Planned Parenthood/Body Parts: Human Capital Episode 1

Another video has been released about the relationship between Planned Parenthood and fetal tissue procurement  companies.This one features a woman identified as a former employee a procurement company called StemExpress. This video has the ring of truth to it. What the woman describes happening in the lab is consistent with what is standard procedure in abortion facility labs.

Here is the video. The images become graphic after the wooden door is opened.



I took sets of images to illustrate two issues.

The Tissue in Question

First, I think it's important to get an idea of what's going on when fetal organs and tissues are being harvested. I took screenshots from the discussions about intact kidneys and usable neural tissue. The fetus whose body is being picked through is aged 11.6, which means 11 weeks and six days. I have inserted an image of a miscarried 12-week fetus for comparison. The size and appearance of the identifiable body parts are clearly consistent with a fetus of approximately 12 weeks.

The images are very graphic, so I am posting them in a very small size. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Tissue

I am unable to identify the kidneys being discussed in the screenshot, but I've never seen fetal kidneys so I don't know what they'd look like. In the screenshot inset I can only identify limbs and eyes. To get a better idea of what roughly 12-week fetal kidneys would look like, I did some googling. According to Embryology of the Kidney, the unborn human develops three forms of kidneys, the third and final of which begin to develop in the 5th week. This video helps to explain it. According to this video (which is long, technical, and narrated by a fast-speaking woman with a thick accent), the final kidney begins to function in about the 9th week, as the second kidney is regressing. This video shows diagrams of kidney development, and at 12 weeks the kidney is starting to take what we think of as a kidney shape. According to this embryology site, kidney development is completed at about week 15. At week 15, therefore, I'd expect a fetal kidney to be shaped enough like an adult kidney that it could be identified by a layman. I haven't been able to learn if a 12-week kidney would have the distinctive kidney shape. The blood had also drained out of the fetal remains, which might also drain the distinctive color out of a kidney.

Neural

It took me a while to see what was being identified in the second screenshot, showing the neural tissue. I have concluded that the white tissue to the left is the brain, with the spinal cord extending into the partial neck and thorax. This conclusion is consistent with the diagram I found which shows the parts of the 11-week fetal brain. I have marked structures in the screenshot that I believe I have identified.

This also makes sense in the context of the discussion about whether this specimen could be shipped out as-is, which was answered in the affirmative. The technician also indicated that some labs prefer to get neural tissue as it is in the image because it is more protected. One could see how the fragments of neck and thorax would protect the spinal cord.


Follow the Money

The issue is that of profiteering. I believe that this video shows compelling evidence. I have captured screenshots of the discussion. The screenshot shows fetal tissue, and I have added an inset of the 12-week miscarried fetus for comparison. Those images are very graphic. Click to enlarge.

Let's look at the exchange between Dr. Savita Ginde of Planned Parenthood and the purported buyer:

BUYER: That 11.6 [week fetus] was pretty  good. There was 9sic) three or four samples we could have taken out of the 11.6.  If we were doing like $50 to $75 per specimen, that'd be like $200 to $300 [total from that fetus], and we'd be comfortable with that.But stuff like this, we don't want to be like just a flat fee of like $200, and then, it's like --

PP: No, and the, I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.

This indicates to me that Planned Parenthood would be motivated to try to find more fetal tissue in order to get an additional $50 to $75. I can't see that the few minutes it would take to find additional tissue would be taking $50 to $75 worth of employee time.

From what I see in this video, Dr. Ginde isn't expressing any desire to provide maximum benefit to medical research. She is not trying to calculate the cost to Planned Parenthood of extracting valuable organs and tissues out of that dish. She is trying to maximize the amount of money that Planned Parenthood gets from the procurement company, well above and beyond anything it can possibly be costing the facility to pick the organs and tissue out of the mangled remains of an aborted fetus. And from the overall context of the video, it's entirely possible that the Planned Parenthood lab staff would be doing nothing at all to harvest the salable tissues; all of that would be done by the procurement company employee at no cost to Planned Parenthood beyond a few minutes of making the light box and pie pans available.

Conclusion

In this third video, I think that the Center for Medical Progress has caught Dr. Ginde engaged in conspiracy to profiteer from fetal tissue.

Final note: Just in case YouTube takes it down, here's a low-res copy of the video: