The ninth installment of the Center for Medical Progress series exposing Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue harvesting activities focuses on the oldest baby parts vendor in the United States, Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR).
ABR was established in 1989, and has harvested fetal body parts at Planned Parenthood clinics longer than any other company:
The video features undercover conversations with Dr. Katharine Sheehan, the long-time medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest until 2013; Perrin Larton, the Procurement Manager for ABR; and Cate Dyer, the CEO of rival fetal tissue procurement company StemExpress.
Sheehan tells actors posing as a new human biologics company that at Planned Parenthood Pacific Southwest, “We have already a relationship with ABR.” Sheehan explains, “We’ve been using them for over 10 years, really a long time, just kind of renegotiated the contract. They’re doing the big collections for government-level collections and things like that.” When one of the actors negotiates, “We return a portion of our fees to the clinics,” Sheehan responds eagerly, “Right, get a toe in and make it, make a pro–alright.”
In an August 27 letter to Congress, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards referenced a California Planned Parenthood affiliate that currently receives $60 “per tissue specimen” from a tissue procurement organization. The Center for Medical Progress, the group producing the videos, identified Planned Parenthood Pacific Southwest and ABR as the affiliate and TPO referred to in Richards’ letter, based on process of elimination.
“We now know from Cecile Richards’ letter that $60 per collected tissue specimen is what will ‘get a toe in’ to harvest baby parts at Planned Parenthood Pacific Southwest,” wrote CMP Project Lead David Daleiden. As multiple tissue specimens often come from a single fetus, $60/specimen can quickly add up to hundreds of extra dollars in revenue per abortion. The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2).
Perrin Larton, the procurement manager at ABR, explains to CMP the loophole that allowed them to get away with harvesting baby parts while there was a ban on embryonic research:
It was never outlawed. … Where during the Bush administration — Bush 1 — no federal funding could go to … embryonic cell research. But fetal tissue was taken out of that. So we continued to send tissue to people like NIH (National Institute of Health) even though the government was paying for it.
All this time, the pro-life community had been unaware these ghoulish practices were being funded by the government.
Later on, Larton described ABR’s fetal tissue harvesting practices to a prospective buyer. “The whole point is not to have a live birth,” she assured the CMP actor. However:
“I literally have had women come in and they’ll go in the O.R. and they’re back out in three minutes, and I’m going, ‘What’s going on?’ Oh yeah, the fetus was already in the vaginal canal whenever we put her in the stirrups, it just fell out,” she explains of situations where there has been a great enough degree of cervical dilation to procure an intact fetus.
While ABR charges $340 per second-trimester fetal tissue specimen, they seem less concerned about tissue quality than other harvesting companies: “Whenever we have a smooth portion of liver, we think that’s good!” Larton chirps:
Writes CMP’s Daleiden:
In the twisted world of baby parts trafficking from Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, there are few unbroken rules. After the serious admissions in Planned Parenthood’s letter to Congress last week, it is imperative for lawmakers and law enforcement to act decisively to determine the full extent of Planned Parenthood and their proxies’ lawbreaking, hold them accountable, and stop the taxpayer funding of these barbaric atrocities against humanity.
Today, the Center for Medical Progress sent an open letter to Congress in reply to Planned Parenthood’s letter of August 27:
CMP’s letter highlights serious admissions in Planned Parenthood’s letter, in which Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards seems to admit that her organization receives valuable consideration payments for fetal tissue, changes abortion procedures to get higher quality specimens, and supports and approves these practices at the highest level. The CMP letter is available here.
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