Courts or Congress Must Act Against Planned Parenhood

 

IBDEditorials.com

A protester adjusts signs she placed on her shoes at an anti-abortion rally in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday. AP

Peddling Flesh: The Center for Medical Progress' graphic third video sting of Planned Parenthood, with perhaps 10 more coming, undeniably exposes a profit motive. Will law enforcement pounce?

Three videos now that show Planned Parenthood very much wants good money for fetal body parts. As the abortion giant hires Washington crisis communications firm SKDKnickerbocker, the spotlight now shines on what the New York Times calls a legal "gray area."

"I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it," the newest video shows Dr. Savita Ginde, medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, with abortion clinics in four states, saying as she assesses body parts recovered right after an abortion.

Does seeking "what we can get" violate the federal law prohibiting sale of "any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration"?

A Monday New York Times story found that "middleman" companies buying and selling fetal parts "exist in a gray zone, legally." Planned Parenthood claims that they only "cover their expenses," but then why try to get as much as you can, as the Center's videos prove Planned Parenthood does?

NYU Medical Center ethics chief Arthur Caplan told the Times, "It appears to be legal, no matter how much you charge," with little oversight of processing fees.

StemExpress, perhaps the top firm in this business, founded in 2010, now boasts revenue of $2.2 million, Inc. magazine reported. When the Times questioned its founder, Cate Dyer, "Her lawyer and a crisis communication expert were present on the telephone." Another big abortion tissue firm, Advanced Bioscience Resources, enjoyed "recent sales of about $1.4 million."

And with the Times noting, "a vial containing five million frozen fetal liver CD133+ stem cells can cost more than $24,000," it's obvious that the market is lucrative.

A StemExpress brochure that the Center for Medical Progress obtained even cites "financial profits" for abortion clinics as a selling point.

But as LifeSiteNews' Dustin Siggins warned in HotAir.com, the "complex maze of how funding makes it to PP affiliates and clinics" won't be easy for Congress to defund. Republicans must apply Saul Alinsky's Rule 12: personalize a target, cutting off its support network and isolating it from sympathy.

If the GOP can't do that to Planned Parenthood after these revelations, the GOP's in the wrong business.