WEBVTT 00:00:00.360 --> 00:00:01.920 This investigation of Planned Parenthood, 00:00:01.920 --> 00:00:04.940 who's based on false premises, one after another after another. 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:07.650 Time to stop wasting time, get on with meaningful work. 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:11.180 And stop picking on women and trying to take their choice away. 00:00:11.200 --> 00:00:12.940 I yield back the balance of my time. 00:00:12.970 --> 00:00:15.180 The time of the gentleman has expired. 00:00:15.210 --> 00:00:17.700 We welcome our distinguished witnesses today. 00:00:17.720 --> 00:00:19.100 Do you and each of you swear 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:21.740 that the testimony that you are about to give shall be the truth, 00:00:21.760 --> 00:00:25.180 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:27.620 And I'll now begin by introducing today's witnesses. 00:00:27.650 --> 00:00:29.220 The first witness is Dr. 00:00:29.240 --> 00:00:31.020 Anthony Levatino. Dr. 00:00:31.050 --> 00:00:35.220 Levitino is a board certified obstetrician gynecologist. 00:00:35.250 --> 00:00:37.100 Over the course of his career, Dr. 00:00:37.130 --> 00:00:39.820 Levitino has practiced obstetrics 00:00:39.850 --> 00:00:43.220 and gynecology in both private and University settings, 00:00:43.250 --> 00:00:48.620 including as an associate professor of OB GYN at the Albany Medical College. 00:00:48.650 --> 00:00:50.880 And Dr. Levitino will begin with. 00:00:50.910 --> 00:00:51.620 You welcome. 00:00:51.650 --> 00:00:54.860 Thank you, chairman and members of the committee. 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.660 I only have five minutes, so I'm going to get right to it. 00:00:57.680 --> 00:01:00.100 Second Trimester D any abortions perform 00:01:00.130 --> 00:01:03.740 between roughly 14 and 24 weeks of gestation. 00:01:03.770 --> 00:01:06.050 Your patient today is 17 years old. 00:01:06.080 --> 00:01:08.050 She's 22 weeks pregnant. 00:01:08.080 --> 00:01:11.930 Her baby is the length of your hand plus a couple of inches. 00:01:11.960 --> 00:01:15.210 And she's been feeling her baby kicked for the last several weeks. 00:01:15.240 --> 00:01:17.700 But she's asleep on an operating room table. 00:01:17.730 --> 00:01:22.060 You walk into that operating room scrubbed and gown, and after removing laminaria, 00:01:22.090 --> 00:01:24.700 you introduce a suction catheter into the uterus. 00:01:24.730 --> 00:01:27.620 This is a 14 French suction catheter. 00:01:27.650 --> 00:01:29.850 If she were twelve weeks pregnant or less. 00:01:29.880 --> 00:01:31.570 Basically, the width of your hand is smaller. 00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:34.180 You could basically do the entire procedure with this. 00:01:34.210 --> 00:01:38.490 But babies this big don't fit through catheters this size. 00:01:38.520 --> 00:01:40.490 After suctioning the amniotic fluid out 00:01:40.520 --> 00:01:44.100 from around the baby, you introduce an instrument called the sofa clamp. 00:01:44.130 --> 00:01:45.570 It's about 13 inches long. 00:01:45.600 --> 00:01:47.210 It's made of stainless steel. 00:01:47.240 --> 00:01:48.880 The business end of this clamp is about 00:01:48.880 --> 00:01:51.100 two and a half inches long and a half inch wide. 00:01:51.130 --> 00:01:52.740 There are rows of sharp teeth. 00:01:52.760 --> 00:01:54.140 This is a grasping instrument. 00:01:54.170 --> 00:01:56.980 When it gets a hold of something, it does not let go. 00:01:57.010 --> 00:01:59.180 A DNA procedure is a blind abortion. 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:00.930 So picture yourself introducing this 00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:03.780 and grabbing anything you can blindly and pull. 00:02:03.810 --> 00:02:05.180 And I do mean hard. 00:02:05.210 --> 00:02:07.140 And I'll pop the leg about that big 00:02:07.170 --> 00:02:11.660 which you put down on the table next to you, reaching again, pull again. 00:02:11.690 --> 00:02:14.060 Pull out an arm about the same length 00:02:14.090 --> 00:02:16.300 which you put down on the table next to you. 00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:18.170 And use this instrument again and again 00:02:18.200 --> 00:02:22.340 to tear out the spine, the intestines, the heart and lungs. 00:02:22.370 --> 00:02:25.730 Head in the baby that size is about the size of a large plum. 00:02:25.760 --> 00:02:28.610 Can't see it, but you pretty good idea. You've got it. 00:02:28.640 --> 00:02:31.340 If you've got your instrument around something and your fingers are spread 00:02:31.370 --> 00:02:34.220 about as far as they go, you know you did it right. 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:37.220 If you crush down on the instrument, white material runs out of the cervix. 00:02:37.250 --> 00:02:40.860 That was the baby's brains and you can pull out skull pieces. 00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:42.780 You have a day like I had a lot of times. 00:02:42.810 --> 00:02:46.060 Sometimes a little face comes back and stares back at you. 00:02:46.090 --> 00:02:47.100 Congratulations. 00:02:47.130 --> 00:02:50.580 You just successfully performed a second trimester denied abortion. 00:02:50.610 --> 00:02:54.580 You just affirmed her right to choose. One more question, 00:02:54.610 --> 00:02:59.860 doctor levitino. Why did you end your practice of doing abortions? 00:02:59.890 --> 00:03:03.780 I did over 1200 abortions over a four year period in private practice. 00:03:03.810 --> 00:03:07.080 Now counting the ones that I did during my training. 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:12.060 I met my wife during my first year of training at Albany medical center. 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.940 We got married about a year later and found that we had an infertility problem. 00:03:15.970 --> 00:03:19.660 After years of failed infertility treatment and several years trying 00:03:19.690 --> 00:03:22.960 to adopt a child, we were blessed with adopting a little 00:03:22.990 --> 00:03:27.260 girl that we named Heather in August of 1978. 00:03:27.290 --> 00:03:29.420 As sometimes happens in those situations, 00:03:29.450 --> 00:03:34.760 My wife got pregnant the very next month and we had two children ten months apart, 00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:39.280 two months short of my daughter Heather's 6th birthday, she was killed in an auto 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:42.460 accident and literally died in her arms in the back of an ambulance. 00:03:42.490 --> 00:03:46.500 Anyone who has children might think they have some idea of what that feels like, 00:03:46.530 --> 00:03:50.840 but unless you've been through it yourself, you have no idea whatsoever. 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:56.610 I know people find it hard to believe, but what do you do after disaster? 00:03:56.640 --> 00:04:00.460 You bury your child and then you go back to your life. 00:04:00.490 --> 00:04:02.720 And I don't remember exactly how long it 00:04:02.750 --> 00:04:07.610 was after my daughter died that I showed up at Albany medical center or number nine 00:04:07.640 --> 00:04:10.420 to perform my 1st 2nd trimester DNA abortion. 00:04:10.440 --> 00:04:12.100 I wasn't thinking of it as anything special. 00:04:12.130 --> 00:04:14.220 This was routine to me, 00:04:14.250 --> 00:04:19.940 but I reached in, literally pulled out an arm or leg and got sick. 00:04:19.970 --> 00:04:23.900 Earlier on, I described stacking up body parts on the side of the table. 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:28.740 It's not to gross people out using a simple term. 00:04:28.770 --> 00:04:31.380 When you do an abortion, you need to keep inventory. 00:04:31.400 --> 00:04:34.660 You have to make sure you get two arms and two legs and all the pieces. 00:04:34.690 --> 00:04:39.020 If you don't, Your patient's going to come back infected, bleeding, or dead. 00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:42.260 So I soldiered on and finished that abortion. 00:04:42.280 --> 00:04:44.980 And I know it sounds like I said hard for people to believe, 00:04:45.010 --> 00:04:48.780 but I'm telling you, straight up my experience 00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:53.420 after over 1200 abortions, first and second trimester up to 24 weeks 00:04:53.440 --> 00:04:56.100 and all the rest of it, and being very dedicated to it. 00:04:56.130 --> 00:04:59.620 For the first time in my life, I really looked I really looked 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 00:05:03.880 --> 00:05:07.260 wonderful right to choose and I didn't see all the money I just made. 00:05:07.280 --> 00:05:10.020 All I could see was somebody's son or daughter. 00:05:10.040 --> 00:05:12.780 And I stopped doing late term abortions 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:17.600 after that and several months later, stopped doing all abortions. 00:05:17.720 --> 00:05:18.240 Thank you.