The 6o-page transcript of the recorded conversation between Planned Parenthood’s medical director Deborah Nucatola and investigators from the Center for Medical Progress is quite disturbing. If you can’t stomach the entire document, here are the quotes I believe we must contemplate:
1) PP: So, I decided to go to graduate school, and then I hung out with all the Ortho people, and I said No, this definitely isn’t for me. But I really liked babies, believe it or not. And I said ok, I’m going to be a pediatrician.
“Believe it or not”? Why wouldn’t anyone believe the doctor likes babies when all she does is remove tissue for a living? Come on, lets be real. It’s 2015 and we all know we’re talking about babies. Her own words betray her.
2) Buyer: So, normally how are you guys disposing of it when it’s not being donated? Is it going to Stericycle?
PP: … a lot of waste is just steam sterilized and then dumped. If it’s biological waste it has to be incinerated, it has to be tagged for incineration, that adds cost.
People are horrified over the fact that baby parts are being sold, and rightly so. Yet, is the alternative of them going to incinerators any better? How can anyone who’s learned the history of Nazi Germany be okay with this?
3) PP: I think for affiliates, at the end of the day, they’re a non-profit, they just don’t want to—they want to break even. And if they can do a little better than break even, and do so in a way that seems reasonable, they’re happy to do that.
If Planned Parenthood is only looking to be reimbursed for tissue procurement, then why does Dr. Nucatola mention affiliates wanting to do a little better than break even?
4) Buyer: If you’ve got that in the back of your mind, if you’re aware of that, technically, how much of a difference can that actually make if you know kind of what’s expected or what we need…
PP: It makes a huge difference. I’d say a lot of people want liver. And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.
“For that reason”? Abortions have risks, including leaving fetal remains behind and perforated uteruses. If women’s health is the top priority for Planned Parenthood then shouldn’t THAT be the reason for ultrasound-guided abortions, and shouldn’t more women receive them?
5) PP: Because number 1, the Federal Abortion Ban is a law, and laws are up to interpretation.
Are laws up to our own interpretation? I doubt that’s what the Supreme Court had in mind when they banned the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion. Dr. Nucatola implies she’s willing to bend laws for her own benefit. This is unethical and it makes you wonder if Planned Parenthood thinks it’s above the law.
6) Buyer: Yea, speaking of which, you don’t have, by chance, on you a copy of PPFA tissue procurement guidelines or anything like that.
PP: There are no guidelines.
Buyer: Not written.
PP: They’re guidelines on research, but there are no guidelines on tissue procurement.
Buyer: Okay.
PP: And there will never be guidelines…
Buyer: I guess, even in terms of compensation and stuff like that?
PP: Nothing is written. There’s nothing in stone.
As Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood said in a recent article, a lack of guidelines create loopholes. Prices can be raised based on an individual’s preference. That is one way PP can increase funds through this process.
7) PP: There was a patient that was transferred to me, from an outside clinic, who had had a D&E, dilation and evacuation, late second trimester abortion, she was bleeding… I met her in the emergency room and I saw her and she was as white as this napkin, and I still remember her name, I remember everything about her, and she looked up at me, and she said, “Don’t let me die.” And she actually bled to death.
This is the reason Dr. Nucatola says she became an abortion doctor. She said, “I probably had a very different reaction than most people would.” If only that death caused by another abortion doctor had awakened her to the reality that abortion harms women. We hear of back alley abortions, yet what about this woman? Her story wasn’t told, and like others, her death is seen as a casualty to a protected ‘right.’
My heart aches for the women who die from abortion, the children sent to the incinerators, and for Dr.Nucatola. Her intelligence and care could have been used to advance life, not to take it. Maybe it’s not too late.
