to get right to it. 23 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:00,100 Second Trimester D any abortions perform 24 00:01:00,130 --> 00:01:03,740 between roughly 14 and 24 weeks of gestation. 25 00:01:03,770 --> 00:01:06,050 Your patient today is 17 years old. 26 00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:08,050 She's 22 weeks pregnant. 27 00:01:08,080 --> 00:01:11,930 Her baby is the length of your hand plus a couple of inches. 28 00:01:11,960 --> 00:01:15,210 And she's been feeling her baby kicked for the last several weeks. 29 00:01:15,240 --> 00:01:17,700 But she's asleep on an operating room table. 30 00:01:17,730 --> 00:01:22,060 You walk into that operating room scrubbed and gown, and after removing laminaria, 31 00:01:22,090 --> 00:01:24,700 you introduce a suction catheter into the uterus. 32 00:01:24,730 --> 00:01:27,620 This is a 14 French suction catheter. 33 00:01:27,650 --> 00:01:29,850 If she were twelve weeks pregnant or less. 34 00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:31,570 Basically, the width of your hand is smaller. 35 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:34,180 You could basically do the entire procedure with this. 36 00:01:34,210 --> 00:01:38,490 But babies this big don't fit through catheters this size. 37 00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:40,490 After suctioning the amniotic fluid out 38 00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:44,100 from around the baby, you introduce an instrument called the sofa clamp. 39 00:01:44,130 --> 00:01:45,570 It's about 13 inches long. 40 00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:47,210 It's made of stainless steel. 41 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:48,880 The business end of this clamp is about 42 00:01:48,880 --> 00:01:51,100 two and a half inches long and a half inch wide. 43 00:01:51,130 --> 00:01:52,740 There are rows of sharp teeth. 44 00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:54,140 This is a grasping instrument. 45 00:01:54,170 --> 00:01:56,980 When it gets a hold of something, it does not let go. 46 00:01:57,010 --> 00:01:59,180 A DNA procedure is a blind abortion. 47 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:00,930 So picture yourself introducing this 48 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:03,780 and grabbing anything you can blindly and pull. 49 00:02:03,810 --> 00:02:05,180 And I do mean hard. 50 00:02:05,210 --> 00:02:07,140 And I'll pop the leg about that big 51 00:02:07,170 --> 00:02:11,660 which you put down on the table next to you, reaching again, pull again. 52 00:02:11,690 --> 00:02:14,060 Pull out an arm about the same length 53 00:02:14,090 --> 00:02:16,300 which you put down on the table next to you. 54 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:18,170 And use this instrument again and again 55 00:02:18,200 --> 00:02:22,340 to tear out the spine, the intestines, the heart and lungs. 56 00:02:22,370 --> 00:02:25,730 Head in the baby that size is about the size of a large plum. 57 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:28,610 Can't see it, but you pretty good idea. You've got it. 58 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:31,340 If you've got your instrument around something and your fingers are spread 59 00:02:31,370 --> 00:02:34,220 about as far as they go, you know you did it right. 60 00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:37,220 If you crush down on the instrument, white material runs out of the cervix. 61 00:02:37,250 --> 00:02:40,860 That was the baby's brains and you can pull out skull pieces. 62 00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:42,780 You have a day like I had a lot of times. 63 00:02:42,810 --> 00:02:46,060 Sometimes a little face comes back and stares back at you. 64 00:02:46,090 --> 00:02:47,100 Congratulations. 65 00:02:47,130 --> 00:02:50,580 You just successfully performed a second trimester denied abortion. 66 00:02:50,610 --> 00:02:54,580 You just affirmed her right to choose. One more question, 67 00:02:54,610 --> 00:02:59,860 doctor levitino. Why did you end your practice of doing abortions? 68 00:02:59,890 --> 00:03:03,780 I did over 1200 abortions over a four year period in private practice. 69 00:03:03,810 --> 00:03:07,080 Now counting the ones that I did during my training. 70 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:12,060 I met my wife during my first year of training at Albany medical center. 71 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:15,940 We got married about a year later and found that we had an infertility problem. 72 00:03:15,970 --> 00:03:19,660 After years of failed infertility treatment and several years trying 73 00:03:19,690 --> 00:03:22,960 to adopt a child, we were blessed with adopting a little 74 00:03:22,990 --> 00:03:27,260 girl that we named Heather in August of 1978. 75 00:03:27,290 --> 00:03:29,420 As sometimes happens in those situations, 76 00:03:29,450 --> 00:03:34,760 My wife got pregnant the very next month and we had two children ten months apart, 77 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:39,280 two months short of my daughter Heather's 6th birthday, she was killed in an auto 78 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:42,460 accident and literally died in her arms in the back of an ambulance. 79 00:03:42,490 --> 00:03:46,500 Anyone who has children might think they have some idea of what that feels like, 80 00:03:46,530 --> 00:03:50,840 but unless you've been through it yourself, you have no idea whatsoever. 81 00:03:52,280 --> 00:03:56,610 I know people find it hard to believe, but what do you do after disaster? 82 00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:00,460 You bury your child and then you go back to your life. 83 00:04:00,490 --> 00:04:02,720 And I don't remember exactly how long it 84 00:04:02,750 --> 00:04:07,610 was after my daughter died that I showed up at Albany medical center or number nine 85 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:10,420 to perform my 1st 2nd trimester DNA abortion. 86 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:12,100 I wasn't thinking of it as anything special. 87 00:04:12,130 --> 00:04:14,220 This was routine to me, 88 00:04:14,250 --> 00:04:19,940 but I reached in, literally pulled out an arm or leg and got sick. 89 00:04:19,970 --> 00:04:23,900 Earlier on, I described stacking up body parts on the side of the table. 90 00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:28,740 It's not to gross people out using a simple term. 91 00:04:28,770 --> 00:04:31,380 When you do an abortion, you need to keep inventory. 92 00:04:31,400 --> 00:04:34,660 You have to make sure you get two arms and two legs and all the pieces. 93 00:04:34,690 --> 00:04:39,020 If you don't, Your patient's going to come back infected, bleeding, or dead. 94 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:42,260 So I soldiered on and finished that abortion. 95 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:44,980 And I know it sounds like I said hard for people to believe, 96 00:04:45,010 --> 00:04:48,780 but I'm telling you, straight up my experience 97 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:53,420 after over 1200 abortions, first and second trimester up to 24 weeks 98 00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:56,100 and all the rest of it, and being very dedicated to it. 99 00:04:56,130 --> 00:04:59,620 For the first time in my life, I really looked I really looked 100 00:04:59,650 --> 00:05:03,860 at that pile of body parts on the side of the table and I didn't see her 101 00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:07,260 wonderful right to choose and I didn't see all the money I just made. 102 00:05:07,280 --> 00:05:10,020 All I could see was somebody's son or daughter. 103 00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:12,780 And I stopped doing late term abortions 104 00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:17,600 after that and several months later, stopped doing all abortions. 105 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:18,240 Thank you.