Republicans seize on Planned Parenthood video
July 14, 2015, 03:10 pm
By Jesse Byrnes
“This latest news is tragic and outrageous,” GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said in a Facebook post linking to the video.
“This isn’t about ‘choice.’ It’s about profiting on the death of the unborn while telling women it’s about empowerment,” Fiorina said.
“This video is beyond disturbing,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted.
The undercover video, which surfaced Tuesday morning, shows a woman identified as Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s senior director of medical services, describing in detail procedures to retrieve body parts.
“A lot of people want intact hearts these days, because they’re looking for specific nodes,” the woman says in the video released by The Center for Medical Progress, a self-described group of citizen journalists monitoring medical ethics. The video was reportedly recorded in July, 2014 by people posing as representatives from a fetal tissue procurement company.
“Yesterday was the first time she said people wanted lungs,” the woman continues. “Some people want lower extremities too, which, that’s simple. I mean that’s easy.”
“I don’t know what they’re doing with it. I guess they want muscle,” the woman adds. “[W]e’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that.”
In a statement, Planned Parenthood described the video as “heavily edited” and said it “falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research.”
