Planned Parenthood Responds to Undercover Video
Planned Parenthood’s Deborah Nucatola was secretly videotaped over a meal, purportedly explaining how Planned Parenthood sells tissue from aborted fetuses. (Photo: Center For Medical Progress)
A new video showing a top-level Planned Parenthood official supposedly discussing the sale of body parts of aborted fetuses has put abortion back in the headlines today, particularly in conservative outlets.
The eight-minute clip features Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, at what appears to be a routine business lunch. But the unseen people at her table inquiring about fetal organs are actually investigators posing as members of a fetal-tissue procurement company.
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Filmed and released by a Calif.-based organization called the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), the footage implies that Planned Parenthood violates federal law by selling fetal tissue, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Planned Parenthood strongly denies the accusation. In a statement released to Yahoo Parenting, Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications, notes that Planned Parenthood donates fetal tissue “to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs,” which is not illegal. “There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or Planned Parenthood,” the statement continues.
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The conversation on the video clip (released by CMP in long form on YouTube), can be graphic. When one of the “investigators” asks about prices, Nucatola replies, “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.” The fake rep then clarifies, “The $30 to $100 price range, that’s per specimen that we’re talking about, right?” Nucatola answers, “Per specimen. Yes.”
Planned Parenthood states that the “price range” refers to the cost to donate tissue. “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,” Ferrero notes. “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.”
Representatives from CMP did not respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment. On the organization’s website, which was down for much of the afternoon on Tuesday, CMP identifies itself a collection of “citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances. We are concerned about contemporary bioethical issues that impact human dignity, and we oppose any interventions, procedures, and experiments that exploit the unequal legal status of any class of human beings.”
But Planned Parenthood further explains that the accusation of selling fetal body parts is old and unfounded, and that CMP has clear ulterior motives, noting, “The promotional video mischaracterizing Planned Parenthood’s mission and services is made by a long time anti-abortion activist that has used deceptive and unethical video editing, and that has created a fake medical website as well as a fake human tissue website that purports to provide services to stem cell researchers.”
The statement continues, “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.”
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