Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, Senior Medical Advisor for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is seen on The Center for Medical Progress’s tenth video, discussing how certain Planned Parenthood affiliates are very familiar with the process of providing aborted fetal body parts. In the uncut video, Westhoff is seen asking the actor (posing as a potential buyer) about what kinds of tissue they want for research, saying, “You only do fresh tissue, you don’t do frozen?” She continues, saying they’ve been “working with people who want particular tissues”:
… Like, you know, they want cardiac, or they want eyes, or they want neural. People want spinal cords, so I mean, that sort of thing. Certainly, everything we provide–oh, gonads! Oh my God, gonads. Everything we provide is fresh.
Westhoff should know all about “fresh” human body parts. After all, on April 2, 2004, Westhoff testified in the case of National Abortion Federation, et. al. v. Ashcroft, in which she was among several physicians (including infamous late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart) and organizations seeking to “permanently enjoin enforcement of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.”
Yes, this partial-birth abortion.
Westhoff was questioned in depth about her participation in partial-birth abortion, and whether or not she and other abortionists were honest with patients about what occurs in such procedures (they weren’t). She also admitted that she dances around the question of fetal pain if a patient asks – even though she has seen fetal pain reactions:
THE COURT: What do you tell them, does the fetus feel pain or not when they ask?
THE WITNESS: What I tell them is that the subject of the fetal pain and whether a fetus can appreciate pain is a subject of some research and controversy and that I don’t know to what extent the fetus can feel pain but that its —
THE COURT: Do you tell them it feels some pain?
THE WITNESS: I do know that when we do, for instance an amniocentesis and put a needle through the abdomen into the amniotic cavity that the fetus withdraws so I certainly know based on my experience that the fetus with [sic] withdraw in response it a painful stimulus.
Later, she answers, “No, I don’t,” when asked whether or not she feels patients need to know that, in a partial-birth abortion, the “head is collapsed or crushed….” She said that information “would be distressing to my patients and would not — information about that is not directly relevant to their safety.”
But aside from the lack of desire to inform women about the gruesomeness that really happens during an abortion, let’s go back to Westhoff’s comments about the “freshness” of fetal body parts. Here is another interaction, under oath (“Q” is the Court, “A” is Westhoff):
Q. When you perform an intact D&E, Dr. Westhoff, is the fetus living when you commence vaginal delivery?A. Although I don’t always check for it, I believe there is usually a heartbeat and that the fetus is living.
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Q. And at the time you either cut the umbilical cord or collapse the skull, is the fetus living?A. Yes.
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Q. Dr. Westhoff, do you make it a practice either to effect fetal demise by using potassium chloride, as we have heard about, or injecting a toxin into the amniotic sac prior to the time that you effect a surgical evacuation of the uterus?A. No, Mr. Hut, I usually do not do so
Q. Why not?
A. The main reason that it is an additional procedure that does not offer any benefit to the woman that I am taking care of. The procedure itself is not trivial, it can be difficult to accomplish, can fail, and has some risks. Those are the main reasons I do not use this procedure.”
Are we now – in light of multiple videos which prove that fetal body parts are of high value to researchers and others – supposed to believe that Westhoff’s “main reason” for not using a feticide (a chemical injected into the preborn child to cause cardiac arrest) such as digoxin is really because it “does not offer any benefit to the woman”? Or is it really because it would make the fetal body parts completely unfit for use by procurement agencies and researchers? A point to ponder.
PPFA Medical Director, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, expressed willingness to alter an abortion procedure (which is against federal law) in CMP’s first video. She knew that changing the presentation of the preborn child in utero (“convert[ing] to breech”) would provide better organs for procurement.
The award-winning Dr. Carolyn “Fresh” Westhoff and her cohorts who objected to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 knew this, too.
