House Speaker John Boehner said that the appropriate congressional committees have been asked to look into “the grisly practices embraced by Planned Parenthood”.
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In actuality, the video shows the organization’s senior director of medical services, Deborah Nucatola, discussing the legal, standard industry practice of donating fetal tissue for medical research. He says clinics, quote, “help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research just like every other high-quality healthcare provider”.
Ever since the video was released, Planned Parenthood has categorically denied the interpretation of the content. Though they admit that they collect fetal tissues, they have done so in the confines of the law.
Recent headlines surrounding the video, created by anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress (CMP), are a variant of criminal entrapment of Planned Parenthood and propaganda piece of the anti-abortion conservatives.
The Center for Medical Progress’ leader, David Daleiden, said that for about two and a half years it had been investigating the sale of tissue by Planned Parenthood.
It was filmed in secret at a Los Angeles restaurant by actors posing as buyers from a human biologics company, the group said in a release.
Cindy Collins, a member of the Louisiana Abortion Recovery Alliance, said if Planned Parenthood is profiting from selling fetal tissue, she is anxious “women are being targeted”.
They say all donations are done in accordance with U.S. laws regarding tissue donation and all patients who provide tissue do so voluntarily. The Center for Medical Progress claims Nucatola said the organization profits from selling these specimens – though she doesn’t say it explicitly in the video.
The organization released a statement today saying DeWine will “subpoena records for Planned Parenthood’s offices in order to discover whether or not Planned Parenthood is in violation of the Ohio Revised Code”.
Several Republican candidates for president – including former Florida Governor Jed Bush and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina – also condemned the organisation.
A spokesman, Eric Ferrero, says in his statement, “These outrageous claims are flat-out untrue, but that doesn’t matter to politicians with a longstanding political agenda to ban abortion and defund Planned Parenthood“.
Nucatola also admits that abortion providers will sometimes rearrange the fetus into breech orientation to preserve more intact body parts, which is considered an illegal partial-birth abortion. Ferrero said. “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 video demonstrated the natural decline or spiral that we have in our views of humanity once we begin to devalue human life at any level”, said Brad Wheeler, who is with the San Antonio Family Association.
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“Elected officials must listen to the public outcry for Planned Parenthood to be held accountable to the law and for our tax dollars to stop underwriting this barbaric abortion business”, he said.
