Beleaguered abortion provider Planned Parenthood announced Tuesday it would no longer accept money from researchers for aborted baby parts, citing a desire to defang “an anti-abortion political agenda” in the wake of a series of undercover videos that appear to show the organization profited from fetal organ sales.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards revealed the policy shift in a letter to Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health. Planned Parenthood has maintained it only recoups its own expenses for harvesting and donating fetal tissue, the actual sale of which is barred by federal law.
“In order to completely debunk the disingenuous argument that our opponents have been using – and to reveal the true political purpose of these attacks – our Federation has decided, going forward, that any Planned Parenthood health center that is involved in donating tissue after an abortion for medical research will…accept no reimbursement for its reasonable expenses,” Richards wrote.
While it is legal for clinics to be reimbursed for any expenses incurred during the donation process, a series of undercover videos produced by an anti-abortion activist group have suggested that Planned Parenthood may actually profit from the sale of body parts, which would be illegal.