Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards will tell Congress Tuesday that she’s proud of the group’s involvement in providing aborted fetal tissue for medical researchers, in her first-ever appearance before a congressional committee.
Richards will testify to the House Oversight Committee as Republicans probe Planned Parenthood following a series of controversial undercover videos that have drawn widespread attention to its participation in providing and being compensated for fetal tissue.
She will stress that only a few of the her group’s nearly 700 clinics are involved in providing fetal tissue, and issue a strong defense of the ones that do, according to prepared testimony released Tuesday evening by the committee. According to Richards, just 1 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics retrieve the tissue.
“Even though our work involving fetal tissue research is a small part of what Planned Parenthood does, we are committed to continual improvement and meeting the highest medical and ethical standards in all we do, including facilitating tissue donations,” Richards’ testimony says.
The hearing is sure to fuel sharp tensions between Republicans, who say Planned Parenthood may have broken the law by profiting from the tissue or performing partial-birth abortions to provide it, and Democrats who are defending the group for the various health services it provides for low-income women.
Planned Parenthood has denied breaking any laws and has tried to turn criticism instead onto the maker of the videos, David Daleiden, who disguised himself as a human tissue buyer in order to obtain the footage of top Planned Parenthood officials.
“For the few centers that are involved with fetal tissue research, our guidance goes above and beyond the requirements of the law,” Richards will tell the committee. “In fact, despite Mr. Daleiden’s nearly three-year effort to entrap Planned Parenthood, he failed to succeed in convincing even a single affiliate to enter into a procurement contract with his fake company.”
