Group Claims Planned Parenthood Sells Fetal Tissue

Emotions run high on all sides when abortion makes the news, but they seem to be as high as ever after a video was released showing a top Planned Parenthood official discussing money and fetus parts.

A local Planned Parenthood branch is located on Powell Street at the Norristown Health Center.

Controversy began Tuesday when the Center For Medical Progress posted a video that it claimed to show Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, Deborah Nucatol, talking about selling aborted fetus parts for money. It drew reaction from religious leaders and politicians who want Planned Parenthood shut down for illegal medical practices.

Planned Parenthood says it’s doing nothing illegal or unethical.

It says tissue is being donated for research with consent from patients, and the only money it receives is for associated costs, such as transporting samples.

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz and other republican leaders have jumped on the issue, calling for a full investigation into Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, democratic leaders continue to defend Planned Parenthood, saying that its claims are legitimate and their practices legal.

To understand what both sides are saying, let’s go back to the beginning.

The Center For Medical Progress, which describes itself as “a group of citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances,” sent out a news release Tuesday as the first part of what it calls a three-year investigation into Planned Parenthood.

The release includes an edited video of Nucatola talking to actors from the center posing as buyers from a biology company.

“A lot of people want intact hearts these days, because they’re looking for specific nodes,” she says in the video. “Some people want lower extremities, too, which, that’s simple. I mean, that’s easy.”

She goes on to say, “every provider has had patients who want to donate their tissue, and they absolutely want to accommodate them. 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 of this.’”

Selling parts like that would be illegal.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it is against the law “to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce.”

But Planned Parenthood argues the discussions were mischaracterized, and that everything it does is perfectly legal and not for profit.

The group said in an initial statement that it helps women who want to donate tissue for research.

“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,” the statement says.

In a second statement to The Hill, it said that it can be reimbursed for “additional expenses related tissue donation, which can vary based on individual circumstance.”

A nearly three-hour, unedited video, later released by the Center, includes Nucatola talking about a price of “$30 to $100,” but this video makes more clear that she is referring only to money that can be accepted for money associated with donating and transporting the samples.

There is also speculation over exactly who is behind the Center for Medical Progress, what their intentions are and how legitimate the organization is. Planned Parenthood called it “a well funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and services.”

Gawker notes that while there are currently only two posts on the organization’s website, Google cache shows a number of posts from May 2013 that have now been deleted.

And the web site Snopes says that the Center is run by Daniel Daleiden, who has tight ties to James O’Keefe. O’Keefe is best known for his role in the 2009 undercover sting of ACORN, in which he edited together video clips to change conversations and context.

O’Keefe was also arrested in January 2010 while trying to make secret recordings of Senator Mary Landrieu while dressed as phone repairman.