The anti-choice narrative since Planned Parenthood’s inception has been that PP has been ghoulishly profiting off of abortions, both by dragging in huge amounts of cash for the procedure and (as is currently under discussion) selling baby parts for exorbitant prices. First of all, I have to inject some basic common sense: If you’re hearing rumors that gloriously satisfy your hate-on for an organization while simultaneously sounding like a late-season plot of Charmed, they’re probably not entirely, or even a little bit, valid. “They sell and/or eat dead babies” has been a charge, throughout history, lobbed against the Chinese, Jewish, pagan, and so many other marginalized people, and never substantiated because people don’t do that. Even the people you’d really, really like to paint as monsters.
Anyway.
Recently released hidden-camera video, at the heart of the current attack on Planned Parenthood, would seem to confirm those very accusations. The nine-minute video, purporting to show PP Senior Director of Medical Services Deborah Nucatola selling fetal tissue to medical research labs, was produced and released by the Center for Medical Progress. (Three more similar videos feature the president of PP’s Medical Directors Council, Mary Gatter, and other current and former PP staff.) Taken on its own, the inflammatory video seems to provide evidence that Planned Parenthood is ruthlessly harvesting body parts on demand and selling them to the highest bidder.
There’s a reason for that. The Center for Medical Progress really, really wants you to take the videos as evidence.
Th[is Particular] Center for Medical Progress
While the Center for Medical Progress, founded in 2013, sounds like a legitimate research-related organization, it’s actually a “group of citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances” — focusing largely on abortion (although they have 501(c)3 status and solicit donations as a “biomedical charity”). Their main — or, judging from their site, possibly only — ongoing endeavor is their “Human Capital project” purporting to “document[] how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted babies.” Central to their project is video footage “presented in two formats: 1) as summary videos of specific undercover encounters, and 2) as a multi-part documentary web series, ‘Human Capital[.]'”
A distinction that definitely, absolutely needs to be made: The “Center for Medical Progress” falsifying these videos is not the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. One is devoted to “articulating the importance of medical progress and the connection between free-market institutions and making medical progress both possible and widely available throughout the world”; the other is devoted to painting horns and a goatee on everything related to Planned Parenthood.
Incidentally, during their creation and use of aliases and fake biomedical companies for their sting, the Center’s David Daleiden (former director of research for premier misleadingly-edited-video production company Live Action) and crew appear to have fraudulently acquired a credit card in the name of one of Daleiden’s former grade-school classmates. While, of course, this absolutely doesn’t directly contradict the accusations against Planned Parenthood, it does give you an idea of the Center’s dedication to truthfulness.
The Doctored Videos
That term used by the Center for Medical Progress to describe their work — summary videos — is crucial to the entire discussion, because the undercover footage has been “summarized” much in the way Iron Man could be “summarized” as a conflict between a genius inventor and his career-military friend as the inventor comes to terms with the realities of his involvement in the military-industrial complex: i.e., bullshittily. Footage removed from the nearly three-hour video, and only released in past weeks, completely contradicts the purpose of the released “summary” by specifying in so many words that Planned Parenthood is not making money off of the “sale” of tissue.
FactCheck.org provides access to the edited version of the video, first released by the group, and the unedited version, released later. One main difference? The unedited version makes it clear, repeatedly, that Planned Parenthood clinics are not making a profit from “selling” tissues. Their only goal in taking money during the tissue donation process was to recoup the costs associated with collecting, preserving, and transferring the tissue, so that clinic operations wouldn’t be affected and patients could continue to receive the services they rely on.
At one point in the unedited video (which was also released by the group), Nucatola says: “Affiliates are not looking to make money by doing this. They’re looking to serve their patients and just make it not impact their bottom line.”
Nucatola also says, “No one’s going to see this as a money making thing.” And at another point, she says, “Our goal, like I said, is to give patients the option [to voluntarily donate the tissue -C] without impacting our bottom line. The messaging is this should not be seen as a new revenue stream, because that’s not what it is.”
Media Matters highlights three particularly heinous edits in the first video (and seven more in the three following videos) completely shifting the reality of Planned Parenthood’s service: that tissue is being donated, not sold; and that all tissue donation is done in accordance with all laws and ethical standards, and with the consent of the patient. The 141 minutes cut from the meeting with Nucatola were removed because they were full of the truth.
Why Money Is Associated with Tissue Donation
Medical research is so very important to improving and saving lives that it would be nice to think that tissue donation was done as a matter of pure generosity, with no money changing hands at any point. Unfortunately, that’s just not practical. Regardless of the type of tissue, donation can be expensive for the donor institution. Planned Parenthood is, at their own expense, carefully preserving tissue that would otherwise be discarded, and those are costs they can’t afford to absorb without affecting patient care.
FactCheck.org consulted three different experts in human tissue research — Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s biodepository director Sherilyn J. Sawyer; International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories president (and former NCI Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research deputy director) Jim Vaught; and ASU National Biomarkers Development Alliance chief medical and science officer and former NCI director of biorepositories and biospecimen research Carolyn Compton — about PP’s quoted $30-100 per specimen. They all had the same response: That price is reasonable, or even low, for clinical operations to recoup their costs. Sawyer went so far as to say that “$30-100 probably constitutes a loss for [Planned Parenthood].”
In reality, $30-100 probably constitutes a loss for [Planned Parenthood]. The costs associated with collection, processing, storage, and inventory and records management for specimens are very high. Most hospitals will provide tissue blocks from surgical procedures (ones no longer needed for clinical purposes, and without identity) for research, and cost recover for their time and effort in the range of $100-500 per case/block. In the realm of tissues for research $30-100 is completely reasonable and normal fee.
And Compton agreed, “‘Profit’ is out of the question, in my mind. I would say that whoever opined about ‘profit’ knows very little about the effort and expense involved in providing human biospecimens for research purposes.”
One quote that the Center for Medical Progress benefits the most from omitting addresses the real importance of recouping the costs associated with donation: “Really their bottom line is, they want to break even. Every penny they save is just pennies they give to another patient. To provide a service the patient wouldn’t get.” This, of all statements made in the video, contradicts the Center’s goal of smearing Planned Parenthood as a heartless, money-hungry institution: the reminder that the focus of their work is giving care to people who otherwise would go uncared-for.
The Reality of Fetal Tissue Research
Depending on your feelings about fetal development and pregnancy — and a lot people do have very emotional connections to the subject — the idea of research on fetal tissue might seem macabre. One major criticism of the released video is Nucatola’s matter-of-fact, offhand description of the tissue used in research, and it is disconcerting to watch her scarf down a salad while talking about fetal livers — Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards has said that Nucatola has been reprimanded for her tone, and Richards apologized, saying, “Our top priority is the compassionate care that we provide. In the video, one of our staff members speaks in a way that does not reflect that compassion. This is unacceptable, and I personally apologize for the staff member’s tone and statements.” People expect a more solemn, respectful approach to this subject. And, in fact, some researchers who work with fetal tissue have said that they, themselves, have feelings about the source of tissue for their crucial research. In the New York Times, researcher Nathalia Holt describes how they “plan[] [their] experiments, trying not to waste a single drop,” and says that “even with [their] preparations, justifications, and the sheer excitement that accompanied [their] research, the fetal cells brought sadness.”
But Holt also reminds us that cells extracted from tissue from two fetuses in the 1960s are still being used to produce vaccines for hepatitis A, rubella, chicken pox, and shingles; that fetal stem cells have been used to treat spinal cord injuries; and that “progress is being made in the use of stem-cell therapies against cancer, blindness, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, HIV, and diabetes.” Last year, the NIH gave $76 million in grants for fetal tissue research. Regardless of your feelings about where the cells come from and how they’re acquired, lives are changed and saved because of the tiniest bit of tissue.
And that knowledge can be a comfort to women and families faced with the loss of a pregnancy. Katie Lyon wrote for Time.com about her abortion at 22 weeks of a very much wanted pregnancy. An ultrasound showed that the fetus had, among many other problems, spina bifida and a tethered spinal cord. After much discussion, and after much consultation with her doctor, they decided to end the pregnancy — “the right decision for us as a family,” she says. And they decided to donate the fetal tissue for medical research.
It was horrible for us to have to end a much-wanted pregnancy, but we made the best of it by donating the fetal tissue for research. We contacted our genetics counselor, who coordinated the donation with a spina bifida research project funded by the National Institutes of Health. We figured that donating the tissue could perhaps spare other families the painful situation we found ourselves in. It was clear to me and my husband that the question of what caused the spina bifida needed to be studied.
I feel fortunate that I had the chance to donate the tissue — I was able to turn my pain into something that could benefit someone else.
I want people who are politicizing the option to donate fetal tissue to think about the implications of removing this option. I want them to think about people suffering from diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS and sickle cell disease — and to consider those people’s family members who no doubt want their loved ones to live longer, fuller lives.
Why would anyone want to destroy the chance to save another person’s life?
Any tissue donated by Planned Parenthood is with the consent — or at the request — of the patient, because they know how important that generosity can be and how far it can reach.
Why the Lie Matters So Much
It can’t be said enough, because for some reason, some people aren’t grasping it: Planned Parenthood is a source of primary care for millions of people, mostly women, who would otherwise have to go without. It’s estimated that one out of five women in the U.S. will go to Planned Parenthood at some point during her life, and four out of five of its patients live near the poverty line. Ninety-seven percent of procedures performed by Planned Parenthood clinics every year are devoted to making, and keeping, people healthy, regardless of income.
The House of Representatives is currently undertaking an investigation, almost certain to be lengthy and fruitless, based on intentionally misleading videos and the violation of laws that aren’t being violated. And regardless of the outcome, these accusations are going to stick to Planned Parenthood for decades — there’s no shoving “remember when PP sold baby parts?” back in the barn now that the rumors have been released into the wild.
And this afternoon, the Senate will be voting on legislation to pull federal funding from Planned Parenthood — nearly half their budget, in the form of Medicare and Title X funding. It wouldn’t affect abortions provided by Planned Parenthood, which can’t (with very few exceptions) be funded with federal dollars — just the other 97 percent of their services. It would come at the expense of men, women, and children who rely on Planned Parenthood for cancer and STD screenings, medical treatment, birth control, well-person care, education, and prenatal care.
It’s about the health and wellbeing of adults and children now, and ones who will benefit from medical breakthroughs in the future, and this group is trying to destroy all of that with four videos that they’ve known were deceptive from the start. And people — bloggers, citizen journalists, social media reactionaries, government officials, people who are primed to believe the worst about Planned Parenthood at any chance they get — are falling for it and spreading the lie. It’s often said that to the anti-choice crowd, living women will always take a back seat to fetuses; it’s rare that we actually get to see that so explicitly in action.