The Planned Parenthood Undercover Investigation Videos and the ensuing firestorm are the subject of this Big B File.
As many of you know by now,…A series of undercover videos have been released by the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life organization, showing top Planned Parenthood executives at the national, regional, and local levels discussing the sale of body parts of recently aborted babies aka fetuses…..all the way up to CEO Cecil Richards herself. As of now, six states have officially pulled funding from Planned Parenthood altogether (Missouri, which is where I live, has never funded Planned Parenthood) & a number of other states considering doing the same….not to mention investigations being launched at the state and federal levels with a number of congressional committees conducting investigations of their own…..and all of this is as a direct result of the undercover videos having been released by the Center for Medical Progress and with more videos yet to come (with both edited and raw video versions released at the same time each time one is released).
All the videos have exposed and brought to light to the general public something that has been known by pro-life folks for years as to what Planned Parenthood really is about…including some of the inhumane activities that go on at Planned Parenthood facilities on a regular basis. The videos have had such an impact that even people who are pro-choice are having a difficult time supporting Planned Parenthood trying to justify what Planned Parenthood is doing…whether it is the story of body parts being sold by Planned Parenthood facilities, or the performing of late-term abortions and partial birth abortions in Florida at two Planned Parenthood facilities there and in direct violation of state law.
No longer is Planned Parenthood hiding the fact that they are trafficking in human embryonic baby body parts as well as performing the abortion in such a way as to maximize the quality of the body part and therefore increasing the value of said body parts in turn sold to places such as StemExpress (Which recently severed ties with Planned Parenthood amid the scandal resulting from the videos) and Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR)….among others. These fetal procurement companies then in turn sell the same body parts through various means to various places such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and colleges such as the Universities of Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Toledo, and Colorado State University.
With each new video and witness testimony that comes out ……whether in these videos, in front of congressional and/or state legislative committees, or in interviews with the media such as what happened in the Fox News Channel special that aired on Friday September 4th entitled “Fox News Reporting: Planned Parenthood: The Hidden Harvest” which was anchored by Shannon Bream…..It is becoming more and more difficult for Planned Parenthood supporters to defend the actions that the organization and the company is contracting with to carry out this illegal, immoral and sickening activity and to keep it under wraps…hidden from the public view. So much so that they are just outright coming out and not only admitting to it, but they are actively promoting it while at the same time trying to destroy the very people that helps bring this to light in the first place.
Here are a few examples showing officials from Planned Parenthood and the fetal procurement companies showing their arrogance and participation in and promotion of this very sickening, immoral and illegal practice, but also of how they are trying to destroy those who helped bring this disturbing and sickening practice to the light of day….….
From the first video “Planned Parenthood Uses Partial-Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts” (Transcript Link Here)
PP Farrell = Planned Parenthood (“PP”) Representative Buyer = CMP Undercover investigator
Buyer: So, the main thing, well, not the main thing that I would like to discuss is, I’d really like to connect with people who feel they don’t know we’re out there. They don’t know there’s this opportunity. And that could be a little touchy, for them more for us, and I want to be delicate to any reservations.
PP: Yeah, you know, I don’t think it’s a reservations issue so much as a perception issue, because I think every provider has had patients who want to donate their tissue, and they absolutely want to accommodate them. They just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as, ‘This clinic is selling tissue, this clinic is making money off of this.’ I know in the Planned Parenthood world they’re very very sensitive to that. And before an affiliate is gonna do that, they need to, obviously, they’re not—some might do it for free—but they want to come to a number that doesn’t look like they’re making money. They want to come to a number that looks like it is a reasonable number for the effort that is allotted on their part. I think with private providers, private clinics, they’ll have much less of a problem with that.
Buyer: Okay, so, when you are, or the affiliate is determining what that monetary—so that it doesn’t create, raising a question of this is what it’s about, this is the main—what price range, would you—?
PP: You know, I would throw a number out, I would say it’s probably anywhere from $30 to $100 [per specimen], depending on the facility and what’s involved. It just has to do with space issues, are you sending someone there who’s going to be doing everything, is there shipping involved, is somebody gonna have to take it out. You know, I think everybody just wants, it’s really just about if anyone were ever to ask them, “What do you do for this $60? How can you justify that? Or are you basically just doing something completely egregious, that you should be doing for free.” So it just needs to be justifiable. And, look, we have 67 affiliates. They all have different practice environments, different staff, and so that number—
Buyer: Did you say 67?
PP: 67.
From the 4th video “Intact Fetuses “Just a Matter of Line Items” for Planned Parenthood TX Mega-Center” (Transcript)
WARNING: This video may be inappropriate for some Readers)
PP Farrell = Melissa Farrell, RN, BSN, CCRC, Director of Research, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (“PP”) Buyer = CMP Undercover investigator
Buyer: And this is true. However, if that provider is needing to change the technique a little bit, and I know, I’m going against my side of this but, I’m okay with, no, I want you to be paid per specimen, rather than, oh here, just ship this off. No, this is what we’re looking for, and if you can do that, and it’s compensated to you, financially, that’s helping you, to grow your clinic, I’m willing to do that.
PP Farrell: Mhm, mhm. Yeah. And so if we alter our process—
Buyer: Mhm.
PP Farrell: 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, that’s, it’s all just a matter of line items.
Buyer: Mhm.
PP Farrell: Knowing that this is what we plan to do. I mean, it almost seems wasteful at that point that if we’ve gone through the work, and we’ve got a liver and thymus, and we’ve got other parts that can be utilized—
Buyer: Right, right. And that’s the thing is because, that’s where we’re really start to get into this becomes much more scalable.
PP Farrell: Mhm…
Here’s an example of how Planned Parenthood and their supporters tried to discredit and destroy those behind the Planned Investigation Videos…
“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different. At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do 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 benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or Planned Parenthood. In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.
A well-funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and services has promoted a heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research. Similar false accusations have been put forth by opponents of abortion services for decades. These groups have been widely discredited and their claims fall apart on closer examination, just as they do in this case.”
- Statement from Eric Ferraro, V.P. of Comm., Planned Parenthood Federation of America (7/14/2015)
As I was watching the Fox News special a week ago this past Friday night, September 4th, I thought about a few things…Including something that’s very personal. I was born on June 22nd 1975 at St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital in Effingham, IL. I was born at 7 a.m. and my twin sister Melissa was born at 7:04 a.m.….exactly 2 years and 5 months or 880 days after the infamous Roe vs Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States on January 22nd 1973. This was at a time when women would be pressured to have abortions and were being told that the baby inside of them was nothing more than a blob of tissue and/or that it wasn’t it even a human being inside her or that it was a matter of convenience or it was something that had to be eradicated as if the unborn baby inside with a disease or worse! My mom could have chosen to terminate her pregnancy and aborted us, but instead chose life and gave birth to two healthy twins.
And what was the reaction of Planned Parenthood and its supporters to the investigation videos, the state and federal level investigations into the organization, and the resulting firestorm? Their reaction was basically this…Planned Parenthood tried to deny that the sale of body parts of recently aborted babies a.k.a fetuses was even taking place, let alone that they were making money off of the sale in the first place. After the famous denial by Planned Parenthood CEO Cecil Richards, then came the next series of videos In the Planned Parenthood undercover investigation video series by the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life group, which The Big B Files believes completely blew out of the water the assertion of Planned Parenthood In their denial video Statement.
By this time, Planned Parenthood and their supporters went into full damage control mode and tried to do everything possible to discredit, if not destroy, the Center for Medical Progress and also all pro-life supporters at the same time. As more videos were released, the harder it has become to defend the indefensible. So far, nine videos have been released out of a possible 12+ videos in all, with each video being more damaging to Planned Parenthood and affiliated companies and partners than the previous video.
As I have said at the beginning of this Big B File…..As of now, six states have officially pulled funding from Planned Parenthood altogether (Missouri, which is where I live, has never funded Planned Parenthood) and a number of other states considering doing the same……Two of those states being Louisiana and Kansas. Both states cut Medicaid funding for women’s healthcare that had previously gone to Planned Parenthood and reallocated it to go to public health departments and hospitals and other Women’s health facilities that provided more services that PP ever does.
The Obama Administration retaliated by cutting the amount of federal funding of Medicaid to the tune of $370,000….which is the exact amount Planned Parenthood was previously getting from Kansas.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood supporters decided to protest outside the Governor’s Mansion to protest Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal defunding Planned Parenthood in Louisiana, but he had a nice little surprise for them…..The Governor team set up a movie screen with speakers in full view of the protesters! As Governor Bobby Jindal said in his statement…..
“Planned Parenthood supporters are welcome to protest. We will have a screen set up outside the mansion to display the Planned Parenthood videos. We hope the protestors will take a minute to watch them so they’ll have an opportunity to see first-hand our concerns with Planned Parenthood’s practices.”
- Statement of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (August 20, 2015)
After the first few Planned Parenthood Undercover Investigation videos had been released, a group of Black pastors penned a letter and sent it to the Smithsonian Institution calling on the curator to remove a bust of Margaret Sanger…Planned Parenthood’s founder….from the “Struggle for Justice” exhibit that included civil rights movement figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks saying that “Ms. Sanger was a racist, elitist, and her beliefs led to massive destruction of unborn human life. She was no hero. Perhaps your institution is a victim of propaganda advanced by those who support abortion……Nevertheless, a prestigious institution like the National Portrait Gallery should have higher standards and subject its honorees to higher scrutiny.” Petitions were also circulated calling on the removal as well, one of which I personally signed.
The Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet responded to the black pastors’ letter by saying (among other things) “Her association with the eugenics movement shadowed her achievements in sex education and contraception, making her a figure of controversy, one whose complexities and contradictions mirror her times… …There is no ‘moral test’ for people to be accepted into the National Portrait Gallery,…” Therefore rejecting the Pastors’ request to have Margaret Sanger’s bust removed from the “Struggle for Justice” exhibit and still remains as part of the exhibit as of the writing of this Big B File.
Congress recently took a vote on whether or not to withdraw funding to Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately, the Democrats blocked the bill from being passed in the Senate with all but one of the senators voting no on the bill having had received direct contributions from Planned Parenthood itself….including three of the four senators from Illinois and Missouri. Here’s exactly how much Planned Parenthood contributed to our area U.S. Senators’ campaigns……..
U.S Senator PP Donation Donation Rank *
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL)……………………$18,000 ………………….11th Highest
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)…………………$14,000 ………………….18th Highest
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)………..$ 8,803 ………………….28th Highest
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)…………………$ 0 ………………….Not on List
The Big B Files believes that, as each video is released, it will become increasingly harder if not impossible for Planned Parenthood to defend what is basically the indefensible. As I have told others, I would be very surprised if Planned Parenthood actually survived this and that in combination with the prayers of people of Life and Planned Parenthood’s own arrogance will ultimately be their own undoing…..their own downfall.
……And that’s the Big B Files. Click on the comments link below and tell me what you think……I’m Bryan V. Hewing.