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CMP Statement on Harris County Announcement

The Center for Medical Progress uses the same undercover techniques that investigative journalists have used for decades in exercising our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of the press, and follows all applicable laws. We respect the processes of the Harris County District Attorney, and note that buying fetal tissue requires a seller as well. Planned Parenthood still cannot deny the admissions from their leadership about fetal organ sales captured on video for all the world to see.

“COVER-UP” – 3rd Re-Cap Video on #PPSellsBabyParts Revelations

Planned Parenthood cannot deny that its own senior leadership is caught on camera participating in a widespread and organized violation of state and federal laws against fetal body parts trafficking. Instead, Planned Parenthood can only attempt to distract the public and cover up the evidence of its lawlessness.

Planned Parenthood is organized like a franchise, with over 50 local branches, or “affiliates,” sharing the Planned Parenthood brand name and receiving operations support from the national office. Planned Parenthood executives repeatedly told CMP investigators that the national office attempts to minimize its own liability for violations of fetal tissue laws by refusing to keep any written policy or guidelines around the payments and having local affiliates independently handle contracts and negotiations to sell body parts without any oversight. Planned Parenthood’s dubious new “policy” not to take any money for supplying fetal parts is exactly the sort of policy that top-level Planned Parenthood executives told CMP investigators could never be implemented.

Planned Parenthood’s feigned innocence about its affiliates’ baby parts sales is in reality nothing more than a coordinated cover-up to avoid prosecution. This should be a red flag for law enforcement and public officials, and they must listen to the broad public mandate for Planned Parenthood to be held accountable under the law and intensify their scrutiny of this lawless and unaccountable abortion business.

#PPSellsBabyParts

CMP Statement on Planned Parenthood Lawsuit

Planned Parenthood is under investigation by the United States Congress and multiple law enforcement agencies, while their business is drying up and the public is turning against their barbaric abortion for baby parts trade. Now they are filing a frivolous lawsuit in retaliation for CMP’s First Amendment investigative journalism that has done nothing more than tell the truth about Planned Parenthood’s lawless operations. This last-ditch move of desperation is going to expose all of the sordid dealings of the California Planned Parenthood affiliates to the light of the legal system and the public will see them for the corrupt abortion and baby body parts profiteers that they really are.

4 Questions Planned Parenthood Still Can’t Answer

1) How much money total did Planned Parenthood receive from StemExpress from 2010 to 2015?

2) Why is Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services talking about manipulating fetuses to breech position to get better organs?

3) Why did a Planned Parenthood Medical Director endorse a StemExpress advertisement for “financial profits” from fetal tissue donation if Planned Parenthood does not support profiting from fetal tissue?

4) Since the President of the Medical Directors’ Council said “we didn’t really have to do anything” when letting Novogenix Laboratories, LLC harvest fetal tissue, why did Novogenix pay Planned Parenthood?

“HARVEST” – 2nd Re-Cap Video on #PPSellsBabyParts Scandal

Planned Parenthood senior executives and medical directors told CMP investigators that Planned Parenthood’s abortion providers would be happy to alter their abortion procedures in order to harvest higher-quality baby body parts. The representatives with the most experience harvesting fetal organs, Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services Dr. Deborah Nucatola, and Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s Director of Research Melissa Farrell, indicated this already happens at their sites as a routine matter. When Planned Parenthood makes decisions about a woman’s abortion procedure based on what will serve its own tissue procurement needs, it is not treating her like a patient with rights and dignity, but like a harvesting pod.

The harvest and sale of aborted fetal organs and tissues exists to meet the demand for fresh and undamaged body parts, typically from the 2nd trimester of pregnancy. These practical constraints, plus the financial benefits offered by tissue purchasers, create incentives for Planned Parenthood to change their abortion procedures and even use illegal methods like partial-birth abortion to get fresh and intact specimens. In tissue harvesting cases, the absence of feticidal chemicals combined with the active attempt to remove the fetus as intact as possible make it far more likely the fetus may be born alive, only to be vivisected to death for his or her body parts.

Planned Parenthood has never provided any justification or explanation for the admissions of their abortion providers in this footage, because it is simply too damning. State, local, and federal law enforcement must listen to the broad public mandate for Planned Parenthood to be held accountable to the law and continue their investigations to criminal prosecution.

#PPSellsBabyParts

CMP Statement on Congress Passing Planned Parenthood Defunding

Congress is listening to the will of the American people to hold Planned Parenthood accountable under the law for their barbaric abortion and baby parts business. Yesterday, President Obama wiped tears from his eyes saying: “Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.” Mr. President, show the same outrage and compassion for the kids who are killed and harvested for body parts at Planned Parenthood, and parted out and sold across the country like used cars. The hypocrisy and callousness of this out-of-touch administration will be on full display if after today, President Obama refuses to listen to the will of the American people and reassign taxpayer money from Planned Parenthood’s barbaric abortion and baby parts business to mainstream, full-spectrum health care providers.

New Re-Cap Video on Planned Parenthood Baby Parts Scandal – “PROFIT”

The undercover footage released in the past half-year by The Center for Medical Progress shows medical directors and executives from the top leadership of Planned Parenthood admitting the abortion business trades baby body parts for money and indicating the profit motive undergirding these illicit sales. To date, Planned Parenthood has offered no convincing explanation for the money that has poured into its affiliates from fetal tissue procurement companies like StemExpress, which performs the work of fetal tissue collection yet still pays abortion clinics per harvested part.

Planned Parenthood’s recent assurances that it has ceased accepting payment for fetal tissue are an admission of guilt and a last-ditch effort to avoid scrutiny for these indefensible transactions. As Congress, the Health and Human Services Department, and numerous state and local law enforcement agencies continue to investigate Planned Parenthood’s barbaric abortion and baby body parts business, this footage is a clear reminder of why there is a broad public mandate for the investigations to continue and for public money to be reassigned from Planned Parenthood to ethical, mainstream medical organizations.

CMP Statement on HHS Investigation of Planned Parenthood Baby Parts Scandal

The HHS inspector general’s investigation of the Planned Parenthood baby parts scandal is further confirmation of the serious legal and ethical issues raised by Planned Parenthood’s unaccountable abortion-for-baby-parts business. All state and federal investigations, including the Congressional Select Committee on Infant Lives and the new HHS audit, must leave no stone unturned in examining the illicit baby parts payments from groups like StemExpress, ABR, Novogenix, and even the NIH itself to Planned Parenthood.

CMP Statement on Planned Parenthood-allied National Abortion Federation’s Attack on Free Speech

The First Amendment liberties of freedom of speech and of the citizen press are under attack in the censorial lawsuit brought against CMP by the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood’s allies and proxy group. The National Abortion Federation is a criminal enterprise and a key partner in Planned Parenthood’s late-term abortion and baby body parts business. NAF seeks a Preliminary Injunction gag-order to silence CMP from publishing the evidence of criminal activity between NAF and Planned Parenthood and to censor the video evidence already released. CMP’s recently-filed opposition to NAF is available (with court-mandated redactions) here and includes:

  • The factual background of CMP investigators’ interactions with the National Abortion Federation, revealing NAF invited CMP investigators to attend its meetings precisely because it was so interested in its members receiving payment for fetal tissue and organs (page 5)
  • 5 pages of examples of criminal and unethical admissions from NAF and Planned Parenthood abortion providers documented at NAF meetings, redacted from the public filing and prevented from release by court order (pages 10-15)
  • The invalidity and unenforceability of NAF’s poorly-constructed and contradictory conference Exhibitor and Confidentiality Agreements, which NAF has admitted in court to have a primary non-disparagement purpose nowhere stated in the agreements themselves (pages 18-28)
  • The blatantly unconstitutional character of prior restraints on speech (pages 32-38)

From CMP’s Opposition filing:

In September 2013, the National Abortion Federation (“NAF”) became aware of a start-up company called BioMax Procurement Services, LLC, which offered to pay abortion clinics for fetal tissue. NAF representatives encouraged BioMax to attend and exhibit at NAF’s Annual Meeting in April 2014 in San Francisco. In response to a tentative e-mail inquiry from BioMax about pricing and availability of exhibit space at the next meeting, NAF responded by sending a prospectus containing what NAF now claims is its most secret information: the exact date, time, and location of its next Annual Meeting.

BioMax representatives attended the 2014 NAF Annual Meeting and told dozens of members and staff that its business plan was to pay abortion clinics for fetal tissue—and pay more than its competitors. From 2014 to 2015, it made the same proposal to abortion providers and clinic owners in several other venues. Consequently, BioMax became popular and respected in the abortion community.

[…]

CMP’s investigation uncovered extensive evidence in the abortion industry of willingness to engage in criminal practices, including the sale of fetal body parts for profit and the alteration of abortion methods to procure fetal body parts for research, as well as evidence of de-sensitization toward the highly developed human fetus by practitioners of late-term abortion.

NAF has spun this investigative journalistic endeavor into an eleven-count complaint containing allegations ranging from racketeering and fraud to trespass. Despite months of rhetoric about CMP’s putative “fraud” and “crime spree,” however, for its preliminary injunction motion, NAF relies on only two claims: breach of contract and violation of California Penal Code § 632.

Plaintiff cannot show a likelihood of success on these claims, nor can it show a threat of irreparable injury on the basis of the actions of third parties unrelated to Defendants who are strangers to this lawsuit. Moreover, NAF’s requested relief is both unsupported by the evidence and contrary to the public policy against restraining publication of matters of enormous public interest.

The National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood continue to trample on the First Amendment freedoms of the American people even as these two halves of the abortion industry are under state and federal investigation for their criminal sale of baby body parts. The arguments on NAF’s Preliminary Injunction gag order will be heard in the San Francisco Northern Federal District Court of California on December 18. The public filings can be found below:

CMP Statement on Senate Vote to Freeze Planned Parenthood Taxpayer Subisides

Democracy has returned to the Congress as the Senate votes by majority to end taxpayer subsidies to Planned Parenthood’s scandal-ridden abortion and baby parts business. There is no justification for Planned Parenthood to continue to build their criminal enterprise and abortion empire on over half-a-billion taxpayer dollars each year. Now, President Obama must listen to the will of the people through their elected representatives by ending taxpayer subsidies to Planned Parenthood and ordering an immediate investigation by the Justice Department of Planned Parenthood’s interstate commerce in fetal tissue and organs with StemExpress, Advanced Bioscience Resources, Novogenix Laboratories, Da Vinci Biosciences, and many others.