Back pedaling as fast as they can, Planned Parenthood protested loudly when a hidden camera caught one of their executives casually talking about the costs for collecting and distributing body parts. In the video Dr. Deborah Nucatola says, “A lot of people want intact hearts, they want intact nodes. … They want lungs.” She mentions changes made in the techniques used in abortion that will insure the intact condition pf requested body parts and the costs for extracting the desired organs.
Planned Parenthood says the 8-minute video originates from more than two hours of filming and selectively shows misleading information. Planned Parenthood does not deny that the organization changes the method for an abortion to accommodate particular requests for desired tissues (heart, liver, lungs or brains). It does not deny that money changes hands, but says the cash covers the cost of the procedures.
Planned Parenthood says the film tries to make the organization look like the devil and insists, “Actually, they perform medically safe and often necessary abortions to female patients who seek them. A service that makes up only 3 percent of what Planned Parenthood offers the communities they work within,” according to a news release released after the video’s posting.
Massaging the numbers to reach 3 percent minimizes the fact that in 2012 Planned Parenthood performed 327,166 abortions, about a quarter to a third of the more than 1 million procedures done to stop the birth of future citizens. Each such “service” results in the demise of a child.
The abridged video exploded over the Internet and social media. It lasts eight minutes. The original lasted two and a half hours. The short version cherry picks stated points on the requests, marketing and gathering of hearts, livers, lungs and brain tissue still in the bodies of living humans. The two and a half hour film provides more context.
Planned Parenthood protests that the original video was filmed a couple years ago. The argument fails to have much impact in the current climate of high profile persons being shamed, discredited and stripped of their place in media when their past indiscreet actions come to light.
In the longer version, Planned Parenthood wants viewers to note that it only charges for the actual cost of processing, shipping and handling – that additional cost added to every late night infomercials and provides more than enough pocket change.
Planned Parenthood protests that the tissues are donated with the full consent of women who do not want a child to inconvenience their lives. Neither seems to have any qualms about inconveniencing a small, unseen person and allowing someone – other than themselves – to distributing the leftovers to research.
For all the words that Planned Parenthood spouted after the video went public, it still comes back to the fact that a medical person not only takes the life, but then takes the the tissues (organs) of unborn children from the lifeless bodies.
Ironic, isn’t it, that the clinic refers to the unwanted pregnancy as tissue, but specifically names the kind of tissue they will be gathering: heart, lungs, livers, brains – all items found in people, not just blobs of unformed cells. The mothers may not want the nameless tissues, but researchers want the the baby’s hearts, lungs, livers and brains.
One can not elevate these unnecessary deaths by the feel good distraction that the unwanted child’s body parts will help medical research projects.
Trying to salve the conscious by donating the fruit of the womb does not erase the fact that the little person inside the womb feels pain as they are robbed of life and removed in such a way that the extractor gets the types of organs (tissues) intact for the researcher.
Placing the label of research, saying that the film was edited, that the happened years ago does not deter from the fact that voiceless, living humans are sought as a source of organ tissues.
It still remains that an executive of Planned Parenthood blatantly states that the organization carefully gathers the parts of living, unborn children for use in research. Planned Parenthood abortion clinicians takes steps to stop the life in which those wanted body parts grow and then discard the rest of the body. “Too bad, little kid, you are not wanted, but hey someone can do a bit of research with parts of your body.”
This is so wrong from so many viewpoints.
Just try and do that same thing with a dog or cat and watch the “Stop Animal Testing” folks roar. Plenty of folks and organizations have roared, more should join them.
Joan Hershberger is a staff writer for the El Dorado News-Times.