[Updates posted at the bottom.]
Warning: this video is very hard to watch.
It starts with introductory footage from 15 years ago of an ABC News report on the sale of human fetal tissue. But that’s a little deceptive, because the bulk of the video isn’t from 15 years ago. It’s from July 2014, and it shows Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation’s senior director of medical services, discussing the sale of baby parts over lunch.
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The non-profit group Center for Medical Progress (CMP) obtained the video during the course of a three-year investigation. CMP sent actors to pose as buyers for a “human biologics” company and engage Nucatola in a discussion of the routine trafficking of baby parts at Planned Parenthood affiliates across the United States.
The video was obtained on 25 July 2014. CMP posted it this morning (14 July; h/t Life News).
Life News provides a transcript of Nucatola outlining the most popular baby parts, and describing how they are harvested during the 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. The kind of rate-limiting step of the procedure is calvarium. Calvarium—the head—is basically the biggest part.”
Nucatola explains, “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
“And with the calvarium, in general, some people will actually try to change the presentation so that it’s not vertex [head-first],” she continues. “So if you do it starting from the breech presentation, there’s dilation that happens as the case goes on, and often, the last step, you can evacuate an intact calvarium at the end.”
As CMP notes in the captions on the video, what Nucatola describes as “changing the presentation” – turning the baby around so his feet come out first, and it’s easier to crush what you don’t want and keep intact what you do – amounts to performing the partial-birth abortion procedure prohibited by federal law.
That’s in addition to the fact that it’s illegal under federal law to traffic in baby parts at all. Heart, lung, liver, limb with muscle attached – doesn’t matter what you want, it’s illegal for someone to offer it for sale or for anyone to buy it.
Nucatola and the “buyers” discuss prices of $30 to $100 for various parts.
Nucatola confirms that the baby-parts business is done through the affiliates across the country, with the national organization staying out of it. She agrees that it would be more efficient for the trade if the national organization could coordinate everything, and buyers could place orders in a centralized setting. But that would put the national organization in jeopardy with the law:
Nucatola also reveals that Planned Parenthood’s national office is concerned about their liability for the sale of fetal parts.
“At the national office, we have a Litigation and Law Department which just really doesn’t want us to be the middle people for this issue right now,” she says. “But I will tell you that behind closed doors these conversations are happening with the affiliates.”
The Supreme Court, she explains, isn’t likely to look favorably on challenges to the laws that prohibit what Planned Parenthood is doing.
You talk to my litigation and law folks, anything that’s going to go [to] the Supreme Court right now, we are all losers.
Cecile Richards, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, stopped and talked to the “buyer” investigators and said of Nucatola, “She’s amazing.”
Life News quotes from comments provided by Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue:
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman serves on the Board of Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress. During this investigation, Newman advised Daleiden, providing consultation services and material support.
“Abortionists use ultrasound like a butcher uses scales to sell meat by the pound for profit,” said Newman in an email to LifeNews. “Evidence further shows that Planned Parenthood has gone to great lengths to keep the public from ever knowing about their illicit human body-parts trade, understanding that if news were to leak, it could spell doom for the abortion giant.”
Actress and pro-life activist Patricia Heaton tweeted a challenge to the media.
Dear MSM, please don’t take as long to report #PPSellsBabyParts as you did with #Gosnell. http://t.co/xlPAK3z6Ln
— Patricia Heaton (@PatriciaHeaton) July 14, 2015
For LU Nation and readers across America, look up contact information on your representatives in Congress here.
* UPDATE * : Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has already weighed in. He is starting an investigation of Planned Parenthood in Louisiana and requesting cooperation from the FBI. He has also suspended issuing any new licenses to PPF affiliates.
* UPDATE 2 * : Washington Free Beacon provides helpful numbers on federal funding to Planned Parenthood. PP affiliates have received $27.8 million in federal taxpayer funds so far in fiscal year 2015. In all, Planned Parenthood organizations have received $189,162,664 in federal taxpayer funds since 2012 — which coincides with the three-year period of the CMP investigation.
