MADISON, Wisc. — The abortion giant Planned Parenthood provided the hearts and brains of unborn babies up to 18 weeks gestation to the University of Wisconsin, records show, despite assertions from both groups that the exchange never occurred.
In a press release earlier this month in which Planned Parenthood announced its lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress and those involved with recording undercover videos of organization officials, it claimed that “Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin does not offer fetal tissue donation for patients.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel likewise noted in October, “The group has said only a handful of its clinics, and none in Wisconsin, are involved in the donations.”
Two months earlier, the paper also outlined that the University of Wisconsin obtained its fetal organs from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at the University of New York, the University of Washington in Seattle, Advanced Bioscience Resources and the University of Southern California—but did not list Planned Parenthood.
It, however, suggested that there were concerns that Planned Parenthood had a possible working relationship with Advanced Bioscience Resources, due to undercover footage from the Center for Medical Progress in which a former Planned Parenthood official stated, “We already have a relationship with ABR. … We’ve been using them for over 10 years—a really long time.”
“Based on recent media reports of potential ties between Advanced Bioscience Resources and Planned Parenthood, we are working to determine whether the company is meeting all applicable standards. We will not use any suppliers who are out of compliance,” Marsha Mailick, vice chancellor for research and graduate education at the University of Wisconsin, told the publication in implying that the university didn’t work with Planned Parenthood, but that one of its suppliers might.
But the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) submitted a public records request over the matter, and while Planned Parenthood claimed that it does not donate fetal organs in Wisconsin, ADF found that the University of Wisconsin in Madison had been directly obtaining baby hearts and brains from Planned Parenthood itself.
The documents obtained mention Planned Parenthood over 20 times, stating that the process to obtain consent to harvest chidrens’ organs “will occur in a private room at Madison Planned Parenthood” and that “[t]he research fellow or research coordinator [at the University of Wisconsin] will have Planned Parenthood consent for the disposal of the tissue.”
“The consent process will be done at Madison Planned Parenthood on the day of the procedure,” the documents outline. “The study nurse will speak privately with the subject and explain the aims of this study. … Planned Parenthood mandates the use of a specific consent form for the disposal of products of conception which
will be used.”
“If the patient agrees to it, the fetal and placental tissue is collected through suction and deposited in a glass jar connected to the suction device, as per Planned Parenthood protocol,” they state. “The PI, co-investigator, research coordinator, and research scientists will be responsible for the handling of the tissues.”
The documents, which include a sample consent form from Planned Parenthood, also note the various kinds of organs harvested, stating that the “specimens” are placed into tubes, which “will have written on them a number linked to the gestational age and the name of the specimen (i.e. brain, liver, placenta, etc.).”
“A collection box/ladder will be set aside for these samples; one row per patient. Example: Patient #1 Brain Heart Kidney Liver Bone Muscle Placenta,” it outlines.
One document of meeting minutes from 2009 states, “While the investigators involved in obtaining consent and collecting the tissue are performing these procedures for Planned Parenthood, they are UW employees….” It adds, “A letter of support has been provided from Planned Parenthood.”
“Planned Parenthood has once again demonstrated its willingness to cover up its role in the gruesome baby parts trade,” said ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman in a statement. “Both Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and UW-Madison publicly denied they had any arrangement to supply baby parts from women undergoing abortion to researchers conducting gruesome experiments, but the documents we obtained prove they were not telling the truth.”