Planned Parenthood provides tissue donation details

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Planned Parenthood told Congress on Thursday that the organization’s physicians on rare occasions make adjustments to an abortion procedure if a patient wants to donate fetal material.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote in a letter to congressional leadership that if a woman who has decided to have an abortion wants to donate the fetal tissue or organs, she and her physician choose which method is best suited to her case. With certain methods, a physician can adjust the procedure to better facilitate the requested donation, she said.

Abortion opponents say the statement amounts to a smoking gun that suggests illegal activity. In one of the series of sting videos that has put the women’s health organization on the defensive since mid-July, a Planned Parenthood physician discusses in graphic terms how procedures may be adjusted to better facilitate tissue donation.

David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress, the group behind the videos, told POLITICO on Thursday that the point is something “Congress needs to really hammer home in their investigations.”

But Richards’s letter, which accompanied a commissioned report outlining a series of misleading edits in the videos, seeks to explain the distinction. She indicated that a physician does not adjust which procedure to use — such as whether to do a medically induced abortion or a surgical procedure. Instead, the physician only makes adjustments during the course of the procedure as warranted to donate tissue. She likened it to an obstetrician adjusting the delivery of a baby if the mother wants to preserve the cord blood.

Federal law prohibits physicians from actually switching the abortion method to facilitate donation when the tissue is used for federally funded fetal transplantation. Richards noted that the statute is outdated because it doesn’t cover any of the fetal research done today but that Planned Parenthood still upholds the spirit of the law.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/0...#ixzz3k5CuvPMg

[Nbadan]

Undercover Planned Parenthood Videos Were Altered, Analysis Finds
The New York Times
By JACKIE CALMES

WASHINGTON — Planned Parenthood on Thursday gave congressional leaders and a committee that is investigating allegations of criminality at its clinics an analysis it commissioned concluding that “manipulation” of undercover videos by abortion opponents make those recordings unreliable for any official inquiry.

“A thorough review of these videos in consultation with qualified experts found that they do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict,” said the analysis of a private research company.

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, underscored that message in a cover letter to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and House Speaker John A. Boehner, both Republicans, and to Senator Harry Reid and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leaders.

With Mr. Boehner’s urging, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July opened an investigation of Planned Parenthood after the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group, began posting online secretly recorded videos that the center claims show Planned Parenthood affiliates illegally profit from selling tissue from aborted fetuses to researchers and, in some late-term abortions, prevent a possible live birth.

Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/und...0?ocid=u142dhp

Analysts identified at least 42 places in the videos where content had been edited out, though the splices are not apparent to a casual viewer. The shorter tapes had been “severely” altered, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson said Thursday on a conference call with reporters, in at least one case so that a question from one of the undercover anti-abortion activists was linked with an unrelated answer. One video was edited so that a Planned Parenthood staffer in Texas speaking about lab protocols to keep tissue intact seemed to be speaking about changing abortion procedures to do so. Transcripts provided by CMP were “sloppy at best,” and at worst represented “wishful thinking” about what was said, according to Simpson. Quotes, including at least one highlighted in the media, were improperly attributed.

[Nbadan]

Abbott announced anti-abortion intiative, targets Planned Parenthood
Source: Austin American-Statesman

Gov. Greg Abbott announced an anti-abortion initiative Friday in response to last month’s undercover videos which showed Planned Parenthood representatives discussing the legal practice of harvesting tissue from aborted fetuses. The announcement signals a continued effort to restrict abortions in Texas.

Abbott’s initiative, dubbed LIFE, spells out a broad legislative effort to further penalize doctors who violate laws governing the procedure in Texas, one of the most restrictive states. It also signals the governor’s goal to wrest state and federal funding of Planned Parenthood completely, even though by law public money cannot pay for abortions.

The governor’s announcement is the latest reaction to videos released last month by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress, which showed a Planned Parenthood doctor in California discussing how some clinics harvest and donate tissue from aborted fetuses — a legal practice so long as tissues aren’t sold for profit.

“Gruesome – and potentially illegal – harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood cannot be allowed in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement “Treating unborn children as commodities to be sold is an abomination. The barbaric practice of harvesting and selling baby body parts must end.”

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/s...rgets-p/nnSsf/

...in light of the post above....Planned Parenthood should sue Abbott for defamation....

[boutons_deux]

"Planned Parenthood should sue Abbott for defamation...."

a couple of states' PP are suing on the Medicaid angle, like Obama pointed out.