One month after the first video targeting Planned Parenthood was released, it’s still unclear exactly how many of the group’s hundreds of clinics supply aborted fetal organs for medical research.
Planned Parenthood said this week that clinics in only three states have been involved in donating fetal tissue. Spokeswoman Erica Sackin didn’t deny that two of them are California and Colorado —two states with affiliates featured prominently in the footage collected by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress — but she wouldn’t name the third state, citing security concerns.
Nor would the woman’s health and abortion provider say how many clinics total have been involved in the practice. There are 114 Planned Parenthood clinics in California and 21 in Colorado, according to the group’s website, although not all of those centers provide surgical abortions and it’s unlikely all those who do also have tissue donation programs.
Sackin also said no clinics in Texas currently participate in fetal tissue donation, although a director of the state’s biggest center in Houston was captured on tape discussing the practice. Melissa Farrell, director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, said in the footage that the center has no “ongoing” donation program but indicated it has provided tissue to researchers in the past.
Abortion foe David Daleiden, who orchestrated the undercover investigation, said it’s “really cheap” for Planned Parenthood to discount Texas as one of the states providing fetal tissue.
“Texas was processing fetal tissue orders as of April this year, so to say they don’t have an ‘active’ program is pretty misleading,” he told the Washington Examiner.
If only the clinics specifically named in the videos supply fetal tissue, they would be a relatively small minority of Planned Parenthood’s roughly 700 clinics around the country. The footage features Planned Parenthood officials from three major affiliates plus a whistleblower who names four individual clinics in California.
But even if Republicans obtain a more comprehensive picture of Planned Parenthood’s involvement in fetal tissue collections — possibly through investigations two congressional committees are now conducting — it’s unlikely to stem the hotly charged political debate the videos have reignited.
To many supporters of abortion rights, the footage showing aborted fetal parts might be gruesome, but it doesn’t change their minds that women should still be legally allowed to choose the procedure. And to abortion opponents, who feel abortion is tantamount to murder, the videos give them more ammunition to try to sink a group they’ve hated for a long time.
“Yeah, some clinics are engaging in the horrendous practice,” said Kristin Hawkins, president for Students for Life of America. “And some of them aren’t. But that doesn’t mean we should continue funding the clinics that aren’t.”
In the footage Daleiden obtained over three years — which quickly went viral and prompted a wave of GOP attempts to cut public funding from the group — actors posing as buyers for a fake human tissue company met with multiple top Planned Parenthood officials to discuss contracting with clinics to obtain aborted fetal tissue.
The videos don’t provide any cut-and-dried evidence that Planned Parenthood profited from the tissue, which would be illegal. But some officials appear to haggle over the compensation for overhead costs and admit that sometimes doctors alter the abortion procedure in order to keep organs intact, allowing Republicans to levy legal and ethical accusations.
Senate Republicans tried and failed earlier this month to move forward on an amendment to strip federal funds from all Planned Parenthood clinics, and there’s a potential battle brewing on Capitol Hill to force a government shutdown over the issue this fall.
Even the state investigations into Planned Parenthood’s involvement in fetal tissue collections underscores how politically divisive the issue is. Officials in California and Colorado — where clinics are known to be involved in the practice — wouldn’t tell the Examiner whether they’re investigating clinics to make sure nothing illegal has been done.
Conversely, most of the dozen states that are investigating Planned Parenthood already have laws prohibiting fetal tissue donations or have stripped the group of state funding — feeding Planned Parenthood’s indignation over the probes.
“I believe none of the state investigations are taking place in the places that have tissue donation programs,” Sackin said.
Some of the states, including Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts and South Dakota, have said they’ve found Planned Parenthood to be in compliance with state laws and regulations.
And after the first video was released, a number of Planned Parenthood affiliates in those states and elsewhere were quick to deny any involvement in fetal tissue donations. Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts, Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Planned Parenthood Arizona and Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas have all said they don’t provide aborted fetal tissue.
But that holds little relevance to abortion opponents, who are pleased the videos draw attention to the procedure of abortion itself, whether or not states manage to prove Planned Parenthood broke any laws.
“I think a lot of the defunding movement is about why are we supporting a business that provides abortions, when a good half of Americans are not comfortable with [abortion] anyway,” said Emily Horne, legislative associate for Texas Right to Life. “I think that’s just kind of a building sentiment.”
