How can tissue 'donation' buy a Lamborghini?

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a second undercover video today in which Planned Parenthood Los Angeles medical director Mary Gatter discusses fetal tissue compensation, apparently indicating concern for profit.

Gatter, who also presides over Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Directors’ Council, said the money is “not the important thing.” But she also admitted she didn’t want to “lowball” the specimen price during the negotiations. Like last week’s video, this week’s release (see below) features two actors posing as fetal tissue buyers. Congress enacted legislation in 1993 regulating fetal research, including fetal tissue compensation. Selling fetal tissue is a federal crime punishable with fines of up to $500,000 and 10 years in prison.

“It has to be big enough that it’s worthwhile for me,” Gatter says in the video. The actors then suggested $100 for high-quality tissue samples. Gatter approves the offer, but says she wants to determine what other abortion facilities receive before confirming the deal.

“Let me just figure out what others are getting, and if this is in the ballpark, then it’s fine,” she says. “If it’s still low, then we can bump it up. I want a Lamborghini.”

The video is the second release in a series of undercover videos produced by CMP’s “Human Capital Project,” the result of three years of research.

“Planned Parenthood’s top leadership admits they harvest aborted baby parts and receive payments for this,” said project leader David Daleiden. “Planned Parenthood’s only denial is that they make money off of baby parts, but that is a desperate lie that becomes more and more untenable as CMP reveals Planned Parenthood’s business operations and statements that prove otherwise.”

Gatter also indicated she would alter the procedure for first-trimester abortions to retrieve more intact tissue. She suggested a “less crunchy” abortion method.

“I wouldn’t object to asking Ian, who’s our surgeon who does the cases, to use an IPAS [manual vacuum aspirator] at that gestational age in order to increase the odds that he’s going to get an intact specimen,” she said.

After the release of last week’s video, Planned Parenthood apologized for the tone of the comments but stood by its practice of tissue “donation.”

“At this time, Planned Parenthood cannot confirm the authenticity of this tape, and nobody can tell exactly what was discussed because of the extremely heavy editing, the agenda of the activists who produced it, and the fact that the original footage has not been made available,” Planned Parenthood vice president of communications Eric Ferrero said today.

Last week, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said the abortion giant has never profited from fetal tissue sales.

Since last Tuesday, seven state governments and three congressional committees have launched investigations into Planned Parenthood’s practices. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has called for testimony from Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, who was featured in last week’s video.

Planned Parenthood attorney Roger Evans told the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a letter delivered Monday that CMP gathered thousands of hours of footage that it will “deceptively edit into short video clips to release for many months.”

He called CMP “extremists who have intimidated women and doctors for years—in their agenda to ban abortion completely—are not ‘documenting’ misdeeds; they are trying to create them, quite unsuccessfully.”

But today’s video indicates otherwise, according to Americans United Life president Charmaine Yoest. The conversation “sounds like a discussion for profit,” she said. “Meanwhile, taxpayers are sending $1.26 million tax dollars a day to support the nation’s No. 1 abortion conglomerate.”

And regardless of the outcome of the investigations, Planned Parenthood’s actions are still “inhuman and troubling,” Yoest said. “If Planned Parenthood’s conduct does not violate the federal law prohibiting the sale of fetal tissue and organs, then the law must be changed.”