The Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives recently held its first hearing on March 2 to examine the bioethics of fetal tissue harvesting and experimentation. The hearing included a review of the patient consent form used by Planned Parenthood to get permission to harvest aborted baby parts.
The Planned Parenthood form promises pregnant women considering abortion that aborted fetal tissue “has been used to treat and find a cure for such diseases as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and AIDS.” No cures for these diseases are currently available, and no current therapies for them use aborted fetal tissue.
At the hearing, Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, a scientist from the University of California at San Diego, was called by the Panel’s minority to testify in support of Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue harvesting. Dr. Goldstein is a long-time financial donor to Planned Parenthood in San Diego, and uses aborted fetal brains and other body parts from the local Planned Parenthood. Under oath, Dr. Goldstein replied to a question from Planned Parenthood supporter Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) this way:
Watson Coleman: Do you believe that anything on that form is creating an undue hardship or intimidation or misrepresentation to women who are being asked to consider whether they will donate this tissue?
Goldstein: If it’s the form that says, therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and all the rest have already been found, I agree, that’s an inappropriate statement that should not have been made on that form. I don’t know who wrote it, that would not have made it past my IRB [Institutional Review Board] either.
The Planned Parenthood fetal harvesting consent form is authored by Planned Parenthood Federation of America and provided to affiliates in its Manual of Medical Standards and Guidelines.
“Planned Parenthood’s baby parts trafficking scheme cannot stand up to independent scrutiny. When a Planned Parenthood supporter and baby parts customer admits under oath that Planned Parenthood has been fraudulently inducing patient consent, it discredits all of Planned Parenthood’s assurances that their baby parts scheme has operated legally and above-board,” notes David Daleiden, CMP Project Lead. “Law enforcement in Planned Parenthood-friendly jurisdictions should stop wasting taxpayer resources to assist Planned Parenthood in harassing citizen journalists, and should stop ignoring the evidence of real fraud, baby body parts trafficking, and criminal abortion practices right in their own backyard.”
