[Update: see Abby Johnson’s open message to Dr. Nucatola: “I used to harvest fetal tissue for Planned Parenthood just like you”]
Want to crash your web site? Post a video of a Planned Parenthood doctor dining on a salad while she describes how the fetal-body-parts market fits into PP’s business model. A pair of undercover reporters posing as buyers for a biologics company captured the conversation on video for The Center for Medical Progress. The video was released today. The Center’s web site looks like this at the moment:
Allow me. Here are nine minutes of video that manage to be harrowing without a single graphic bloody image.
Let Dr. Nucatola’s words come back to you the next time you see a “Care, No Matter What” sign.
Planned Parenthood has issued a response to the video. (It’s a hoot to hear PP use the term “well-funded group” as an epithet.) From Eric Ferraro, VP of Communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different. 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. There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or Planned Parenthood. 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.
“A well-funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and services has promoted a heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research. Similar false accusations have been put forth by opponents of abortion services for decades. These groups have been widely discredited and their claims fall apart on closer examination, just as they do in this case.”
Did you catch the “lifesaving scientific research” part? Probably won’t help the dead child much. And did you notice that “fetal” never made it into the statement next to “tissue”?
Here in New Hampshire, the Executive Council will meet on July 22. In June, the Council approved family planning contracts with several agencies, but Planned Parenthood of Northern New England was conspicuous by its absence from the agenda. The biennial family planning contract for PP is usually worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Will such a contract come up on the 22nd? If it does, will Dr. Nucatola’s words give the slightest pause to the three Councilors whose support for Planned Parenthood is already a matter of public record?
Leaven for the Loaf 