Planned Parenthood Talking of Selling Baby Body Parts

Several Republican presidential candidates have claimed that Planned Parenthood is "profiting" from abortions. Just the full, unedited video they cite as evidence shows a Planned Parenthood executive repeatedly maxim its clinics want to comprehend their costs, not make money, when altruistic fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research.

Four experts in the field of human being tissue procurement told u.s.a. the cost range discussed in the video — $xxx to $100 per patient — represents a reasonable fee. "There'southward no way in that location's a profit at that cost," said Sherilyn J. Sawyer, the managing director of Harvard Academy and Brigham and Women's Hospital's "biorepository."

Republicans made their claims following the release of a secretly recorded video showing Deborah Nucatola, the senior managing director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, discussing the procurement of fetal tissues when conducting abortions. The edited video, released July 14 by an anti-ballgame group called the Centre for Medical Progress, leaves the impression that Nucatola is talking well-nigh Planned Parenthood affiliates making money from fetal tissue. But the edited video ignores other things Nucatola said that contradict that idea.

The Videos, Edited and Unedited

At one point in the unedited video (which was besides released by the grouping), Nucatola says: "Affiliates are not looking to make money by doing this. They're looking to serve their patients and just brand it not touch their lesser line."

Nucatola likewise says, "No one's going to see this equally a coin making thing." And at another betoken, she says, "Our goal, like I said, is to give patients the choice without impacting our lesser line. The messaging is this should not be seen as a new acquirement stream, because that'southward not what it is."

The footage was recorded secretly during a lunch meeting on July 25, 2014, between Nucatola and two people posing as employees of a visitor looking to procure fetal tissue for research purposes.

While eating a salad and drinking carmine wine, she casually discusses which tissues are valued by researchers and how to preserve those tissues while conducting abortions. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards has apologized for Nucatola'south "tone" and manner of speaking, which Business firm Speaker John Boehner condemned as "cavalier" in calling for a congressional investigation.

In the edited video, Nucatola says the cost for fetal tissue specimens was between $thirty and $100, "depending on the facility and what'due south involved." She divers "specimen" as, "one example. One patient."

Republicans accept focused on those comments, characterizing the practice as a manner to profit off abortion:

Rick Perry, July 14:The video showing a Planned Parenthood employee selling the trunk parts of aborted children is a disturbing reminder of the arrangement's penchant for profiting off the tragedy of a destroyed homo life.

Rand Paul, July xiv:… a video showing [Planned Parenthood]'s height doctor describing how she performs belatedly-term abortions to sell torso parts for profit!

Carly Fiorina, July 14: This latest news is tragic and outrageous. This isn't about "selection." It'southward about profiting on the death of the unborn while telling women it'southward about empowerment.

Nucatola's comment, though, isn't show that Planned Parenthood or its affiliates are selling "body parts" or fetal tissue for profit. The total video shows that after Nucatola mentions the $thirty to $100, she describes how those amounts would be reimbursement for expenses related to handling and transportation of the tissues. Nucatola talks about "space issues" and whether shipping would be involved.

Nosotros asked all 3 candidates listed higher up whether they believed the $30 to $100 per specimen corporeality constitutes making a "profit" from fetal tissue, and we did not receive specific answers to that question.The chief political strategist for Rand Paul's campaign, Doug Stafford, sent us the following argument in an email:

Stafford, July fifteen: Planned Parenthood and their supporters in the media are willing to say anything to defend their taxpayer funded abortions and profiteering from selling aborted fetuses. They desire to contend about what week they impale a child or how much they do or do non profit? What'due south blatantly obvious is that Planned Parenthood is trying to distract from their extremist positions and immoral "business."

Nosotros also asked experts in the use of human being tissue for research nigh the potential for profit. Sherilyn J. Sawyer, the director of Harvard Academy and Brigham and Women'due south Infirmary'due south "biorepository," told usa that "there's no way there'south a profit at that price." She connected in an e-mail:

Sawyer, July twenty: In reality, $xxx-100 probably constitutes a loss for [Planned Parenthood]. The costs associated with collection, processing, storage, and inventory and records management for specimens are very high. Most hospitals will provide tissue blocks from surgical procedures (ones no longer needed for clinical purposes, and without identity) for research, and cost recover for their fourth dimension and endeavour in the range of $100-500 per case/block. In the realm of tissues for enquiry $xxx-100 is completely reasonable and normal fee.

Jim Vaught, president of the International Society for Biological and Ecology Repositories and formerly the deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Role of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research, told u.s.a. in an email that "$30 to $100 per sample is a reasonable charge for clinical operations to recover their costs for providing tissue." In fact, he said, the costs to a clinic are oft much higher, but most operations that provide this kind of tissue have "no intention of fully recovering [their] costs, much less making a profit."

Carolyn Compton, the principal medical and science officer of Arizona State University's National Biomarkers Development Alliance and a former director of biorepositories and biospecimen research at the National Cancer Found, agreed that this was "a modest price tag for toll recovery." Compton told u.s. in an email: " 'Profit' is out of the question, in my listen. I would say that whoever opined nigh 'profit' knows very little near the endeavour and expense involved in providing human biospecimens for research purposes."

Nucatola does brand one argument in the unedited video that suggests to critics that some clinics would be comfy with a payment that was slightly more than their expenses for providing the tissue. "I think for affiliates, at the stop of the day, they're a nonprofit, they only don't want to — they want to interruption even. And if they can exercise a little better than break fifty-fifty, and do and so in a manner that seems reasonable, they're happy to practise that," Nucatola says.

Simply immediately after this statement, Nucatola goes on to say: "Really their bottom line is, they want to break even. Every penny they relieve is merely pennies they give to another patient. To provide a service the patient wouldn't get." Planned Parenthood told us that she may have been referring to more general operations of the clinics.

Nucatola repeatedly talks about affiliates only wanting to provide a service to their patients, who elect to donate the tissue for medical research, and not having that service bear on their bottom lines. She says that it's "non a new acquirement stream the affiliates are looking at" and that "nobody should be 'selling' tissue. That's just not the goal here." She says some affiliates might donate the tissue for gratuitous.

Nucatola likewise discusses Planned Parenthood clinics' interactions with a tissue procurement company called StemExpress. The company's website says that partnering with StemExpress tin can exist "financially profitable" for a clinic — a betoken that some bourgeois websites have singled out. Merely this also does not constitute evidence that Planned Parenthood is profiting in such a way.

StemExpress, which provides other types of tissue aside from fetal tissue, did not respond to our request for clarification on profitability. It did release a statement on its website expressing pride in its work to advance research and saying it complies "with all laws."

According to another tissue procurement company called Advanced Bioscience Resource, which has provided fetal tissues to researchers in a number of federally funded studies, the costs mentioned in the video are reasonable. Linda Tracy, ABR's president, told us in an email that "[i]t is hard to pinpoint the exact toll of tissue acquisition due to the many variables involved," such every bit the location of the facility, the specific requests from researchers and whatever special treatment that is required. She said, however, that "$30 to $100 is within a comparable range of what ABR pays for reimbursement of costs."

At one bespeak in the video, Nucatola tells the "buyers" (the actors purporting to represent a fetal tissue procurement visitor are described equally "buyers" in a transcript provided by the Center for Medical Progress) that affiliates wouldn't brand decisions nearly whether to work with a tissue research organization based on money. "Yous could call them up and say, 'I'll pay you double the money,' and they're near more inclined to say no, because it's going to expect bad. … To them, this is not a service they should exist making money from, information technology's something they should be able to offer this to their patients, in a manner that doesn't bear upon them."

She then suggests that these "buyers" might be able to compete with other companies by offering extra services, such as taking tissue the clinics would otherwise have to dispose of themselves.

In a statement on its website, Planned Parenthood defended its affiliates' practise of fetal tissue donation as "standard across the medical field":

Planned Parenthood, July 14: At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and nosotros practise this just like every other high-quality health care provider does — with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards. There is no financial do good for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned Parenthood. In some instances, bodily costs, such equally the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.

Richards, the Planned Parenthood president, said in a video response to the controversy: "The accusation that Planned Parenthood profits in whatever way from tissue donation is non true."

On July 21, the Center for Medical Progress released a 2nd, like video, once again featuring a discussion with a Planned Parenthood official in a restaurant. The numbers mentioned in the edited video are like to what Nucatola said. The official, Mary Gatter, quotes a charge per unit of $75 per specimen, and says she was thinking of maxim $fifty. The discussion only reaches $100 because the "buyers" in the video mention higher prices. At one point, Gatter says that "we're not in this for the money," and after she reiterates that "money is not the important thing."

Though few studies of costs associated with fetal tissue acquisition are available, existing prove does suggest the prices named in the video are in line with general practices. The National Institutes of Health conducts enquiry with fetal tissue, and in the late 1990s, the Government Accountability Office (so known as the Full general Accounting Function) looked into the acquisition of such tissue, finding that the direct cost to researchers was "low." GAO said payments primarily went to "fundamental tissue suppliers," equally opposed to health clinics. In almost cases, GAO found that clinics did not charge researchers, merely when they did, the cost ranged from $ii to $75. The report did not address how much clinics might take received from fundamental tissue suppliers, which is more than analogous to the situation presented in the video.

What Does the Police Say?

In a statement made to CNN, another presidential candidate, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, called the practice discussed in the video a "clear violation of federal law." The "auction" of organs, both adult and fetal, for transplantation is indeed illegal, but donation of tissue — both from aborted fetuses and from adults — is not. And payment for "reasonable" costs is also immune nether the law.

The video itself highlights a portion of championship 42 of the U.S. code, which reads: "Information technology shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly larn, receive, or otherwise transfer any homo organ for valuable consideration for employ in human transplantation if the transfer affects interstate commerce." The police force does include fetal tissue in its definitions. Information technology says that the term "valuable consideration" doesn't include "reasonable payments" for removal, transportation, preservation and other associated costs.

In 1993, a police pertaining to federally funded NIH inquiry was enacted that allows donation of fetal tissue from induced abortions if certain criteria are met. These include that the woman donating is not enlightened of the recipients of the tissue, and that the abortion timing, procedures or method itself would not be contradistinct for the sole purpose of obtaining the tissue.

The 1993 police also says that it is unlawful "for whatsoever person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce." The law again excludes the types of costs Nucatola discussed in the video: "The term 'valuable consideration' does not include reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality command, or storage of human fetal tissue."

The American Medical Clan echoes this in its ethical guidelines on the result: "Fetal tissue is not provided in substitution for financial remuneration above that which is necessary to cover reasonable expenses."

Why Is Fetal Tissue Scientifically Useful?

Historically, the utilize of fetal tissue has produced some groundbreaking scientific discoveries. According to the American Society for Cell Biology, a nonprofit representing a large and varied group of scientists, "Fetal cells hold unique promise for biomedical research due to their ability to rapidly divide, abound, and accommodate to new environments. This makes fetal tissue inquiry relevant to a wide variety of diseases and medical weather."

According to the Guttmacher Constitute, a nonprofit focused on sexual and reproductive health, tissue from fetuses has been used since the 1930s for a variety of purposes. Peradventure almost famously, the 1954 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to researchers who managed to grow polio vaccine in fetal kidney cell cultures.

In another example, Leonard Hayflick created a cell line from an aborted fetus in the early on 1960s that has been used to create vaccines against measles, rubella, shingles and other diseases. Paul Offit, managing director of the Vaccine Educational activity Centre at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told the journalNature in 2013 that "[t]hese cells from one fetus take no doubt saved the lives of millions of people."

In more contempo years, notwithstanding, the employ of stalk cells for therapeutic and enquiry purposes has taken a more central part than fetal tissue. As Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University, told Buzzfeed News, "fetal cells are not a large bargain in science anymore."

In spite of the waning involvement, it remains legal to donate tissue from a legally aborted fetus, and for that tissue to be used for research purposes.

Editor'due south Note: SciCheck is made possible past a grant from the Stanton Foundation.

– Dave Levitan and Lori Robertson

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Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/unspinning-the-planned-parenthood-video/