Yesterday afternoon, president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards issued an apology for Dr. Deborah Nucatola's "tone and statements" which have been featured in a sting video exposing the organization's horrifying practice of harvesting and selling fetal tissue and organs from performed abortions.
According to Richards, a pro-life group released a highly edited video "to make outrageous claims" about Planned Parenthood's program to help women donate fetal tissue for medical research. She denies the organization has done anything illegal and only apologizes for Dr. Nucatola's "tone and statements." She continues to say that Planned Parenthood takes swift action to address any issues.
Obviously the organization has issues, but, according to The Hill, the doctor at the center of this controversy has only been "reprimanded" not suspended or fired. This would be consistent with Richards' claim that the only thing the organization and doctor are guilty of are inappropriate tone and statements, leading many to wonder was Dr. Nucatola lying about the abortion practices she describes in the video or is Richards lying now in the apology merely to calm the backlash. It has to be one or the other and cannot be both.
Several states and now Congress have begun preliminary investigations into the legality of Planned Parenthood's abortion practices. The most troubling and possibly illegal aspect of what is described in the video is
whether Nucatola, the abortion provider’s senior director of medical services, admitted that the organization alters the timing or method of an abortion in order to harvest tissue or organs for research. That would be a clear contravention of federal law.After Nucatola describes the gruesome process of removing the fetus so that maximum tissue and organs remain intact, she
mentions that that since there is a high demand for fetal livers, Planned Parenthood abortionists go out of their way to use technology to assist in the careful and deliberate dismemberment of fetuses during an abortion: “I’d say a lot of people want liver. And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.”She even describes altering the normal procedure of an abortion to remove the fetus "feet first" to avoid damage to the harvested organs and tissue. This act alone appears to be questionably illegal. If the doctor is, in fact, telling the truth, Planned Parenthood may have a problem if political correctness and liberal bravado do not save the day. According to the Office for Human Research Protections and the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993,
human fetal tissue may be obtained from an abortion only if “no alteration of the timing, method or procedures used to terminate the pregnancy was made solely for the purposes of obtaining the tissue” and the “abortion was performed in accordance with applicable state law.”
Dr. Nucatola appears to be admitting that some Planned Parenthood abortionists — perhaps herself, though her phrasing may have just been convenient — openly flout this federal law. Additionally, the law requires that “human fetal tissue may be used only if the attending physician with respect to obtaining tissue from the woman involved makes a statement, made in writing and signed by the physician, declaring” that the applicable regulations are being followed.Depending on political bias, the sting video and Dr. Nutcatola's statements may appear to be ambiguous. And if this video is the only evidence presented, perhaps Planned Parenthood may squeak by unscathed with its taxpayer funding intact (in excess of $500 million).
However, the instigator of the sting operation and video, The Center of Medical Progress, may have taken a page from Andrew Breitbart's playbook. According to the CMP,
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