Does Planned Parenthood Engage in Human Vivisection for Profit?

by Tom Kando

 My wife and I were in Rome on September 16, when the second Republican debate took place. We were able to watch some of it, but with the time difference, it got too late for us to watch the entire thing.

Oh well, it wasn’t the most edifying show anyway. We saw enough, including the ganging up on front-runner Trump by the other contestants, and the exchanges between Trump and Fiorina.

One thing that struck me was when “ Fiorina described a video from an anti-abortion group ...that showed “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” (Fiorina’s Abortion Comments).


Fiorina’s claim has been widely challenged, for example by Chuck Todd when he interviewed her on Meet the Press.

The battle has raged ever since. The key question is about the veracity of the footage to which Fiorina alludes. She claims that Planned Parenthood aborts and then vivisects live fetuses, i.e. pre-natal human beings that are more than eight weeks old. Aborting embryos, i.e. eggs that were fertilized less than eight weeks ago is less controversial than aborting fetuses. It is late term abortion which elicits revulsion in many people. Additionally, anti-abortionists claim that “harvesting” usable, healthy and well-preserved organs requires that the aborted fetuses be kept alive, even ex utero.

Such a charge is very upsetting. I must admit, the terminology itself (words like “harvesting”) is rather offsetting.

Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice people have argued vehemently that the alleged videos to which Fiorina alludes either do not exist, or that they are cleverly doctored “photo-montages.” As Eugene Robinson writes in the Washington Post on September 28: “No such video exists. To be precise, I should say that no one has been able to find such footage.”

On the other side, pro-lifers are screaming “cover up!”, claiming that there are court orders which forbid displaying some of the relevant footage on the Internet.

I went on an extensive Google search. I did come across some footage - not only of the interviews with the lab employees describing the human vivisections which they are said to have performed or witnessed, but also of some graphic, stomach-churning flesh-and-blood footage. (See for example: Planned Parenthood Video). I have to say, some of this footage reminded me of animal slaughterhouses and documentaries of Auschwitz.

However, the videos showed evidence of tinkering, with inserted footage of bloody fetuses. I couldn’t find any footage showing a demonstrably living fetus being vivisected.

Here is how Casey Quinlan at ThinkProgress summarizes the situation: “The video Fiorina refers to is of a tissue procurement technician describing an experience where she... saw a fetus with its heart still beating. (She) said (that) the brain was going to be procured from the fetus. However, the footage used alongside her commentary was stock footage of a fetus with its legs moving, not actual footage of what she witnessed, leading critics to point out that Fiorina mischaracterized the footage... shown. The supervisor the woman mentions in the tape also did not say the fetus was kept alive to harvest its brain.”(Fiorina Defends Abortion Comments). 

In sum, most fact-checkers in the mainstream media have concluded that Fiorina’s claim is largely false.

Now, let me emphasize that I am not writing this piece as an equivocation about, or a revision of my position on abortion, on Planned Parenthood and on women’s rights. I have been and remain a staunch pro-choicer. I strongly support women’s painfully acquired right to control their bodies. I see the current effort to defund Planned Parenthood as a tragedy. It would greatly aggravate the suffering and all medical issues associated with unwanted pregnancies.

However, it is in my nature to be inquisitive, especially in the midst of swirling controversies. After listening to Fiorina, I asked myself, “what on earth is she talking about?” My Google search resulted in some gory abortion footage. But then, perhaps no more so than routine surgery. Medicine is a bloody profession, something which the public doesn’t realize.

Some might say that by searching for the videos which allegedly show human vivisection for profit, I have fallen victim to the hype and deviousness of the anti-abortion campaign. Who knows? But I’ll say this on my behalf: In this blog, I simply try to examine information - or misinformation.

The moral questions raised around abortion have been debated for many decades: Are some reasons for abortion more justifiable than others? For example, is the abortion done to save the mother’s life, or is it for sex selection? (which boils down to female infanticide in the vast majority of cultures).
Or is it about pre-natal deformity or disorder (which is tantamount to a form of eugenics)?  What about  rape and incest? Etc. Surely most reasonable people would agree that there are different degrees of justification for abortion.

But this article is not about that. Here, I merely ask whether or not there is evidence of human vivisection performed on fetuses for profit, as alleged by Fiorina and other pro-lifers, and used as the basis for the attack on Planned Parenthood. I did not find any.
© Tom Kando 2015

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