In a letter sent to the National Institutes of Health, Cecile Richards, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, announced that clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood will no longer be in the business of selling aborted fetal remains to medical research companies. Planned Parenthood received money, mainly from Medicaid, for such non-abortion related work as cancer screenings and contraception. More immediately, it is an obvious effort to try to push back against arguments that neither the federal government nor individual states should provide taxpayer dollars to support this billion-dollar behemoth that provides more abortions than any entity in the world (recently referred to pejoratively as the “Wal-Mart of abortion” by another abortion provider).
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The policy change was announced amid a months-long controversy after the release of videos secretly recorded by anti-abortion activists that grew into demands by a few Republicans in Congress to cut off funding to the group, even threatening a government shutdown last month. It filmed, and edited, conversations with Planned Parenthood officials talking about the transfer of fetal tissue.
Her Volunteer State colleague, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, said that “it’s about time” the organization ended “this disgusting practice”. “It was never about money”. “They destroy growing children in the womb, strategically crush their tiny bodies to extract livers, eyes, hearts, and brains, alter abortion procedures to increase their organ harvest, and even allow infants to be born alive, while frequently misleading women regarding the benefit of fetal tissue donation”. The law allowed entities supplying the tissue to recover the costs of running such programs. Another video also revealed that StemExpress did not always obtain consent from mothers to use their fetal tissue, a practice that Fox News notes would be “a serious ethical breach”.
Eric Scheidler, executive director of Pro-Life Action League, has organized a series of protests against Planned Parenthood across the nation under the name #ProtestPP. “They say such research can lead to life-saving treatments”. “They are not”, Caplan wrote in an email. Activists say the organization was profiting from fetal tissue.
University of Notre Dame law professor O. Carter Snead, a bioethicist, had a contrasting view.
He added that he doubted that Planned Parenthood would go through with the change, criticizing its leadership for failing to release the text of the new policy.
Early reaction to the announcement divided along party lines in Congress, where Democrats have depicted the multiple Republican investigations as baseless. Post said that information is bound to inspire more questions from Republicans, although they haven’t decided how to proceed.
“Clearly, this was a decision motivated by optics rather than the organization’s conscience”, said Ms. Black, a registered nurse.
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“It is curious that, while Planned Parenthood officials maintain there has been no wrongdoing, they still find it necessary to change their policy”, Black said.
