Sunday, November 06, 2016

Planned Parenthood Harvesting Baby Body Parts


Planned Parenthood's Macabre Baby Body Parts Business

by Rita Diller - NOVEMBER 01, 2015

Planned Parenthood is always on script when it knows the media is watching. The script paints a picture of an organization that cares—no matter what. It bills itself as a champion and savior of women, a friend to adolescents, and an irreplaceable, trusted health resource.

But what if someone caught Planned Parenthood officials on video showing their true colors—speaking to those they believe to be in their camp, and blowing the Planned Parenthood facade wide open. That’s precisely what David Daleiden, the founder of The Center for Medical Progress accomplished through CMP’s 30-month investigative study of Planned Parenthood’s baby body parts business.

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CMP’s Human Capital video series provides a rare glimpse into the closely guarded Planned Parenthood baby body parts business. The videos feature inside conversations with high-level PP employees—conversations about procuring body parts and the compensation the abortion giant wants to receive in exchange. The viewer sees shocking images of a PP pathology lab where pieces of babies just ripped from their mothers’ wombs sit in clear pie plates. They are illuminated from underneath. Here technicians eagerly search for body parts that will be sent to researchers, sometimes in piecemeal fashion—glands and organs to one location, skin to another.

Cutting a baby boy’s face open to harvest his brain
As the videos roll, a picture emerges of a cold-blooded, callous organization so focused on increasing its economic bottom line that its abortionists plan their workday around procuring saleable specimens. PP officials acknowledge willingness to prolong painful abortions and alter abortion procedures in order to obtain more intact fetal cadavers for harvesting the body pieces that are on the day’s list of income opportunities.

We see the real PP—the company that, for economic gain, invited procurement technicians inside its facility to cut an aborted baby boy’s face open with scissors to harvest his brain—the same intact baby boy whose heart was being manipulated to beat minutes earlier by tapping it with a medical instrument.

PP executive wants a Lamborghini
The video contents are shocking from start to finish, with jaw-dropping statements coming from the highest levels of PP. Dr. Mary Gatter, during negotiations with undercover investigators about what she wants to receive for body parts procured from aborted babies, laughs and says, “I want a Lamborghini.” Gatter is president of the Medical Directors’ Council of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).

While discussing the compensation PP would want to receive for fetal parts, Gatter suggests a “less crunchy” technique for aborting first trimester babies in order to obtain more intact fetal parts.

Admissions by PPFA Director of Medical Services
Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Senior Director of Medical Services for PPFA, describes how some abortionists will turn the baby from a head first position to a breech position before beginning the abortion to cause further dilation as the abortion progresses. This enables the baby’s head to be delivered intact, making it possible to harvest skull contents. This is the same type of fetal manipulation that is used in illegal artial birth abortions.

“You never have enough dilation at the beginning of a case unless you have real huge amount of dilation, to deliver an intact calvarium [head],” Nucatola explains. “So if you do it starting at the breech presentation, there is dilation that goes on and often, the last step, you can evacuate an intact calvarium at the end,” she says.

It’s a ‘reasonable’ way to make money for PP
Talking about the income provided from procurement of baby body parts, Nucatola says, “I think at the end of the day, [Planned Parenthood] affiliates—they are still a nonprofit—they want to break even. And if they can do a little better than break even, in a way that, you know, seems reasonable, they are happy to do that.” Only in the evil, warped world of PP would harvesting the eyes and gonads of babies seem like a “reasonable” way to increase income.

Nucatola describes how she plans her workday around baby body part procurement by looking at the day’s list of requests before beginning work. “I knew exactly what was needed . . . so I knew which were the cases that were probably more likely to yield what we needed and I made my decisions according to that.”

It’s a matter of line items
Dissecting intact babies and sending their parts to different locations is just a matter of line items for Melissa Farrell, Director of Research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. “If we alter our process and we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers,” she says while hidden cameras roll, “then we can make it part of the budget—that any dissections are this, and splitting the specimens into different shipments is this . . . It’s all just a matter of line items.”

Fresh eyes and gonads!
Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, Senior Medical Advisor for PPFA, talks about the freshness of specific body parts that have been in demand. “We’ve just been working with people who want particular tissues, like, you know, they want cardiac, or they want eyes, or they want neural,” she says. “Certainly, everything we provide—Oh, gonads! Oh my God, gonads. Everything we provide is fresh.”

She and other PP officials expressed great concern about what would happen if the public became aware of the body parts business. “Obviously, we would have the potential for a huge PR issue in doing this,” she says to an investigator she believes is a potential buyer.

‘This could destroy us.’

Deborah VanDerhei is the National Director for PPFA’s Consortium of Abortion Providers. She also weighs in with concern about the fallout that would result if the public knew about the money PP receives for baby body parts. “I have been talking to the executive director of the National Abortion Federation,” she says. “We’re trying to figure this out as an industry, about how we’re going to manage remuneration, because the headlines would be a disaster.”

“We have independent colleagues who generate a fair amount of income doing this,” VanDerhei continues.

VanDerhei makes it clear that the harvesting and exchange of body parts will not be discussed in writing.  “It’s an issue that you might imagine we’re not really that comfortable talking about on email,” she says.

In addition to headlines, the fact that PP is likely breaking the law should be a huge concern. The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a federal felony, punishable by fines and up to ten years in prison.

Dr. Vanessa Cullins, PPFA Vice President of External Medical Affairs, seems very aware of the potential legal problems. “This is important,” she tells a person she thinks is a potential buyer. “This could destroy your organization and us, if we don’t time those conversations correctly.”

PP’s long-term body parts business
Dr. Katherine Sheehan, the former Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, reveals that PP has been involved in the baby body parts business for over ten years, working with a procurement company known as Advanced Bioscience Resources, and that the government is involved as well. “We’ve been using [ABR] for over 10 years, really a long time, you know, just kind of renegotiated the contract,” Sheehan says. “They’re doing the big government-level collections and things like that.”

“Service fees” and body parts picking lists
ABR’s “service fee schedule” in the video footage shows a fee of $550 per specimen for first trimester fetal cadaverous specimen procurement.

The video footage also reveals a daily procurement list, known as a task page. It contains a picking list of body parts, with the gestational age of the baby who must die to provide those parts, and shipping instructions. The macabre list includes a request for liver, thymus, and skin—all from the same “donor.” That donor, it says, needs to have reached 16-20 weeks gestation. The body parts are to be packed on wet ice and shipped by FedEx priority overnight delivery. The baby’s liver and thymus are to be shipped to UMASS and the skin to Harvard.

What are researchers doing with fetal tissue?
A well-documented fact sheet on the CMP website shows that the National Institutes of Health reports spending a minimum of $76 million on human fetal tissue—specific rants and nearly $1.4 billion in stem cell research grants in 2014. Some of the recent, grisly studies conducted via government grant money include transplants of fetal brain cells into lab mice, experiments with beating fetal hearts, and a 2013 study that used normal 24-week fetal eyes “harvested within minutes of death.”

Why are we paying PP to commit such atrocities?
That’s what a September 29 hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee attempted to clarify. PPFA president Cecile Richards did not deny under questioning that 86 percent of PP’s non-government revenue is derived from abortion.

PP’s abortion business stacked up 327,653 dead baby bodies in 2013, according to its annual report. It gulped up $528.4 million in taxpayer income, showing a year-end profit of $127.1 million—a 118 percent increase over the previous year. In the meantime, PP dramatically decreased services like breast exams and cancer screenings.

Now we see that, by adding baby body parts procurement to the end of the equation, and by altering abortion procedures to obtain more saleable body parts from each little victim, PP stands to increase its profit margin exponentially.

Time to defund PP
The release of the CMP videos have set off an avalanche of resistance to continued government funding of PP and opened the eyes of thousands to the depravity of the organization.  We must keep the PP atrocities at the forefront of the discussion in person, in print, and on social media. We must contact our elected representatives frequently, letting them know that PP does not deserve one penny of taxpayer money; we must also insist that a full-scale congressional investigation be launched and that criminal charges be filed against PP executives. We must shine the light on PP’s baby body parts business at every turn, including when we pray and witness at PP facilities. And pray we must, without ceasing, asking our Blessed Mother to deliver a decisive victory over PP and its horrific objectification, exploitation, and killing of little children.



Texas Grand Jury Indicts Whistleblowers
Instead of Planned Parenthood

by Rita Diller - MAY 10, 2016

Even ardent Planned Parenthood supporters are crying foul over the indictment of investigative journalists David Daleiden and his associate, Sandra Merritt. Daleiden and Merritt were indicted by a Houston, Texas, grand jury after they exposed a grisly baby body parts business in progress at Planned Parenthood facilities.1

No charges were leveled against Planned Parenthood for negotiating, on camera, the sale of freshly harvested gonads, eyes, skin, brains, femur—”everything” available on a baby, as one Houston Planned Parenthood official stated.2 Astonishingly, the pro-life investigators were charged with felony counts of tampering with a governmental record (using a fake ID). Daleiden also faces a misdemeanor offense related to buying human tissue.3

The charge against Daleiden begs the most obvious question—the same question that was posed to media members by his attorney: “How could David Daleiden buy baby body parts for profit without Planned Parenthood being willing to sell him baby body parts for profit?”4

Planned Parenthood: “A-la-carte” payment for body parts is best
Planned Parenthood claims the undercover videos are edited to mislead. However, the footage clearly shows Melissa Farrell, the director of research at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, enumerating past payments received from other organizations for baby body parts. She states explicitly on camera that an “a-la-carte” method of payment—where the purchaser pays for only the body parts it wants—would be best: “I just don’t want it to turn into a situation where it’s not financially beneficial for you,” Planned Parenthood’s Farrell says to Daleiden. As she discusses altering the abortion procedure to harvest “intact fetal cadavers,” Farrell refers to the sale of the body parts from a single baby to several different buyers as “just a matter of line items.”5

The full unedited versions of the undercover videos are available on the Center for Medical Progress website (centerformedicalprogress.org).

Planned Parenthood board member is a prosecutor
In light of all the damning evidence, why was Planned Parenthood not held accountable for violating the laws that prohibit selling human organs and tissue?

Here’s the multifaceted answer. The Associated Press reports that one of the Harris County prosecutors is a Planned Parenthood board member.6 And though Planned Parenthood officials claim the grand jury vindicated the abortion giant of any wrongdoing, Planned Parenthood attorney Josh Schaffer said a prosecutor told him “the grand jury never even voted on possible criminal charges against the nation's largest abortion provider.” That means that the grand jury never voted for or against pursuing any charges on Planned Parenthood.7

Instead, behind the Harris County district attorney’s repeated statement, “We have to go where the evidence leads us,” the DA’s office led grand jury members to indict the investigators who caught Planned Parenthood red-handed. In doing so, it attempts to criminalize tactics undercover journalists have used for decades to expose illegal acts.8

Getting even with whistleblowers
In addition to having a Planned Parenthood board member on staff in the Harris County DA’s office, pro-life organization Operation Rescue says that the Houston district attorney’s office had an axe to grind with pro-life whistleblowers and that the district attorney’s office “wanted to get even with whistleblowers who have reported evidence against abortion providers of serious crimes, including murder.”9

The prosecutor who headed the grand jury investigation against Daleiden is reportedly the same prosecutor involved in the 2013 grand jury investigation of abortionist Douglas Karpen, whose illegal late-term abortion business was exposed by Operation Rescue. Operation Rescue president Troy Newman is a board member of the Center for Medical Progress, the organization behind the 2015 undercover videos exposing Houston Planned Parenthood’s baby body parts business.

Operation Rescue reports that the 2013 complaint provided evidence that Karpen had “murdered babies born alive during shoddy abortions by twisting their heads nearly off their bodies.” The Karpen case prompted the passage of HB2, a clinic safety bill that has contributed to the dramatic drop in the number of abortion centers across Texas.10 Planned Parenthood continues to fight that bill with a vengeance today.

A chilling effect on First Amendment rights
Journalists, law professors, and other experts—even those who vehemently support Planned Parenthood—lost no time in expressing grave concern that the charges against Daleiden would have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights encompassing freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

“We are pro-choice, and we support the important work of Planned Parenthood, but we find the prosecution of these citizen journalists…deeply disturbing” Sherry Colb and Michael Dorf, law professors from Cornell University state in an opinion piece for CNN. “[I]t appears the charges arise entirely out of their efforts to deceive Planned Parenthood officials in order to gain access,” Colb and Dorf continue.

They point to the fact that criminal prosecution of journalists for investigating such situations will only help cover up facts that need to be revealed. “Whatever the precise facts of this case prove to be, the prosecution has broader implications, and not just for abortion and anti-abortion speech. Undercover exposés play a vital role in informing the American public of important facts that would otherwise remain hidden.”11

Journalism professor Mark Feldstein expressed similar concerns. “Even though I support Planned Parenthood and do not share the politics of those going undercover, I think it’s unusual to prosecute when there’s a lack of intent to commit a crime, even when they’re not journalists,” Feldstein said.12 Feldstein teaches at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Run-away grand jury
“We believe that this is a runaway grand jury that has acted contrary to the law,” said Houston attorney Jared Woodfill. “Instead of indicting the wrongdoers here, the organization trafficking in baby body parts, they’ve gone after the whistle-blower.”13

Woodfill, a member of the Daleiden defense team, is calling for a new grand jury to investigate Planned Parenthood.

“He will be vindicated”
Daleiden’s attorneys have repeatedly expressed their conviction that they will prevail if and when the case goes to trial. They scoffed at a plea bargain offered in February in exchange for a guilty plea, and stated instead that what they really want is an apology. They will file motions to dismiss the case. “We believe the indictments are factually and legally insufficient,” Daleiden’s attorney Peter Breen said.

Referring to his client as a modern-day hero, Woodfill said, “He has exposed the wrongdoing that has been occurring at abortion clinics all across this country. And the fact that he's here today is a miscarriage of justice.”

“He will be vindicated,” Woodfill said.14



1Diller, Rita. “Planned Parenthood’s macabre baby body parts business.” Celebrate Life Magazine. Nov. 1, 2015. www.clmagazine.org/article/planned-parenthoods-macabre-baby-body-parts-business/
2,5Center for Medical Progress. “Planned Parenthood Houston Admits Accounting Gimmicks Hide Baby Parts Sales, Invoices Charge $8,000.” YouTube. Feb. 2, 2016. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U9mZyRCisM
3Ludden, Jennifer. “Anti-Abortion Activists Indicted on Felony Charges in Planned Parenthood Case.” NPR. Jan. 27, 2016. www.npr.org/2016/01/26/464469813/anti-abortion-activists-indicted-on-felony-charges-in-planned-parenthood-case
4Thomas More Society. Thomas More Society Response to Grand Jury’s Indictment of David Daleiden. n.d. www.thomasmoresociety.org/thomas-more-society-response-to-grand-jurys-indictment-of-david-daleiden/
6,7,8Weber, Paul J. “Houston prosecutor has angered anti-abortion groups before.” Associated Press. Jan. 27, 2016. www.bigstory.ap.org/article/0f9ee593bc8d4d4e904c33bb08f0f9dc/houston-prosecutor-has-angered-anti-abortion-groups
9,10Operation Rescue. “Bombshell: Houston Grand Jury Never Voted on Planned Parenthood Charges.” Operation Rescue. Jan. 27, 2016. www.operationrescue.org/archives/bombshell-houston-grand-jury-never-voted-on-planned-parenthood-charges/
11Dorf, Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. CNN Opinion. Jan. 29, 2016. www.cnn.com/2016/01/29/opinions/planned-parenthood-colb-dorf/
12Richardson, Valerie. “Even Planned Parenthood supporters troubled by prosecution of pro-life investigators.” Washington Times. Feb. 2, 2016. www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/16/david-daleiden-sandra-merritt-criminal-charges-dis/?page=all
13Fernandez, Manny. “Lawyers Assail ‘Runaway Grand Jury’ in Indictments of Abortion Opponents.” New York Times. Jan. 27, 2016. www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/us/lawyers-assail-runaway-grand-jury-in-indictments-of-abortion-opponents.html?_r=0
14Johnson, Ben. “Planned Parenthood investigator Daleiden refuses plea deal: ‘What we really want is an apology.’” Life Site News. Feb. 4, 2016. www.lifesitenews.com/news/daleiden-refuses-plea-deal-what-we-really-want-is-an-apology