By Message Staff
NEW ORLEANS – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has announced an investigation into Planned Parenthood after video surfaced showing a senior director of the organization selling body parts of unborn children aborted at its facilities.
“Today’s video of a Planned Parenthood official discussing the systematic harvesting and trafficking of human body parts is shocking and gruesome,” Jindal said in a news release on Tuesday. “This same organization is seeking to open an abortion clinic in New Orleans. I have instructed Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals to conduct an immediate investigation into this alleged evil and illegal activity and to not issue any licenses until this investigation is complete. I am also asking the FBI to assist DHH in investigating this alleged criminal activity by this organization.”
Center of Medical Progress, a non-profit medical watchdog group, released the footage showing a female identifying herself as Deborah Nucatola and discussing Planned Parenthood Federation of America fetal parts business with an undercover investigator posing as a potential buyer during a July 25, 2014 meeting. Nucatola is senior director of medical services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
The nonprofit medical watchdog group Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released the video showing a woman identified as Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation of America senior director of medical services, discussing the PPFA fetal parts business with an undercover investigator posing as a potential buyer at a July 25, 2014, lunch meeting.
Eric Ferrero, Planned Parenthood’s vice president of communications, said in a press release posted on the Planned Parenthood Federation of America website that a well-funded group released the video to damage the organization’s mission. He said the video was heavily edited and secretly recorded to falsely portray Planned Parenthood’s participation in a tissue donation program that supports life-saving scientific research.
“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases,” Ferrero said on the website. “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 for 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.”
Despite the claims by Ferrero, Louisiana Right to Life Executive Director Benjamin Clapper said the state does not need this type of illegal business here.
“There has long been suspicion that Planned Parenthood is involved in the selling of body parts after an abortion,” Clapper said in a statement. “Now, the proof has been caught on video in Planned Parenthood’s own words. This revelation is just one more piece of evidence that Planned Parenthood is a profit-driven abortion business looking to sell more abortions in our nation.”
Louisiana State Rep. Mike Johnson said the video release is shocking, but not surprising.
“In our litigation against this industry over the past two decades, we have uncovered a depravity there that knows no bounds,” said Johnson, a member of First Baptist Bossier who has also litigated landmark sanctity of life cases in Louisiana and beyond. “What is always most striking to me is the utter lack of remorse shown by the leaders on the other side. There is a particular kind of callousness that one develops when they are engaged in the abortion practice. They seem to completely reverse what is right and wrong.”
