Planned Parenthood isn’t above the law. Time to stop treating it that way

It looks like Planned Parenthood has found the cause of its latest scandal. According to Dawn Laguens, vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the problem is that “extremists” are waging a “relentless campaign” to “villainize providers” and “block millions from accessing basic reproductive health care.” It’s because of this conspiracy that Planned Parenthood officials are now facing questions on Capitol Hill.

I guess all those felonies they discuss on tape have nothing to do with it.

Earlier this year, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) began putting out a series of videos featuring high level Planned Parenthood figures. Shot on hidden cameras, they document meetings with people claiming to be human tissue buyers. Time and again, they show how much Planned Parenthood cares about obeying the law: It doesn’t.

Planned Parenthood Uses Partial-Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts

Take partial-birth abortions. They’ve been illegal since 2003, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola. On CMP’s first release, Nucatola explains that “the Federal (Partial-Birth) Abortion Ban is a law, and laws are up to interpretation.” Four minutes and ten seconds into the footage, she describes committing what most would interpret as a violation of said law.

And that’s not all. 42 U.S.C. §289g-1 prohibits “alteration of the timing, method, or procedures used to terminate the pregnancy… solely for the purposes of obtaining the tissue.” Doing so might be a felony, but that hasn’t stopped Dr. Nucatola from getting “very good” at it:

We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.

As you’re reading the word “crush,” please keep in mind that Dr. Nucatola performs abortions at up to 24 weeks.

Second Planned Parenthood Senior Executive Haggles Over Baby Parts Prices, Changes Abortion Methods

The second video had a different star with the same attitude. Dr. Mary Gatter is the president of Planned Parenthood’s medical director’s council, and she starts by making it clear she won’t tolerate any “lowball” prices for fetal organs.

Dr. Gatter then describes how far she’ll go to get the buyer “an intact specimen”:

Let me explain to you a little bit of a problem, which may not be a big problem. If our usual technique is suction, at 10 to 12 weeks, and we switch to using an IPAS [manual vacuum aspirator] or something with less suction, in order to increase the odds that it will come out as an intact specimen, then we’re kind of violating the protocol that says to the patient, “We’re not doing anything different in our care for you.”

Does breaking the law and lying to her patients bother Dr. Gatter? Please.

Now, to me, that’s kind of a specious little argument, and I wouldn’t object to asking Ian — who’s our surgeon who does the cases — to use an IPAS at that gestational stage, in order to increase the odds that he’s going to get an intact specimen.

On the fourth video, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains’ vice president, Dr. Savita Ginde, not only agrees to alter abortion techniques but also promises to instruct others to as well. She later takes her guests on a tour of the facility, pausing to look down at a dead fetus and declare, “It’s a baby.”

Planned Parenthood VP Says Fetuses May Come Out Intact, Agrees Payments Specific to the Specimen

Another notable moment is when Dr. Ginde admits that children are sometimes delivered intact during botched abortions. She isn’t the only one tied to Planned Parenthood who mentions this.

Planned Parenthood Baby Parts Vendor ABR Pays Off Clinics, Intact Fetuses "Just Fell Out"

Perrin Larton is a procurement manager with Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR), a company that supplies researchers with human tissue and has a long history with Planned Parenthood. On CMP’s ninth video, Larton notes that ABR technicians are placed right outside the room when an abortion is being performed. Once the child has been dismembered, there’s a warm pile of body parts waiting to be poked through.

But sometimes these kids just won’t follow the program; instead of bloody chunks, technicians occasionally find someone’s son or daughter still intact. As Larton explains,

I literally have had women come in and they’ll go in the O.R. and they’re back out in 3 minutes, and I’m going, “What’s going on?” Oh yeah, the fetus was already in the vaginal canal whenever we put her in the stirrups, it just fell out.

Larton doesn’t say what happens when babies survive abortions at Planned Parenthood, but can Holly O’Donnell shed some light.

Human Capital - Episode 3: Planned Parenthood's Custom Abortions for Superior Product

O’Donnell was procurement technician with StemExpress, another tissue firm that worked closely with Planned Parenthood. In the video above, she recalls the time a supervisor showed her an aborted baby whose heart was still beating. Was O’Donnell told to comply with federal law and summon medical help? No, of course not; she was instructed to cut open the head and start harvesting brain matter.

That approach seems to be prevalent among “choice providers.” In 2013, pregnant Live Action volunteers used hidden cameras to record their visits to late-term abortion facilities. Pretending to want abortions, the volunteers asked what happens when a baby survives the procedure. On multiple visits,  they were promised that surviving infants are either killed or left to die.

Inhuman: Undercover in America's Late-Term Abortion Industry - NEW YORK

And these aren’t the only crimes you’ll find at Planned Parenthood–the group also has a history of helping sexual predators and committing fraud. So why does Planned Parenthood act like it’s above the law? Probably because it get’s treated that way.

Despite all that’s happened, the Department of Justice has yet to take action against America’s largest abortion chain. In fact, far from prosecuting Planned Parenthood, the federal government is continuing to fund it. Every year, Planned Parenthood receives over half a billion dollars in government money.

Although Senate pro-lifers tried redirecting that money to community health centers, they were blocked by much of the Democratic caucus. The White house also threatened to veto any defunding bill that did pass. Meanwhile, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has said that such efforts have left her “pissed off.”

Live Action feels a little different. In fact, the group has established a petition supporting those efforts. By signing it, you can help show that Planned Parenthood needs to be held accountable. Because while it might not make Ms. Shultz and her friends happy, that message needs to get out.