CONTENT WARNING: This article contains video footage and screenshots of body parts of second trimester babies aborted at Planned Parenthood that many may find disturbing.
The Planned Parenthood ‘baby parts’ scandal continued to deepen as new footage was released today by The Center for Medical Progress. The tapes show staff from Planned Parenthood’s Gulf Coast affiliate, located in Houston, Texas, engaging in negotiations over body parts from babies aborted in the second trimester.
Captured on video is Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast Director of Research Melissa Farrell discussing with a potential buyer about the best way to harvest organs from aborted babies. Farrell states at 8:05 in the video that at Planned Parenthood, “if we alter our process, we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers.” She also notes that they are willing to modify the abortion procedure to collect body parts, saying, “We deviate from our standard in order to do that.” Modifying an abortion procedure to obtain organs is prohibited under federal law.
She further notes, “we can get creative about when and where, and under what conditions, we can interject something that is specific to the tissue procurement needs.”
In a later discussion about the financial benefits of selling body parts, Farrell notes, “my department contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here.”
The arm of a baby aborted by Planned Parenthood at about 18 weeks is held up with tweezers.
One staffer is seen commenting how eyeballs often are intact and easy to find: “Orbits [eyeballs] are so easy like, 95% of the time.”
At the end of the tape, a staffer notes that, “They [Planned Parenthood national office] are encouraging more participation [in fetal tissue procurement] but they don’t want to get too into the mix of it.” Farrell later asks the staffer, “any idea why the other [Planned Parenthood] affiliates in Texas think it’s illegal?”
Live Action President Lila Rose released a hard-hitting statement blasting the disturbing actions of Planned Parenthood officials:
Beyond horrific, the latest footage from the Center for Medical Progress reveals Texas Planned Parenthood staff, including Director of Research Melissa Farrell, negotiating over the body parts of 5 month old preborn children. Planned Parenthood Director Farrell discusses altering the abortion process to deliver the baby “intact” and “splitting the specimens” to make money for the different parts, noting, “it’s all just a matter of line items.” In the abortion facility’s path lab, the Planned Parenthood workers enthusiastically show investigators an approximately 20 week old “twin” that was just aborted, removing the body parts from a bag in the freezer, and needling through the child’s parts to show the possible saleable items.
Those Senators who voted against defunding Planned Parenthood of our tax dollars yesterday must face this inconvenient truth head-on: despite the abortion giant’s thousands of dollars in contributions to their individual campaign coffers, slick advertising, and veneer of caring about women’s health, Planned Parenthood perpetrates the wholesale killing, dismemberment, and profiteering from the broken bodies of our nation’s preborn children, all while receiving over 500 million dollars a year in tax money. It’s time to end the government subsidy of Planned Parenthood and their brutal, inhuman trade of baby body parts.
The U.S. Senate has been considering ending federal funding for Planned Parenthood but Democrats voted yesterday to block this from happening. While the vote to advance the bill led 53-46, it fell short of the 60 votes needed. In 2011, a similar measure to defund Planned Parenthood was defeated 42 to 58. Considering that a majority of Senators supported the current proposal to shift funding from Planned Parenthood to other health care provides, the bill is likely to get further attention after the August recess.
Planned Parenthood has countered that defunding them would leave a gap in health coverage. Proponents of the defunding effort have pointed out that over 9,000 community health centers exist in the United States and they would see increased funding to handle more patient load if the funds currently going to Planned Parenthood were redirected. Nationally, Planned Parenthood operates about 668 clinics.
In the first tape, which has been viewed almost 3 million times, Planned Parenthood Senior Medical Director Dr. Deborah Nucatola discusses the potential sale of fetal body parts, which is illegal under federal law. The punishment for such an act is fines and/or up to 10 years in prison. She also describes her willingness to alter the abortion procedure for the purpose of better harvesting the organs. Changing the timing or method of an abortion for the purpose of collecting organs is prohibited under federal law. This video is embedded below:
Videos from a second and third high-level Planned Parenthood executive has followed that showed similar behavior and negotiations over the compensation of body parts from aborted children. In the third clinic, a Planned Parenthood technician is heard declaring that it is “another boy” while searching through the remains of a baby that was aborted at almost 12 weeks.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards has apologized for her organization saying “the tone was terribly wrong,” but stated that her organization was innocent. In the unfolding scandal, Planned Parenthood has refrained from addressing or explaining the specific statements by their staff in the videos and has, instead, unleased broad accusations against The Center for Medical Progress. Planned Parenthood alleges that the tapes are “highly edited” although full footage has been released alongside each edited highlight videos.
About ten states have moved to launch investigations into Planned Parenthood with Texas being the first to hold hearings on the matter last week. Planned Parenthood was asked to testify about their actions before the state Senate’s health committee but refused to attend.
Louisiana has been one of the first states to take concrete action with Governor Bobby Jindal announcing Monday that the state had ended its Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood. President Obama has offered support for Planned Parenthood but his staff admits that he hasn’t yet seen the undercover videos.
The Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden has indicated that around 12 tapes may be released as part of their investigation. Considering that we are seeing just the fourth clinic, much more to this story is likely to develop.
