Video PP official discussing fetal organs used for research

[pixy0stix]

Go to link for video

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/undercover-video-shows-planned-parenthood-exec-discussing-organ-harvesting/2015/07/14/ae330e34-2a4d-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html

An anti-abortion group on Tuesday released an undercover video of an executive at Planned Parenthood sipping red wine while discussing in graphic detail how to abort a fetus to preserve its organs for medical research — and also the costs associated with sharing that tissue with scientists.

The video, filmed by a group called the Center for Medical Progress, threatens to reignite a long-standing debate over the use of fetal tissue harvested through abortions, and could add fuel to efforts seeking to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

In a statement, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood said the video misrepresents the organization’s work. Planned Parenthood clinics, with a patient’s permission, may sometimes donate fetal tissue for use in stem-cell research, said the spokesperson, who added that the group’s affiliates, which operate independently, do not profit from these donations.

“At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does—with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards,” spokesman Eric Ferrero said. “In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.”

He accused the Center for Medical Progress of mounting a misleading attack, similar to other groups that have tried to mount undercover “stings” targeting Planned Parenthood.

But anti-abortion groups said the video shows that Planned Parenthood is essentially selling fetal organs and that Congress and other authorities should investigate.

Buying and selling human fetal tissue is illegal in the United States. Federal regulations also prohibit anyone from altering the timing or method of an abortion for the sole purpose of later using the tissue in research. Donating the tissue for research, however, is legal with a woman’s consent.

Anti-abortion groups also said the callous nature of the discussion captured on film should tug at viewers’ consciences — particularly when Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical research, apparently describes “crushing” the fetus in ways that keep its internal organs intact, and her remarks about researchers’ desire for lungs and livers.


“I’d say a lot of people want liver,” she says in the video posted on the Center for Medical Progress’s Web site, between bites of salad. “And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.”

She continues: “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.”

The group also posted a nearly three-hour version of the video that it’s calling the “full footage.” Over lunch at a Los Angeles-area restaurant, the unidentified activists, a man and a woman, told Nucatola they worked for a fetal tissue collection center that aimed to snare “a competitive advantage” by providing local samples for researchers who’d like to avoid lengthy trips between clinic and lab. They said they worked in Norwalk, a suburb of Los Angeles.

“Every provider has patients who want to donate their tissue, and they want to accommodate them,” says Nucatola. “They just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as: This clinic is selling tissue. This clinic is making money off this. In the Planned Parenthood world, they’re very, very sensitive to that. Some affiliates might do it for free. They want to come to a number that looks like a reasonable number for the effort that is allotted on their part...”

One activist asks, “Okay, so, when you are—or when the affiliate is—determining what that monetary...So that it doesn’t raise the question of...‘This is what it’s about...’—What price range would you...?”

“You know, I would throw a number out, I would say it’s probably anywhere from $30 to $100, depending on the facility and what’s involved,” says Nucatola. “It just has to do with space issues, are you sending someone there that’s going to be doing everything...is there shipping involved? Is someone going to be there to pick it up?”

The Center for Medical Progress was established by David Daleiden, a controversial anti-abortion activist who previously worked with Live Action, another anti-abortion group known for its “stings” of Planned Parenthood using actors and undercover videos.

The group is a non-profit organization that describes itself on its Web site as “a group of citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances.”

In a press call Tuesday morning, Daleiden said the videos were the product of a 30-month investigation by the group and promised more videos and documents supporting his allegations in the coming weeks.

A number of Republicans reacted Tuesday to the video.

“I am proudly pro-life,” wrote presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Facebook. “I believe that every human lie has the potential and that every human life is precious. This latest news is tragic and outrageous.”

“This video is beyond disturbing,” said Arizona Sen. John McCain on Twitter.

Daleiden also alleges that the procedure described by Nucatola is similar to “intact dilation and extraction,” referred to by opponents as partial-birth abortion, which Congress outlawed in 2003. The Supreme Court upheld the law’s constitutionality four years later.

As embryonic stem cell research continues to gain prominence, fetal tissue donations today are often used to gain deeper anatomical understanding, said Arthur Caplan, director of New York University’s Division of Medical Ethics. The practice, however, is problematic if an abortion provider goes into a procedure with the primary intention of preserving a liver, he said.

“I think the only relevant goal of an abortion clinic is to provide a safe and least risky abortion to a woman,” Caplan said. “If you’re starting to play with how it’s done, and when it’s done, other things than women’s health are coming into play. You’re making a huge mountain of conflict of interest around a period for many people is morally difficult.”

Whether the authorities ultimately find illegal activity could ultimately be irrelevant. For years, anti-abortion groups promoted their cause by highlighting the sometimes disturbing details of abortion procedures and painting abortion providers as callous and unethical.

They have argued against allowing abortions later in pregnancy by suggesting that older fetuses can feel pain and are pushing for a federal ban on the procedure at 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The accusation that Planned Parenthood is illegally selling the organs of fetuses is not new among anti-abortion advocates. The controversy gained national attention in 2000, following the publication of an undercover investigation by a Texas-based anti-abortion group, Life Dynamics, which was also involved in the Tuesday release.

The investigation’s conclusion, that a Kansas clinic affiliated with Planned Parenthood was participating in a scheme to profit from the sale of fetal tissues, prompted a 20/20 hidden camera investigation on the subject, and a hearing of the Subcommittee on Health and Environment in the House of Representatives.

The FBI also investigated the Kansas clinic for any wrongdoing, but later concluded that it did not break any laws.

[IIOY]

I haven't read up on this at all, but according to The Guardian, PP is saying the tissue is donated at the patient's direction and with no financial benefit.


Planned Parenthood’s US headquarters has denied that an eight-minute undercover video shows the abortion provider’s medical director offering to sell fetal body parts to a tissue procurement company, as a pro-life group has claimed.



“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different,” Planned Parenthood’s vice president for communications, Eric Ferrero, said in a statement.



“There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned Parenthood,” the statement said. “In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.”

More here: The Guardian

[josieposy]

Well that explains twitter today.

[Velar Fricative]

The "selling" of fetal tissue is a straw man. I think people are just more aghast by the graphic details.

[darnkatz]

I need an adult. I have someone who keeps claiming that the PP woman is saying she sells the organs for $30-$100. I can't watch the video right now. Is that some bullshit from LifeSiteNews?

[msmerymac]

Jul 14, 2015 18:00:26 GMT -5 darnkatz said:

I need an adult. I have someone who keeps claiming that the PP woman is saying she sells the organs for $30-$100. I can't watch the video right now. Is that some bullshit from LifeSiteNews?

Worse: Matt Walsh

[secretlyevil]

My tin foil hat wearer in me says it was all faked.

[mcfelix]

I didn't watch the video, and assuming it's fake that fetal organs are being sold for research... I have no issue with aborted fetuses being used for medical research. The more opportunities for research that could lead to medic advances, the better, imo. I donated my cord blood to company that matches people in need, but it is used for medical research if there's no match. I have zero problems with that.

[NewOrleans]

Sounds legit.

[sushi]

I can and have donated blood and platelets. I'd donate cordblood. I'm on the bone marrow registry (and in Hawaii that would have included a stay on the mainland for me and my support person, all expenses covered). If a friend/family member needed a kidney, I'd see if I was a match. After harvesting organs, I want my dead body to go to the fbi body farm if possible. If not, corpse can go to a medical school. They can play catch with my bladder for all I care.

So you can imagine I have no problem with this.

What I do have a problem with is these groups not only trying to control what I can do with my body but also trying to control what I do with comes out of it. Next thing you know, they'll be demanding that women's poo smell like roses (see how slippery slope logical fallacies work?)

[Deleted]

I love it. Use the aborted fetus to save all the other babies and adults.

[lyssbobiss, Command, B613]

I saw some people posting about the "secret video" which was good for thinning out my FB friends list. And then I read the response from PP and I was like "I knew you wouldn't let me down, PP. let's be best friends."

[ESF]

Wonkette's take down of it is legitimately excellent.

wonkette.com/591066/why-is-planned-parenthood-selling-your-babby-for-scrap-oh-right-its-not

TL;DR - person who created it has a history of running smear campaigns against Planned Parenthood using heavily edited videos. The actual video is not eight minutes long. It was edited down from a THREE HOUR long video, and Snopes watched the whole thing and found no evidence that PP is doing anything it is accused of doing.

[NewOrleans]

Jul 15, 2015 9:23:46 GMT -5 ESF said:

Wonkette's take down of it is legitimately excellent.

wonkette.com/591066/why-is-planned-parenthood-selling-your-babby-for-scrap-oh-right-its-not

TL;DR - person who created it has a history of running smear campaigns against Planned Parenthood using heavily edited videos. The actual video is not eight minutes long. It was edited down from a THREE HOUR long video, and Snopes watched the whole thing and found no evidence that PP is doing anything it is accused of doing.

LOL, do you think evidence matters?  Facts? #antiintellectualism

[saz]

Glad to see this info - I tried to research yesterday when a few of my friends started posting this crap, and there wasn't much out there yet.