The Center for Medical Progress released a secretly recorded video yesterday of Planned Parenthood’s top doctor describing how the organization sells the body parts of aborted preborn babies.
It’s difficult to watch:
Over lunch and wine, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the Senior Director of Medical Services, describes how she harvests organs during the abortions she performs on babies up to 24 weeks gestational age. She explains how the procedure involves the doctors using ultrasound technology to guide their forceps:
You’re just kind of cognizant of where you put your graspers, you try to intentionally go above and below the thorax, so that, you know, we’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part. I’m going to basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.
According to Nucatola, these organs are then sold for around $30 to $100 per specimen.
The practice of harvesting the body parts of preborn babies is confirmed by Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood clinic director who now works as a pro-life advocate. In a piece she penned yesterday, Abby describes what she did for eight long years before finally leaving in 2009:
During the season of tissue harvesting, an intact body was gold. An intact fetal body is considered perfection in the land of fetal tissue research. But dismembered body parts were okay, too…and that is usually what we gave them. I would check the patient’s chart to make sure that they had signed the consent for us to donate their baby’s remains. Almost every woman did, because we made it seem like that by donating, they were helping others…altruism during abortion.
Planned Parenthood has a long history of allegedly selling organs and body parts. And as the viral video hints at its start, this isn’t the first time Planned Parenthood has been implicated in the sale of body parts by a pro-life group.
Back in 2000, Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics conducted a similar undercover investigation. The story was even covered by 20/20.
Yet while it is possible Planned Parenthood might be breaking the law, it’s also plausible the nation’s largest abortion provider is taking advantage of legal loopholes; just look at how easily Dr. Nucatola shrugs off existing law by citing disclaimers such as “intent” and “interpretation.”
After all, Planned Parenthood is, at its core, a business.
And a lucrative one at that.
That’s probably why the flyer to abortion clinics from StemExpress, the research lab Nucatola mentions in the video that buys the body parts from Planned Parenthood, emphasizes profits. The flyer talks about being “financially profitable,” “providing a financial benefit to your clinic,” and a “partner program that fiscally rewards clinics.”
And so it is that in addition to preying on desperate women and taking the lives of innocent babies, Planned Parenthood drives human trafficking. That makes the $528 million the organization receives in government health services grants and reimbursements all the more outrageous. That astronomical figure is 41 percent of its revenue, according to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report.
For all these reasons, I’m joining others in our movement in calling on Congress to start an immediate investigation into the questions raised by the troubling hidden camera video which was released yesterday. Is Planned Parenthood breaking the law? If not, are there legal loopholes that need to be closed? In any case, this is one organization that should be completely defunded. There is no reason why Planned Parenthood should be receiving taxpayer funds to enable its victimization of women and preborn children.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.” In this case, it is obvious we can do better for our children than killing them carefully so we may sell their parts and gain a profit.
Please help Focus on the Family help these precious young lives. I know there is a temptation to feel helpless in light of this macabre revelation… but there are things we can do. There are always things we can do when confronted by evil. Here are four:
1. Contact your lawmakers and ask them to conduct an official congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood’s selling of human organs and body parts.
Given that your tax dollars are being used to underwrite these terrible acts, you have a right to demand an inquiry. You can ask your representatives to defund Planned Parenthood. (Find your representative by inputting your zip code into the action center powered by CitizenLink, one of Focus’ public policy partners.)
2. Shine a light on what’s really happening at Planned Parenthood.
Share the video and share this blog post on social media. Don’t be afraid to speak up for life (you can read our online “Why I Am Pro-Life” series to help you get started). The sad reality is far too many people think of Planned Parenthood as a benign woman’s health clinic and are unaware it’s the nation’s largest abortion provider.
3. Help pro-life groups and causes.
You might want to volunteer at your local pregnancy resource center. You might want to help Focus give women a chance to look inside their womb – our Option Ultrasound efforts have already helped save more than 330,000 babies! And if God places a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy in your life, I hope you’ll support her emotionally and spiritually, and help meet her material needs.
4. Pray for Dr. Deborah Nucatola and others who work in the abortion industry.
No one is beyond God’s reach. We serve a God who relentlessly and lovingly pursues his lost sheep. He transforms hearts, opens blind eyes and gives life to dry bones. That’s why some of the most influential pro-life figures were once abortion supporters. As Christians, we care about Dr. Deborah Nucatola and we want her to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior. We can pray for her and reach out to her (and others like her) in love, even as we decry the evil acts they take part in.
Let me know what you think about these new revelations about Planned Parenthood. What’s the best way Christians can respond to the abortion industry? How can we best stand for life?
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