When I Harvested Baby Body Parts

For eight years of my life, I worked at Planned Parenthood. I was a staunch defender of “women’s rights,” including the right to abortion on demand. However, I never believed we were there to sell abortions. I believed that we were there to reduce the number of abortions. That’s what we said to the media…surely it was true.

I can’t explain to you how I was able to do the work I did. Looking back, I don’t even understand it. I don’t understand how I pieced babies back together after abortion procedures to ensure that we got “all of the parts.” How did I do this for eight years without seeing this horrific reality? I don’t know.

Recently, several videos have surfaced that discuss the process of harvesting fetal body parts and organs for monetary gain inside the abortion industry. These videos show Planned Parenthood officials haggling over prices for the tiny organs that are removed from the unborn during an abortion.

As difficult as this may be to read, harvesting organs and other body parts of the unborn is par for the course in the abortion industry. The affiliate where I worked, Planned Parenthood Gulfcoast, was frequently involved in “fetal tissue” studies. We worked with a group called Amphioxus Cell Technologies, which is now permanently closed. Although “fetal tissue” research is not very common among Planned Parenthood affiliates (only a handful of clinics provide “specimens”), the clinics that do participate are high volume facilities. The Planned Parenthood clinic located on the Gulf Freeway in Houston is our country’s largest abortion facility. Their abortion quota is to sell 75 abortions per day, 6 days per week. Amphioxus paid us approximately $200 per “specimen.”

Let’s be conservative and say that only 50 women consented to allowing their aborted babies to be used for research. And let’s also be extra conservative and say that the facility was only paid $100 per specimen. Let’s do the math.

$100 per specimen x 50 abortions = $5,000.00 per day

$5,000.00 per day x 6 days per week = $30,000.00 per week

$30,000.00 per week x 4 weeks in a month = $120,000.00 per month

$120,000.00 per month x 12 months = $1.4 million dollars per year

Fetal tissue research is BIG business for the abortion industry…and it’s almost all profit.

Currently, federal law states that an abortion clinic can charge for certain reimbursable costs: collection, transport, shipping, preservation, quality assurance, etc. But here’s the honest truth. There are NO additional costs involved with fetal tissue research for the abortion clinic. The abortion itself doesn’t require any additional instruments to harvest tissue. There is no cost for preservation, as the “specimens” are kept in the same freezer as the babies that aren’t being sent off for research. The only cost that could even be factored in when participating in fetal tissue research is shipping. And being generous, that would only cost them about $2.00 per “specimen.” Two dollars is a far cry from the $200.00 they are collecting in the name of “reimbursement.” Sometimes there is no cost for shipping, as the research company will often send someone to pick up the box of “specimens.” In those scenarios, they are charging a “reimbursement” of $200.00, but there is absolutely NO money being spent by the facility…it is 100% profit.

Just to be transparent, I want to you to know that I was directly involved in the practice of fetal tissue harvesting. During the abortion procedure, all of the blood, body parts and extra tissue would be collected into a glass jar. That glass jar would come to me in the POC (products of conception) lab through a “pass through specimen cabinet.” I would take the jar to our sink, dump everything into a huge strainer, rinse out the jar and then rinse the blood out of the strainer. After I had a clean body, I would dump it into the glass baking dish that was sitting on top of an x-ray light box. I would put a little bit of water in the glass dish so that the body parts would float…that made it easier for me to manipulate them.

When participating in fetal tissue research, an intact body was gold. An intact fetal body is considered perfection in the land of fetal tissue research. But dismembered body parts were okay, too…and that is usually what we gave them. I would check the patient’s chart to make sure that they had signed the consent for us to donate their baby’s remains. Almost every woman did, because we made it seem like that by donating, they were helping others…a false sense of altruism. If she had consented, I would gather the parts wanted (usually all of them) and place them in a particular container given to us by the research company. At the end of the day, I would pack all of the containers neatly in the box with dry ice and ship them off.

For 8 years, I believed the lie. I spewed the talking points. It took too long for me to see the truth. But when I stopped taking life, I got mine back. I learned what it was to truly help women. I realized that in order to help the woman sitting in front of me, I couldn’t dehumanize her child. Our society has become part of a machine…a machine that casually takes life day after day. It’s time to get our humanity back. It’s time to shut down the abortion industry. Don’t just be outraged. DO SOMETHING.