Conservative commentator Dustin Siggins recently said that for Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, “it’s going to take actual guts.” Well, the abortion chain’s latest scandal has plenty of those. It also features hearts, lungs, kidneys, and “as many intact livers as possible.”
That came to light a few weeks ago when the Center for Medical Progress released a video of Dr. Deborah Nucatola. Nucatola is Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, and she’s shown having lunch with individuals she believed were from a fetal tissue procurement company.
Over the course of the meeting, Nucatola says that Planned Parenthood affiliates want to “do a little better than break even” when transferring organs harvested from aborted babies. The fact that making money off the sale of fetal tissue is illegal didn’t seem to trouble her.
Neither did other crimes. At four minutes and ten seconds into the video above, Nucatola appears to condone the use of partial-birth abortion–a practice that’s been outlawed since 2003. And, although it’s against the law to alter the way an abortion is performed in order to facilitate the harvesting of organs, Nucatola describes doing exactly that:
We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.
When you’re reading this, keep in mind that Dr. Nucatola performs abortions up to twenty four weeks. Evidence suggests that a baby can feel pain by week twenty.
While not addressing the issue of partial birth abortion, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards responded to the video by asserting that her group doesn’t profit “in any way” from the transfer of human tissue. I’m sure that many people believed Richards and felt she should be given the benefit of the doubt. Or at least they did; the next video made that kind of hard to do.
It showed Dr. Mary Gatter, president of Planned Parenthood’s medical directors council, also discussing the sale of fetal body parts. Like Nucatola, Gatter talks about illegally changing how abortions are performed to make organ collection easier. She’s just more brazen about it.
Let me explain to you a little bit of a problem, which may not be a big problem. If our usual technique is suction, at 10 to 12 weeks, and we switch to using an IPAS [manual vacuum aspirator] or something with less suction, in order to increase the odds that it will come out as an intact specimen, then we’re kind of violating the protocol that says to the patient, “We’re not doing anything different in our care for you.”
While most people would consider treating a patient that way unethical, Gatter doesn’t think it’s a big deal:
Now, to me, that’s kind of a specious little argument, and I wouldn’t object to asking Ian — who’s our surgeon who does the cases — to use an IPAS at that gestational stage, in order to increase the odds that he’s going to get an intact specimen.
Getting those intact specimens is important to Dr. Gatter. As she puts it, “I want a Lamborghini.”
And now there’s video number three. At this point, Cecile Richards is asking journalists not to bring the subject up. I can understand why; defending what’s on the third video is pretty much impossible.
It includes undercover footage of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the cash value of aborted children, pieces of whom are sitting in front of them. It also features Holly O’Donnell, a phlebotomist whose job was to salvage their organs. What she describe is disturbing; what you see is worse.
Of course, this scandal is just one of a series that include committing gendercide, fraud, and helping sexual predators to cover up abuse. Despite all of this, Planned Parenthood continues to receive over half a billion dollars in federal funding every year.
If you don’t agree with that, then sign Live Action’s petition calling on Congress to change it. You can also sign the petition at WhiteHouse.gov seeking criminal prosecution for Planned Parenthood’s activities. Doing those things shouldn’t take guts–we’ve seen enough already.
