Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards
Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Congress is demanding answers about Planned Parenthood’s role in the harvesting and sale of fetal body parts while CEO Cecile Richards offers a tone-deaf apology to the public yesterday – not for the brutal practice but for the cold-hearted tone of voice used by the organization’s medical director when describing the procedures in an undercover video.
Fox News is reporting on the videotaped apology which features Richards staring into the camera and telling the public that the top priority of the nation’s largest abortion provider “is the passionate care we provide.”
She goes on to say that in the undercover video, which was filmed last summer by the Center for Medical Progress, a Planned Parenthood staff member speaks “in a way that does reflect that compassion,” Richards said.
“This is unacceptable, and I personally apologize for the staff member’s tone and statements,” she said.
Notice that she doesn’t apologize for the grisly practice being described in the video by Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, which involves adjusting abortion techniques in order to preserve wanted body parts such as legs and livers.
“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact,” Nucatola coldly describes while feasting on salad and red wine.
Dr. Deborah Nucatola
The video, which has gone viral, has racked up more than 1.5 million views since its release on Tuesday.
According to The Hill, Nucatola has been reprimanded, although the organization “declined to provide specifics.”
The organization insists it was only accommodating women who wished to donate their aborted baby’s body parts to science, which is not illegal.
However, profiting from the sale of this tissue and some of the techniques described in the video are illegal, which is why Senator Chuck Grassley, (R-Iowa) chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Richards on Wednesday demanding more information.
In the letter, he noted that federal law prohibits the “alteration of abortion methods and procedures solely in order to obtain fetal tissue” – a practice that Nucatola describes so matter-of-factly in the video it is obviously considered routine in the clinics.
He is asking Richards to provide all records relating to Planned Parenthood’s provision of fetal tissue and all records of the organization’s facilitation or coordination of organ donation via any of its affiliates, including the procedures use for procurement and the amount of money generated.
In addition, the Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch stating that the videotaped discussion “raises questions about whether the actions of abortion providers, and in particular those employed by Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, are consistent with federal law.”
Grassley also drew Lynch’s attention to a section of the video in which Nucatola describes how her abortionists turn the baby around into a breech position so that they can partially birth it in order to salvage wanted body parts. This description raises questions about whether or not they are violating Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, a law that Nucatola directly addresses but says is open for “interpretation.”
Grassley does not agree and asks Lynch to provide his Committee “with a description of any and all actions taken by the Department to ensure compliance with this statute,” he wrote.
The Justice Department confirmed to FoxNews.com that it had received the letter but it made no further comment.
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