David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, called Planned Parenthood’s policy change an “admission of guilt”.
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Going forward, Richards said, all of Planned Parenthood’s affiliates will decline any compensation, even if it means losing money on costs such as storage and transportation of organs. When they did finally decide to write about it, these activists with bylines would parrot Planned Parenthood’s false talking points or repeat falsehoods about the abortion provider’s website being attacked by extremists.
APPHOTO NY569: In this Tuesday, September 29, 2015 photo, Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards is sworn in before testifying at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Hearing on “Planned Parenthood’s Taxpayer Funding”, in Washington.
Conservatives and Republican presidential candidates have accused the group of selling the fetal tissue for profit – which is against the law – but Richards and other Planned Parenthood leaders have consistently said they were only collecting a reimbursement for the procedures and not benefiting.
At a bare minimum, Congress should immediately act to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding, and shift these monies to entities such as community health organizations, which offer more comprehensive healthcare, are more numerous and accessible, are less expensive-without providing abortions. Those same defenders are, of course, also the recipients of huge political contributions from Planned Parenthood. A group that opposes legal abortion, the Center for Medical Progress, presented carefully edited hidden-camera footage of conversations with Planned Parenthood officers and actors posing as biotech executives.
“Today’s announcement is a smokescreen by Planned Parenthood to veil the most important issues under public discussion”, Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser said in response to Richards’s letter. I think the answer is the same here as it was for Benghazi: “politics”. Staff members in California indicated earlier that reimbursement per specimen generally ranged from $30 to $100, but Laguens said she could not say how much the affiliate received annually in reimbursements or how much it will cost to cover the expenses of the fetal-tissue program.
The judge said that to “refrain from creating needless friction with a coordinate branch of government”, he would allow CMP to provide the subpoenaed materials as long as the same materials also are provided to him and to NAF. The tissue can only be collected if it’s donated by the mother of an aborted fetus, which a few of Planned Parenthood’s patients opt to do.
Sixth, Planned Parenthood’s decision to stop accepting payment for murdered babies’ organs is a cold calculated pecuniary decision.
In the months since the CMP videos exposed Planned Parenthood’s tissue harvesting operation, the program “has shrunk dramatically”. All are ongoing, officials said this week.
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“Significant questions still remain about Planned Parenthood’s finances”, Chaffetz wrote in a statement.
