Planned Parenthood announced Tuesday that it will no longer accept any reimbursement as part of its fetal tissue donation program, taking its strongest step yet to end the onslaught of conservative attacks against the group.
The group’s president Cecile Richards disclosed the policy change in a letter to the National Institutes of Health, which she said was intended to “take away any basis for attacking Planned Parenthood to advance an anti-abortion political agenda.”
In a letter sent to Congress in August, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards admitted that one of their California affiliates received a “reimbursement of $60 per tissue specimen” and that other affiliates had previously accepted money for fetal body parts, but those relationships ended when the Center for Medical Progress released videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s selling of fetal body parts.
Since the first video was released in July, Planned Parenthood has claimed over and over again that they are just being reimbursed for the cost of their expenses. However, they have never provided any evidence that it costs them $60 per body part when the fetal parts buyer is sorting through the fetal parts, storing them and shipping them.
The Center for Medical Progress has been prevented from releasing undercover footage from National Abortion Federation conferences because of a court order. The same court recently allowed the Center for Medical Progress to provide that footage to Congress after they subpoenaed it.
