Medical waste disposal company Stericycle, servicing health facilities nationwide, recently disclosed that it has ceased doing business with multiple abortion facilities.
Pro-life group Created Equal began putting public pressure on Stericycle in 2016, asking the company to end its involvement in disposing of the fetal remains from abortion facilities, including Planned Parenthood centers. After a lengthy campaign, Created Equal received a response from Stericycle CEO Charles Alutto on June 1, 2017, that reads:
In addition to complying with all laws and regulations, the waste acceptance policy clearly specifies that Stericycle does not accept fetuses. While your organization may argue that our policy applies only to intact fetuses, we interpret and apply the policy more broadly to include all fetal remains.
Stericycle’s “policy” on not accepting fetal remains is surprising, as the company was seen at abortion facilities like Planned Parenthood as recently as last year, even after the start of Created Equal’s campaign. Alutto continued (emphasis added):
Beyond our policy, we require supplemental assurances in writing that they (health care facilities) have licensed providers for fetal remains. When customers are not willing to provide this certification, we do not provide services. We have cancelled hundreds of contracts with women’s clinics since this certification process was implemented several years ago.
Life Site News points out that “Stericycle has had a longtime association with the abortion industry for the collection, transportation, and incineration of aborted fetal remains.”
The information regarding the cancellation of hundreds of contracts was released in court documents as part of a lawsuit Stericycle brought against Created Equal for its #ProjectWeakLink campaign against the company.
If this is indeed the case, and Stericycle is no longer doing business with hundreds of abortion facilities across the country, then who is? That question is difficult to answer, as pro-lifers on the ground in places like Bloomington, Indiana, report that that they spoke to drivers with a company that picked up where Stericycle left off, and that company quit. Now, while they no longer see company marked trucks picking up from abortion facilities, someone is doing the job in smaller unmarked vehicles bearing only bumper stickers reading, “medical waste.”
In a now-removed (by court order) Center for Medical Progress video filmed at a National Abortion Federation conference in 2014, Renee Chelian, owner of Northland Family Planning in Michigan, discussed the problem of fetal tissue disposal, joking darkly about once considering taking all of her facilities’ aborted children to a field for a “bonfire.” Live Action News’ Carole Novielli reported Chelian’s remarks at the time (emphasis added):
It was all I thought about, was fetal tissue. Like, I was so consumed with fetal tissue, I was ready to drive to upper Michigan and have a bonfire. And I was just trying to figure out, you know, how I wouldn’t get stopped. Or, you know, how far into the woods would I have to go to have this fire that nobody was going to see me… I mean it was the worst, I dreamed about how to dispose of fetal tissue. And the garbage disposal was an option…
Chelian also said:
Um… Nobody wants to talk about dead bodies. Um, and nobody but me. I’m just saying. There was a point when Stericycle fired us that I had 5 months worth of fetal tissue in my freezers. We were renting freezers to put them in.
Note that Chelian, in discussing the disposal of “fetal tissue,” uses the term, “dead bodies” to refer to the babies aborted at her facility. While the abortion industry frequently attempts to deceive women about aborted children being “clumps of cells” or “blobs of tissue,” those in the industry know the truth: these are dead bodies — the bodies of children.
Remains of a baby aborted by D&E. From Citizens for a Pro-Life Society
Chelian said she was so desperate to rid her facilities of the aborted babies’ remains that she even jokes about having once considered sending the remains home with abortion patients… in gift bags. She told the NAF conference, “Um, we thought, we’ll give it to everybody in a gift bag – they can take it home, figure out what to do with it. It’s their pregnancy, and why is this our problem?”
The abortion industry, while admitting behind closed doors that abortion leads to “dead bodies,” deceives women about the development of their preborn babies so they can sell them abortions. In this Live Action undercover investigation, Planned Parenthood does its level best to close the sale:
While Stericycle is attempting to remove itself from controversy by canceling certain contracts, Created Equal president Mark Harrington noted in an email that this is only a “vital first step” for the company, which is unfortunately “still… providing other waste services to a small number of abortion centers and therefore will remain, for now,” he says, “an enabler of Planned Parenthood and child-killing.”
Who is enabling the abortion industry in your community by hauling away the remains of aborted children? If you witness pickups or learn any information about the companies currently servicing your local abortion facilities, report it to Live Action News by emailing editor@liveaction.org.
