Author: David

Today, the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives released a huge set of documents on the illicit aborted baby body parts harvesting scheme between StemExpress and three large Planned Parenthood affiliates in California (and Family Planning Specialists in Oakland).

The Panel finds evidence of severe HIPAA and patient consent violations and outright fraud committed in the 5-year course of this scheme to profit off aborted body parts. They are alerting both the HIPAA office and the Human Research Subjects Protection office in HHS to begin enforcement action:

“The Panel’s investigation has uncovered information indicating that stemExpress and Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (“PPMM”), Planned Parenthood Shasta pacific (“PPSP”), and Family Planning Specialists Medical Group (“FPS”) (hereinafter “the abortion clinics”) committed systematic violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) privacy rule from about 2010 to 2015. These violations occurred when the abortion clinics disclosed patients’ individually identifiable health information to StemExpress to facilitate the TPB’s efforts to procure human fetal tissue for resale.” (pg. 2, Letter to HIPAA Case Management Operations)

Six key takeaways from the documents attached to the HIPAA letter:

1) Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (Attachment L), Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific, and Planned Parenthood Santa Barbara, Ventura, & San Luis Obispo (Attachment J) all signed contracts with StemExpress to sell aborted fetal organs and provide private patient health information to StemExpress in order to facilitate harvesting of organs.

2) Planned Parenthood Mar Monte is the biggest PP affiliate in the entire country, and the very first affiliate StemExpress began business with in April 2010.

3) The StemExpress contracts pay Planned Parenthood per “product of conception” (“POC”), defined as “any fetal organ” taken during an abortion. The contracts only pay Planned Parenthood if the fetal organ is “determined in the clinic to be usable.” The PPMM and PPSP contracts pay $55 per body part, while the SB/Ventura/SLO contract pays $75 per body part.

4) The StemExpress contracts indicate that Planned Parenthood is not expected to incur or bill for costs, but rather is being paid specifically for market-value fetal organs. The contracts make reference to payment for “removal” of fetal organs, which is not an allowable cost under the federal statute. The contracts say PP will invoice StemExpress specifically for fetal organs: “invoice StemExpress monthly for the number of POC’s and number of maternal bloods procured”–there is no invoicing for actual costs to Planned Parenthood.

5) The StemExpress contracts specify that Planned Parenthood will provide private patient information to StemExpress “as necessary to obtain patients’ consent for use of POCs,” indicating that StemExpress is handling patient consent, not Planned Parenthood. It also shows that PP is being paid to provide HIPAA information–they are literally being paid multiples of $55 for each HIPAA violation.

6) Select Panel Chair Marsha Blackburn sums this all up very well: “The key to understanding the HIPAA and consent violations that we’ve referred to HHS is that there’s a business contract between StemExpress and the abortion clinics under which both sides make a profit from the baby body parts inside the young woman’s womb. The contract changes the way both entities view the young woman: her baby is now a profit-center. This betrayal of a young woman’s trust should disgust us all. It takes financial advantage, obtains consent through coercion, and deceives the woman, all in violation of federal privacy laws.”

StemExpress paid Planned Parenthood to break the law. The documents released today by the Select Investigative Panel show StemExpress and the biggest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country engaged in a five-year-long scheme to profit off aborted baby body parts using unprotected confidential patient information and disregarding normal patient protections, in direct violation of HIPAA and other federal laws. Now we know why Planned Parenthood and their allies have fought so hard to oppose any scrutiny of their barbaric aborted baby body parts business: the violations in Planned Parenthood and StemExpress’ illegal baby body parts trade goes far deeper than anyone ever realized. CMP’s videos only scratched the surface of the systematic profiteering off the private health information and baby body parts from pregnant women that Planned Parenthood and their business partners like StemExpress relentlessly pursued. Elected officials at all levels must now act immediately to hold lawless entities like StemExpress and Planned Parenthood accountable for their atrocities against humanity.

In recent court filings by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s attorney Josh Schaffer admitted in a sworn declaration that the Harris County DA’s office shared evidence with Planned Parenthood, even after the Texas Attorney General’s office had forbidden them from doing so. The declaration was included as part of the DA office’s response to David Daleiden’s motion to quash the indictment against him, alleging prosecutorial misconduct.

Under oath, Schaffer admitted that he and Assistant District Attorney Sunni Mitchell attempted to do an end-run around the Texas Attorney General’s directive to Mitchell not to share raw video footage with Planned Parenthood: “I was told that the Attorney General’s Office agreed to give it to the HCDAO on the condition that the HCDAO not give it to PPGC. Mitchell told me that she would try to obtain the footage by other means.” ADA Sunni Mitchell was responsible in 2013 for a Grand Jury that no-billed Houston’s late-term abortionist Douglas Karpen, after photographs and eyewitness testimony implicated him in illegal late-term abortions and homicide of born-alive infants, similar to Philadelphia’s notoriously convicted Kermit Gosnell.

“The recent filings by the Harris County District Attorney confirm that the DA shared confidential documents and information with abortion provider Planned Parenthood, colluding with it in the prosecution of David Daleiden,” said Thomas More Society Special Counsel, Peter Breen, attorney for David Daleiden. “These filings also include evidence that appears to show that the DA’s office worked with Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast to undermine the Texas Attorney General’s independent investigation of that abortion provider. The conduct of Harris County prosecutors in this case is outrageous and illegal. We look forward to pressing our motion to quash this indictment in court.”

The exhibits and testimony provided at the last hearing of the Select Investigative Panel make it clear that StemExpress and Planned Parenthood illegally profited off the sale of baby body parts. StemExpress’ accounting records could easily exonerate them if they did nothing wrong, so their refusal to voluntarily produce these documents speaks volumes. The raw banking and accounting records will tell the full story of whether—and how much—StemExpress and their “business partners” like Planned Parenthood profited off of aborted baby parts.

What we learned from today’s hearing is that Planned Parenthood and their business partners like StemExpress are engaged in a rampant, illegal, and horrific enterprise that harvests, trafficks, and sells aborted babies’ hearts, lungs, and brains for profit. The undercover video admissions by senior level Planned Parenthood officials only scratch the surface of this barbaric trade—the financial documents uncovered by the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives prove that Planned Parenthood profited from trafficking fetal organs and tissues. We now know the criminal trade in body parts is spread nationwide throughout the abortion industry, with nearly 1 in 5 abortion clinics selling baby parts to StemExpress. Even the pro-Planned Parenthood witnesses called by the Panel minority agreed that a robust investigation should seek testimony and accounting documents from Planned Parenthood. We applaud the Select Investigative Panel for their excellent work on this important issue and encourage all levels of government and law enforcement to move forward quickly and decisively to ensure that those who sell aborted baby parts for profit are brought to justice under the law.

The financial documents uncovered by the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives prove that Planned Parenthood profited from the sale of aborted baby parts to their long-time business partner StemExpress. The facts are now undeniable that Planned Parenthood had no “costs” to “reimburse” and every dollar they received for little baby hearts, brains, and livers netted illegal profit. Planned Parenthood lied to the media, to Congress, and to the American people for 9 months falsely asserting they had no financial benefit from supplying baby parts. Now, Planned Parenthood and their partners in crime must face justice under the law for their barbaric criminal profiteering from aborted baby parts.

Attorneys for David Daleiden today filed a motion to quash the indictment by the Harris County District Attorney citing a series of abuses that occurred during and after the grand jury’s proceedings that are in violation of Mr. Daleiden’s due process rights under the Texas Constitution.  Prosecutors systematically leaked Grand Jury information to an unauthorized persons and the grand jury acted without proper authority.  Additional information can be found in the motions below:

The Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives recently held its first hearing on March 2 to examine the bioethics of fetal tissue harvesting and experimentation. The hearing included a review of the patient consent form used by Planned Parenthood to get permission to harvest aborted baby parts.

The Planned Parenthood form promises pregnant women considering abortion that aborted fetal tissue “has been used to treat and find a cure for such diseases as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and AIDS.” No cures for these diseases are currently available, and no current therapies for them use aborted fetal tissue.

At the hearing, Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, a scientist from the University of California at San Diego, was called by the Panel’s minority to testify in support of Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue harvesting. Dr. Goldstein is a long-time financial donor to Planned Parenthood in San Diego, and uses aborted fetal brains and other body parts from the local Planned Parenthood. Under oath, Dr. Goldstein replied to a question from Planned Parenthood supporter Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) this way:

Watson Coleman: Do you believe that anything on that form is creating an undue hardship or intimidation or misrepresentation to women who are being asked to consider whether they will donate this tissue?

Goldstein: If it’s the form that says, therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and all the rest have already been found, I agree, that’s an inappropriate statement that should not have been made on that form. I don’t know who wrote it, that would not have made it past my IRB [Institutional Review Board] either.

The Planned Parenthood fetal harvesting consent form is authored by Planned Parenthood Federation of America and provided to affiliates in its Manual of Medical Standards and Guidelines.

“Planned Parenthood’s baby parts trafficking scheme cannot stand up to independent scrutiny. When a Planned Parenthood supporter and baby parts customer admits under oath that Planned Parenthood has been fraudulently inducing patient consent, it discredits all of Planned Parenthood’s assurances that their baby parts scheme has operated legally and above-board,” notes David Daleiden, CMP Project Lead. “Law enforcement in Planned Parenthood-friendly jurisdictions should stop wasting taxpayer resources to assist Planned Parenthood in harassing citizen journalists, and should stop ignoring the evidence of real fraud, baby body parts trafficking, and criminal abortion practices right in their own backyard.”

The star witness for Planned Parenthood at today’s hearing on the bioethics of fetal body parts harvesting, UC San Diego’s Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, obtains his aborted fetal brains from Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest in San Diego, CA. Dr. Goldstein is also a long-time financial donor to the same Planned Parenthood in San Diego. Neither of these critical facts are mentioned anywhere in Dr. Goldstein’s sworn written testimony for the hearing.

“This is more of the same from Planned Parenthood and their political cronies: a total lack of transparency and false advertising to cover up troubling revelations about their baby-parts-for-profit scheme,” says David Daleiden, CMP Project Lead. “In reality, Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer-funded crime syndicate for baby parts harvesting is on full display in this hearing–a taxpayer-funded researcher at a government school harvesting brains from late-term babies at a state-subsidized Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. The Investigative Panel must ask Dr. Goldstein the hard questions about how much money he gave Planned Parenthood in exchange for aborted babies’ brains, and what Planned Parenthood may have done to their abortion process to accommodate his orders.”

Previous CMP release about Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest and fetal harvesting with Advanced Bioscience Resources: https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2015/09/planned-parenthood-baby-parts-vendor-abr-pays-off-clinics-intact-fetuses-just-fell-out/

Today, The Center for Medical Progress released a new white paper analysis of the two different models Planned Parenthood uses to supply aborted fetal tissue and organs and how both models have produced a financial benefit for Planned Parenthood, contrary to its public talking points: