The Center for Medical Progress has recently released several undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood leaders discussing the sale of baby body parts. The videos are the culmination of what the Center says is 30 months of research, including gaining access to the secretive inner circles of the abortion industry. They promise more videos will be released in the near future.
This investigative series poses two questions for all of us. First, is this the sort of society we want? Second, will Planned Parenthood be held accountable for potentially breaking the law?
Most people—including many women who have had abortions at Planned Parenthood—had no idea Planned Parenthood was in the fetal organ harvesting business. Even some who would describe themselves as pro-choice have been disgusted at the callousness with which the dismemberment and sale of intact organs is discussed over red wine and corned beef sandwiches. The second video features the doctor joking that she needs to sell enough body parts to get herself a new Lamborghini.
Our culture should be one that places a proper value on every single human life. The practice of fetal organ harvesting sends a painfully familiar message to an entire class of people: “You can be useful to society; you just can’t be a member of it.”
The legal implications of the series are also grave, given the fact that taxpayers are forced to support Planned Parenthood with more than a half billion dollars every year. Planned Parenthood leaders suggest they aren’t in it for profits, but in the videos they specifically say clinics want to do a little better than break even and haggle with the undercover actors over price points. It’s against federal law to sell fetal tissue for profit.
In the videos the Planned Parenthood leaders indicate their willingness to change abortion procedures in order to preserve more intact “specimens.” It’s against federal law to change abortion procedures to procure organs. A full investigation is needed in order to determine what is going on. Planned Parenthood must be held accountable if laws are being broken.
Planned Parenthood’s response to these videos so far has been to attack the makers of the video, labeling the prolife movement as the extremists (a movement that does not dismember viable children and sell their remains, I’d like to add). Planned Parenthood insists the videos have been heavily edited, and the callousness of their doctors is due to selective editing. The Center for Medical Progress has in all cases released the full, unedited videos and transcripts.
Watching the unedited videos only gives a clearer and equally troubling context to the shorter videos. The Planned Parenthood leaders are casually taking hours to hammer out the details of selling baby body parts. The humanity of the unborn child or the women paying them to perform abortions is largely an afterthought. After watching both, I can only reflect on the banality of evil. This is not how we treat human beings.