Since the release of the Center for Medical Progress’ investigative video implicating Planned Parenthood in the harvesting and sale of baby body parts, Planned Parenthood has been playing damage control.
National representatives – including Cecile Richards – have been crying, “research!” Planned Parenthood has been trying to win the public over by convincing them that all that’s going on is a little participation in “life-saving” research. Of course, there’s the terrible oxymoron involved in killing one human life to potentially save another. But more than that, Planned Parenthood’s damage control simply isn’t true.
Take it from the mouth of Planned Parenthood’s own national Director of Medical Services.
What Dr. Deborah Nucatola stated in the investigative video is quite different from the damage-control statement of Eric Ferrero, Vice President of Communications. One would think, naturally, that Planned Parenthood’s top doctor would be far more familiar with what actually goes on with organ harvesting and selling than someone in the communications department. The communications department exists to frame a message.
While Ferrero was blithely stating, “At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research,” Nucatola was busy contradicting him in her lunch meeting gone viral.
Nucatola was attempting to connect a fetal parts buyer with the Family Planning Association (FPA), a for-profit abortion chain. Over salad and wine with the buyer (will salad and wine ever look the same again?), Nucatola texted a director from FPA to see if they might be interested in connecting with the buyer to harvest and sell fetal parts.
When FPA responds over text to Nucatola that they “can’t really get involved in research,” Nucatola texts back, “I’m not sure this is research. This is quite different.”
She continues to the buyer: “Well, it’s funny because at Planned Parenthood, we don’t consider that research.”
She also told the buyer the reason that Planned Parenthood has no “procurement” guidelines (Planned Parenthood’s fancy word for harvesting and selling baby parts) is because it doesn’t fit into a research study or under the guidance of an Institutional Review Board – a committee established to review and approve research involving human subjects.
The whole purpose of IRBs is “to ensure that all human subject research be conducted in accordance with all federal, institutional, and ethical guidelines.” Convenient, that Planned Parenthood’s “procurement” doesn’t fit under this kind of guidance, according to its top medical doctor.
But Planned Parenthood can’t have it both ways.
The abortion giant cannot, on one hand, claim “research” and, on the other hand, claim that they are immune from the guidance of the very boards that have been established to ensure that research is conducted legally and ethically.
Nucatola’s reason for moving away from the IRBs? Too much work. Too complicated. Specifically, “it was a nightmare.”
As a point of basic logic, Planned Parenthood, in its work with StemExpress and similar businesses, is not “donating” for research. “Donating” to a for-profit company is not “donating” to research. It has already been revealed that StemExpress charges researchers thousands of dollars for its human fetal material, and that they put out a brochure advertising “financial profits” to clinics that work with them.
Additionally, Insoo Hyun, associate professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University, told CNN that “when fetal tissue is used in research, it is often sent from the hospital or clinic that performs the abortion to an affiliated research center.” Not to an in-between, for-profit, fetal parts company.
In conclusion, in case two statements from Nucatola on how the “procurement” of baby parts isn’t research aren’t convincing enough, take her third statement. In talking again about persuading FPA to work with the fetal parts buyer, Nucatola says, “we just have to do some education there… now I just need to let them know, it’s not really research.”
So what now, Planned Parenthood? We are all fully aware that your fetal “procurement” is “really not research.” Thanks to your top doctor, we’ve been well educated on the matter.
