Planned Parenthood announced Tuesday that its clinics will no longer accept any reimbursement for their work harvesting and distributing aborted fetuses.
Although the nation’s largest abortion provider insists that accepting compensation is “fully legal, appropriate, and common among health care providers,” it will now cover its own costs of donating aborted baby parts for medical research.
Planned Parenthood took the action to fend off conservative attacks on their funding in the wake of undercover videos that shined a spotlight on their gruesome fetal tissue harvesting activities.
Via The Hill:
The group’s president Cecile Richards disclosed the policy change in a letter to the National Institutes of Health, which she said was intended to “take away any basis for attacking Planned Parenthood to advance an anti-abortion political agenda.”
Richards, who has repeatedly claimed that the Center for Medical Progress “doctored” their videos, also wrote the following in the letter:
This new policy removes beyond the shadow of a doubt the ludicrous idea that Planned Parenthood has any financial interest in tissue donation — and shows the real agenda behind these attacks.
In one of the CMP videos, a Planned Parenthood employee was heard joking, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated prices.
The videos also revealed that it is the practice of some Planned Parenthood doctors to illegally alter how they perform abortions in order to obtain desirable tissue.
House Republicans have vowed to continue their probe:
“Significant questions still remain about Planned Parenthood’s finances,” Chaffetz wrote in a statement.
“I’m glad to see Planned Parenthood is finally recognizing the need to end this disgusting practice,” added Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who is vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is leading a separate investigation.
“However, there are still many questions yet to be answered surrounding Planned Parenthood’s business practices and relationships with the procurement organizations. This is exactly why the House is investigating abortion practices and how we can better protect life.”
In the months since the CMP videos exposed Planned Parenthood’s tissue harvesting operation, the program “has shrunk dramatically.” According to The Hill, there were six Planned Parenthood clinics that allowed women to donate aborted baby parts for medical research in July. Now the number has been reduced to just two.
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