Planned Parenthood doctors admit under oath to altering abortion methods for intact organs
New video testimony released Monday shows Planned Parenthood doctors admitting under oath to altering abortions to obtain intact fetal organs.
The new video is the latest released by the Center for Medical Progress, the pro-life nonprofit that has produced several undercover videos revealing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the procurement and harvesting of aborted body parts.
The latest clip features several Planned Parenthood employees, like Dr. Deborah Nucatola, giving testimony in connection with Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California.
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Nucatola appeared in the first CMP undercover video when it was released in the summer of 2015 speaking cavalierly about how she would avoid crushing certain parts of the baby to harvest their organs more effectively.
The newest CMP video shows Nucatola being deposed in April 2019.
In testimony, the former Planned Parenthood Federation of America senior director of medical services admitted that she would sometimes indeed alter her approach to a procedure that she was performing to avoid crushing organs if she knew the abortion was a "donation case."
A donation case is where the woman undergoing the abortion has agreed beforehand that the fetal tissue from the abortion could be donated for research purposes.
In the first CMP video from 2015, Nucatola was seen on camera eating a salad while speaking with a CMP undercover investigator.
“Laws are up to interpretation,” she said, thinking she was speaking to like-minded colleagues about the federal partial-birth abortion ban. “[T]here are people who interpret it as intent.”
“So if I say on Day 1 I do not intend to do this, what ultimately happens doesn’t matter. Because I didn’t intend to do this on Day 1 so I’m complying with the law.”
In her testimony last April, Nucatola claimed her previous words were related to how some attorneys interpret the relevant statutes.
Dr. Mary Gatter, who was infamously captured in another 2015 undercover video speaking about needing a "less crunchy" technique to harvest intact organs during an abortion, distinguished in her April 2019 deposition the difference between the words “procedure,” “method,” and “technique.”
Gatter explained: “Sometimes there was a lively discussion about whether it was permitted or not permitted to change the technique, and we were still debating that in Los Angeles when I left.”
“But by the time I met [CMP founder David Daleiden] and his associates, I had evolved in my thinking to changing the technique to get better tissue was allowed.”
To agree to tissue donation, Planned Parenthood's consent form states that the patient understands that "there will be no changes to how or when my abortion is done in order to get my blood or the tissue.”
Altering an abortion procedure to harvest desired organs and tissues is against federal law.
Daleiden, the founder of CMP, said that the abortion giant's public messaging is markedly different from when they are forced to answer questions in sworn testimony.
Defenders of Planned Parenthood have maintained since the videos were first released that they were deceptively edited.
“Planned Parenthood reflexively proclaims innocence to the public and to a compliant establishment press, but when Planned Parenthood abortion leadership is placed under oath, they testify to crimes against women and infants,” Daleiden said in a statement.
“Criminality in the national taxpayer-funded abortion industry will continue to spread unless federal authorities hold them accountable once and for all.”
In May, CMP released videos showing the sworn depositions of clinic directors who were responding to questions about payments and contracts affiliates received for the distribution of fetal specimens to biotech companies.
Federal law bans abortion clinics and biotech companies from profiting off aborted fetal tissue.
Though a federal investigation has taken place, no formal charges have been filed against the abortion giant.
Twenty-eight Republican lawmakers signed onto a letter earlier this month to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General William Barr asking for an update on their investigations into Planned Parenthood's practices.
As a result of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the abortion giant against him, Daleiden is currently facing the possibility of Planned Parenthood seizing his assets unless he can pay a $600,000 appeal bond in less than two weeks.
