Tag Archives: Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood to No Longer Receive Medicaid Funding in Texas

The issue of defunding Planned Parenthood took a big step on Monday as Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that Planned Parenthood would no longer receive funding from the state’s Medicaid program.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General told the group and its affiliates in a letter that their state-federal Medicaid funding would end due to violations in the Medicaid program. According to USA Today, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates receive about $3 million to $4 million a year in Medicaid reimbursements.

“The State has determined that you and your Planned Parenthood affiliates are no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal, and ethical manner,” the letter said.

The move comes after undercover videos showed employees of Planned Parenthood discussing the sale of fetal tissue and organs, which has sparked national uproar and controversy. After the videos were released, several government officials, including Gov. Abbott, called for an investigation. Congress is still investigating the claims made in the videos.

“Texas has stepped forward and shown its unyielding commitment to both protecting life and providing women’s health services,” Gov. Abbott told NBC News. “The gruesome harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood will not be allowed in Texas and the barbaric practice must be brought to an end. As such, ending the Medicaid participation of Planned Parenthood affiliates in the State of Texas is another step in providing greater access to safe healthcare for women while protecting our most vulnerable — the unborn.”

Gov. Abbot has also stated that this latest step is part of his administration’s LIFE movement. The “F” in this movement stands for the deFunding of Planned Parenthood.

A similar situation is taking place in Louisiana where Gov. Bobby Jindal stopped Planned Parenthood from receiving state money. Planned Parenthood quickly filed a lawsuit that reinstated their funding for 14 days; the judge’s order came just hours before Texas announced their defunding move.

Planned Parenthood told NBC News that they will rebuke the new steps and fight for the funding. They noted that they provide non-abortion health care services to thousands of women through Medicaid statewide, according to ABC News.

“It is completely outrageous that Texas officials are using these thoroughly discredited, fraudulent videos to cut women off from preventive health care, including cancer screenings, HIV testing, and birth control,” Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement to the Associated Press.

“We will fight back against this outrageous, malicious, political attack in Texas with everything we’ve got, and we will protect women’s access to the health care they need and deserve.”

Planned Parenthood continues to deny that they have done anything wrong and that the undercover videos that were released over the summer were biased in their editing.

Hearings to Defund Planned Parenthood Begin

The first hearing in Congress about the defunding of Planned Parenthood took place Wednesday.

The hearing was titled “Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider” by the House Judiciary Committee.  More hearings are expected through the fall spurred by the undercover videos that show Planned Parenthood selling baby body parts.

The chairman of the committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, opened the session with a call for a ban on all abortions after five months to “help ensure that the body parts of late-aborted babies cannot be sold because late-term abortions would be generally prohibited.”

Republicans on the panel cited the multiple videos released by the Center for Medical Progress showing the behind the scenes actions of Planned Parenthood when it came to abortions.  The videos appear to show Planned Parenthood engaging in illegal activities.

“Planned Parenthood and its executives must answer for the alleged atrocities brought to light in the videos by the Center for Medical Progress,” Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee Chairman Trent Franks of Arizona said.

Planned Parenthood reps claimed they have done nothing wrong.

“While all of these congressional investigations are based on false claims and videos that have been completely discredited, we continue to be fully transparent and cooperate with all of the committees,” said spokesman Eric Ferrero.

New Undercover Planned Parenthood Video Reveals Organ Harvesting from Live Babies

The latest video from the Center for Medical Progress features a former staffer of a baby part harvesting company revealing they cut through the face of a still alive baby to obtain its brain.

“‘I want to see something kind of cool,’” Holly O’Donnell says her supervisor told her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”

O’Donnell said it was her supervisor that ordered her to cut through the baby’s face to get to the brain.

“I can’t even describe what that feels like,” she said.

An executive of one company that purchases baby organs from Planned Parenthood admitted in the video that in some cases, the child is still alive with a beating heart.

“There are times when after the procedure is done that the heart actually is still beating,” said Dr. Ben Van Handel, the Executive Director of Novogenix Laboratories, LLC, and also of Perrin Larton, Procurement Manager of Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR).

In a major win for the Center for Medical Progress, the group that formerly employed O’Donnell, StemExpress, has quietly announced they will no longer work with Planned Parenthood.

“We value our various partnerships but, due to the increased questions that have arisen over the past few weeks, we feel it prudent to terminate activities with Planned Parenthood,” the company said in a statement. “While we value our business relationship with Planned Parenthood, that work represents a small percentage of our overall business activity and we must focus our limited resources on resolving these inquiries.”

New Planned Parenthood Video Reports Transactions Took Place without Parental Consent

A new undercover video released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) shows that Planned Parenthood has been selling the parts of aborted babies without the permission of the mother, a violation of federal law.

“If there was a higher gestation and the technicians needed it, there were times they would just take what they want,” said Holly O’Donnell, the ex-procurement tech for StemExpress who is featured in the 10-minute release.

“And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”

CMP has been the target of two federal judges who have tried to stop the group from releasing videos.  However, the restraining order that bars release of footage involving StemExpress, a body parts sales company, only bars footage of three executives of the company at a restaurant in May.  The video released Wednesday contains a former StemExpress employee not taken at the May meeting.

O’Donnell said in the video that Planned Parenthood looks for opportunities to harvest baby parts.

“They give you a sheet, and it’s everybody for that day, who’s coming in for an ultrasound, who’s coming in for an abortion, medical or a late-term abortion,” O’Donnell said.  “Pregnancy tests are potential pregnancies, therefore potential specimens. So it’s just taking advantage of the opportunities.”

O’Donnell said one time she was being ordered to get consent from a woman who was crying and throwing up as a result of the drugs used in her abortion.

“The women I worked for were… cold. They don’t care,” O’Donnell recalled. “They just wanted their money. They didn’t care that a girl was throwing up in the trash can, and crying… and even, there were times to when the patients would ask me, they would come in and be crying and say, ‘Should I do this? Should I be doing this?’”

The woman in the video, Holly O’Donnell, says that she is now pro-life after experiencing the situations at Planned Parenthood.

“Experiences like Holly O’Donnell’s show that Planned Parenthood’s abortion and baby parts business is not a safe place where vulnerable women can be cared for, but a harvesting ground for saleable human ‘product.’ Taxpayer subsidies to Planned Parenthood’s barbaric abortion business should be revoked immediately, and law enforcement and other elected officials must act decisively to determine the full extent of Planned Parenthood’s offensive practices and hold them accountable to the law,” said CMP project lead David Daleiden.

StemExpress released a statement in July, following Daleiden’s interview, saying that his accusations are false.

“We coordinate with clinics and hospitals to obtain human tissue and blood — specimens that would be otherwise be disposed of — and provide them to biotechnology and academic institutions performing research to find a cure,” said Beau Phillips, spokesman for the group. “The nation’s and the world’s greatest research facilities need a reliable source of healthy human-derived blood, tissue and cellular specimens to perform their studies. As a point of clarification, StemExpress has never requested nor received an intact fetus.”

Planned Parenthood continually denies that they have broken any laws.

“The video released today shows someone who has never worked for Planned Parenthood making false and outrageous claims, without any evidence to back them up,” said Eric Ferrero, Vice President of Communication, Planned Parenthood Federation of America in a statement out Wednesday. “Planned Parenthood follows all laws — period.”

Republican Candidates Take Aim at Abortion; Planned Parenthood

Abortion and Planned Parenthood were two of the hot topics during the two Republican presidential primary debates held Thursday in Cleveland.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was asked about gaining support for President while supporting things like a Constitutional amendment banning abortion.

“I disagree with the idea that the real issue is a constitutional amendment. That’s a long and difficult process. I’ve actually taken the position that’s bolder than that,” Huckabee said. “A lot of people are talking about defunding Planned Parenthood, as if that’s a huge game changer. I think it’s time to do something even more bold. I think the next president ought to invoke the Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception.”

“The reason we know that it is because of the DNA schedule that we now have clear scientific evidence on,” Huckabee continued. “And, this notion that we just continue to ignore the personhood of the individual is a violation of that unborn child’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights for due process and equal protection under the law.”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio made comments very similar to those of Huckabee in saying that he is pro-life in all situations and that laws need to protect life at all stages.

“In fact, I think that law already exists. It is called the Constitution of the United States,” the 44-year-old Rubio said. “And let me go further. I believe that every single human being is entitled to the protection of our laws, whether they can vote or not. Whether they can speak or not. Whether they can hire a lawyer or not. Whether they have a birth certificate or not.”

Rubio also said that future generations will be appalled by abortion, adding they will “call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies who we never gave them a chance to live.”

When the topic of Planned Parenthood and the recent undercover videos by the Center for Medical Progress that show the selling of parts from aborted babies, both former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and current Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker talked about how they defunded the group in their states.

“I’m pro-life, I’ve always been pro-life, and I’ve got a position that I think is consistent with many Americans out there in that I believe that is an unborn child that’s in need of protection,” Walker said.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was very blunt in his comments about Planned Parenthood.

“Planned Parenthood had better hope that Hillary Clinton wins this election because I guarantee that under President Jindal, January of 2017, the Department of Justice, and the IRS, and everybody else will be consenting, and the federal government will be going into Planned Parenthood,” Jindal asserted. “This is absolutely disgusting and revolts of conscience of the nation. Absolutely, we need to defund Planned Parenthood.”

Planned Parenthood Staffer Admits Potential Violation of Federal Law

A new video has been released by the Center for Medical Progress showing a Planned Parenthood staffer apparently admitting to violating federal law.

In the video, Melissa Farrell, director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, says the group alters their abortion process to collect specimens, which is a violation of federal law.

“Yeah, and so if we alter our process, and we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers, then we can make it part of the budget, that any dissections are this, and splitting the specimens into different shipments is this,” Farrell said in the video. “I mean it’s all just a matter of line items.”

Planned Parenthood and their supporters have been claiming the videos are misleading and that they do not actually alter their processes to collect specimens for profit in violation of law.  They claim all they do is receive payments to cover costs – which is legal.

“And you know, when it matters, you know in the cases of when it’s mattered, you know, physicians also need an intact specimen, they can make it happen,” said Farrell, noting that some of the clinic’s doctors have research projects of their own for which they’re collecting specimens.

“So they do it in a way that they get the best specimens,” Farrell said. “So I know it can happen.”

The release of the video is causing an investigation of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, ordered by Governor Bobby Jindal.  The group’s head sent a letter to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals on July 24th claiming their group did not sell or donate fetal tissue.

“Do any Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast facilities, or any affiliates, subsidiaries or associates thereof, sell or donate any unborn baby organs or body parts? Answer: No.” President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Melaney A. Linton wrote in the letter to Louisiana Dept. of Health and Hospitals Secretary Kathy Kliebert.

Linton released a statement Tuesday about the video.

“Instead, the latest tape shows an extremely offensive intrusion and lack of respect for women, with footage of medical tissue in a lab,” read Linton’s statement. “These extremists show a total lack of compassion and dignity for women’s most personal medical decisions.”

The Senate yesterday failed in a vote to defund Planned Parenthood.

Court Blocks Release of Some Planned Parenthood Videos

A California court has ruled that the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) cannot release some of their videos from the undercover Planned Parenthood investigation until a hearing on August 12th.

The videos feature three executives from StemExpress, a company that works with Planned Parenthood to provide parts of aborted babies to various clients.

The ruling does not block the release of videos that do not contain employees of StemExpress.

“The ruling is very narrow, concerning only one specific meeting, and it is temporary and contingent pending further litigation,” David Daleiden, the lead researcher with CMP said. “The judge actually threw out completely the part of StemExpress’ case where they were asking to suppress the documents on their baby parts sales.”

Daleiden says that the group has at least nine more videos to be released showing the operations of Planned Parenthood in selling baby body parts.

The third video released by CMP showed a former StemExpress employee speaking about the way they would seek certain body parts for higher prices.

“The harder and more valuable the tissue, the more money you get,” Holly O’Donnell says in the video. “So if you can somehow procure a brain or a heart, you’re going to get more money than just chorionic villi or umbilical cord. That’s basically what it is. So I guess that’s an incentive to try and get the hard stuff.”

Pro-Life Activist Says The Enemy Is Not Planned Parenthood

(Note:  This article comes from an interview conducted between staff writer Jason Wert and pro-life activist and former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson.)

In the wake of the release of a third video by the Center of Medical Progress (CMP) showing Planned Parenthood allegedly harvesting aborted body parts for specific financial gain, a pro-life advocate is issuing a warning to those in the pro-life community that Planned Parenthood is not the enemy of the pro-life movement.

“Planned Parenthood is not the enemy,” Abby Johnson told USA Headline News.  “The enemy is abortion. The enemy is our society that has accepted abortion as a viable way to deal with an unintended pregnancy.”

“Even with the fetal harvesting and everything that we see in these videos, Planned Parenthood is a symptom of a much larger problem.”

Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director, walked away from the organization in 2009 after watching a 13-week-old child fighting to avoid the tools of the abortionist during an ultrasound abortion procedure.  Planned Parenthood was so threatened by Johnson speaking out about the organization’s practices that the group tried to sue her into silence with a gag order.

She says that in the rush to stand up for the lives of the babies killed by Planned Parenthood, we need to realize there is a bigger picture than just the babies. She says that many of the women working for Planned Parenthood and working in the organizations that buy the fetal body parts are conflicted about their work.

Johnson recently wrote an open letter to Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of Planned Parenthood’s medical services featured in one of the CMP videos, encouraging her to leave the industry.

“I hope that the pro-life movement will see these workers as human beings who have inherent value and worth,” Johnson said. “We should be praying for them, we should be compassionately and mercifully be reaching out [to] them rather than condemning them because we know through our organization that conversion is possible for anyone.”

Johnson’s organization, “And Then There Were None”, works to help workers who want to escape the abortion industry.

Johnson also says that she believes the members of Planned Parenthood actually believe the propaganda they tell Congress and others about their operations being legal, ethical and above board.

“I think that any time in life if you tell yourself a lie enough, if you hear a lie enough times, that you really do believe it,” she said.  “I think they really do believe what they’re saying.  They’ve obviously very misguided people.”

While the scenes revealed in the video are egregious, Johnson maintains that the sale of aborted body parts is standard practice within the abortion industry.

“People are acting like this is terrible because they are selling the parts or there are parts or they have to piece the babies back together,” Johnson said.  “That happens after every single abortion procedure, period. That happens whether they are harvesting parts or not… a P.O.C. technician stands in a lab and pieces the parts of these babies back together just like we saw in the video today.”

“It happens every day in clinics across the country,” she said. “It happens about 3,000 times every day.”

Johnson hopes the undercover videos might help get people motivated to stop the practice.

“It shows the barbarism of abortion and if that’s what it takes to get people off their couches and motivated to do something to end abortion, we’ll take it,” Johnson said.

Third Undercover Planned Parenthood Video Shows Harvesting of Baby Parts

A new video from the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) shows technicians for a stem-cell company picking through aborted babies at a Planned Parenthood facility for body parts.

At one point, a technician finds intact kidneys and a voice off camera laughs and then says “five stars!”

The video features a former technician for the company StemExpress who found herself part of the harvesting process at Planned Parenthood and told CMP they were told to “try and get the hard stuff” because of the increased money it would mean for Planned Parenthood.

“For whatever we could procure, they would get a certain percentage,” said Holly O’Donnell. “The main nurse was always trying to make sure we got our specimens. No one else really cared, but the main nurse did because she knew that Planned Parenthood was getting compensated.”

“StemExpress is a company that hires procurement techs to draw blood and dissect dead fetuses and sell the parts to researchers,” she said. “They’ve partnered with Planned Parenthood and they get part of the money because we pay them to use their facilities. And they get paid from it. They do get some kind of benefit.”

O’Donnell also says in the video she worked for six months identifying pregnant women at Planned Parenthood who would meet the standards for fetal issue orders and helped harvest the fetal body parts.

In the video, one Planned Parenthood staffer talks about the pricing structure of the dissected bodies.

I think the per-item [pricing] works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it,” the staffer said. CMP identifies the staffer as Dr. Savita Ginde, who is vice president and medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in Denver.

CMP says they have more footage that they will be releasing over the next few weeks.

Former Planned Parenthood Director Says Group Makes Up To $200 Profit Off Body Parts

A former Planned Parenthood director who renounced her previous life and is now a pro-life advocate says that during her time at Planned Parenthood she shipped out body parts at profits that reached $200 a piece.

“Shipping only costs a clinic $4 to $10 but they are sometimes charging $100 to $200 for each baby,” Abby Johnson told The Christian Post.

“They are charging additional fees, but in reality there are no additional fees except for minimal shipping costs,” Johnson added. “There is definitely money to be made and that’s an issue with the current law.

Johnson watched the videos and verified the information that was being shared is accurate.

“During the season of tissue harvesting, an intact body was gold. An intact fetal body is considered perfection in the land of fetal tissue research. But dismembered body parts were okay, too…and that is usually what we gave them,” Johnson said.  “I didn’t see anything taken out of context. What those doctors said was said, period.”

Johnson released an open letter to Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the woman seen in the first undercover video released by the undercover investigation.  She shares that she was once where Dr. Nucatola is today and that Christ has a better way to live life than aborting babies for Planned Parenthood and selling the body parts.