'The headlines would be a disaster'

Top Planned Parenthood executives wanted to keep the abortion giant’s fetal tissue sales a secret due to potential negative press, according to the latest video from the Center for Medical Progress (CMP).

Planned Parenthood doesn’t have an organization-wide policy regarding fetal tissue sales, Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, says in the video. And the Consortium of Abortion Providers (CAPS) would rather affiliates craft their own policies, while considering the potential negative consequences if the situation ever came to the media’s attention.

“We want them to think about really the New York Times headline,” said Deborah VanDerhei, CAPS national director. “I have been talking to the executive director of the National Abortion Federation, we’re trying to figure this out as an industry, about how we’re going to manage remuneration, because the headlines would be a disaster.”

To VanDerhei, the fetal tissue sales are simply “donation for remuneration,” although they also are a source of “a fair amount of income” for some of her CAPS colleagues.

Selling fetal tissue is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

“It’s an issue you might imagine we’re not really that comfortable talking about on email,” VanDerhei said. She wanted to avoid a congressional hearing like the one held 15 years ago after Life Dynamics published evidence indicating illegal fetal tissue sales.

Even Vanessa Cullins, vice president for external medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), recognizes the potential threat the exposure of fetal tissue sales posses to the organization.

“This could destroy your organization and us, if we don’t time those conversations correctly,” she tells an actor posing as a fetal tissue buyer.

Despite the danger, VanDerHei and Vanessa Russo, compliance program administrator for Planned Parenthood Keystone in Pennsylvania, still supported the sales.

“A company like this that wants to give our organization money for the tissue—I think that that’s a valid exchange and that’s OK,” Russo said. “We feel like we can’t consent to be bullied by ridiculous laws and this media that doesn’t understand the big picture.”

Today’s video is the 10th release of footage collected by CMP during a three-year investigation into Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue sales. It’s the fourth episode in CMP’s documentary series, Human Capital, and features an actor posing as a tissue buyer.

The video has encouraged pro-life leaders to call once again for Congress to cut $500 million allocated for Planned Parenthood from the federal budget.

“Senior abortion industry officials feared the New York Times headlines if these facts were to be exposed, and now they have been,” said Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser. “No one should feel comfortable affixing his or her name to a budget that prolongs this atrocity. It is up to President Obama to make clear why he believes our government has no higher priority than guaranteeing that the abortion industry can continue the piecemeal sale of baby body parts.”