FETAL-TISSUE reimbursement Planned Parenthood alters policy

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Responding to a furor over undercover videos, Planned Parenthood says it will maintain programs at some of its clinics that make fetal tissue available for research, but will cover the costs itself rather than accepting any reimbursement.

Anti-abortion activists who recently released a series of covertly filmed videos have contended that Planned Parenthood officials sought profits from their programs providing post-abortion fetal tissue to researchers.

Planned Parenthood said the videos were deceptively edited and denied seeking any payments beyond legally permitted reimbursement of costs.

The new policy – forgoing even permissible reimbursement – was outlined in a letter sent Tuesday by Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, to Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health.

“Planned Parenthood’s policies on fetal tissue donation already exceed the legal requirements,” Richards wrote. “Now we’re going even further in order to take away any basis for attacking Planned Parenthood to advance an anti-abortion political agenda.”

The videos were released, starting in mid-July, by a group of anti-abortion activists calling themselves the Center for Medical Progress. Activists posed as representatives of a biomedical firm and sought to negotiate the purchase of fetal organs from some Planned Parenthood personnel.

Republicans in control of Congress have responded to the undercover videos by launching several investigations of Planned Parenthood, along with efforts to cut off the organization’s federal funding.

Most of that funding is reimbursement for Medicaid patients receiving cancer screenings, contraception and other nonabortion services.