Planned Parenthood Switches Abortion Tactics to Harvest ‘More Intact’ Body Parts

A new undercover video shows the relationship between Planned Parenthood’s late-term abortion clinic in Orange County and a local for-profit biotech company, Da Vinci Biosciences, to harvest the organs of aborted fetuses to sell nationally and internationally.

The video, produced by The Center for Medical Progress, highlights a conversation between Dr. Jennefer Russo, the Medical Director at Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties, and citizen journalists from The Center for Medical Progress posing as a for-profit fetal tissue company similar to Da Vinci. Dr. Russo performs abortions up to 24 weeks at Planned Parenthood’s abortion center in Orange, CA.

Russo confirms that her Planned Parenthood affiliate is currently working with a local biotech company to supply aborted fetal body parts: “Yeah, it’s Da Vinci,” she states. Da Vinci Biosciences, LLC, and its sister company, DV Biologics, LLC, are located in Orange County, CA and have been partnered with the local Planned Parenthood affiliate since 2008. Planned Parenthood Orange & San Bernardino Counties’ 2008 Annual Report lists Da Vinci Biosciences as one of the major financial donors to the abortion group.

“They take the whole specimen,” Russo explains about Da Vinci. Russo asks the undercover buyer, “You’re looking ideally for an intact specimen?” “As intact as possible,” the buyer replies.

In the first CMP undercover video, Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, described using an ultrasound-guided procedure to flip the fetus to feet-first position in order to get intact specimens. When asked about using this procedure to harvest more intact body parts, Orange County’s Russo confesses, “Yeah, we like to do that too.”

Using ultrasound guidance to manipulate the fetus from vertex to breech orientation before intact extraction is the hallmark of the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure (18 U.S.C. 1531). Nucatola previously recommended Russo and Planned Parenthood in Orange County as good prospective partners for fetal body parts harvesting.

Russo also divulges that her Planned Parenthood affiliate is not using digoxin, the chemical used as feticide in later 2nd-trimester abortions to kill the fetus and prevent a live birth, due to a nationwide supply shortage. Without a feticidal procedure like digoxin, it is possible for a fetus extracted intact during an abortion to be born alive.

Asked a second time about producing intact fetuses in late 2nd-trimester cases for organ harvesting, Russo admits, “It happens sometimes, but it’s pretty rare.” She continues with a smile, “But, we try.”

A secret-shopper phone call to Da Vinci Biosciences confirms that Planned Parenthood’s latest cases are being done without feticide. When a caller asks for fetal brain from 18 to 24 weeks gestation, a Da Vinci sales representative assures, “It is feticide-free, considering that we have such a large catalogue of fetal tissue, I believe that would be a requirement for us, in order to have so many fetal products available.”

Invoices show Da Vinci Biosciences charging $350 for fetal liver, $500 for fetal thymus, and $750 for fetal brain. The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2).

“Although Planned Parenthood’s political and PR cronies work overtime to cover-up the revelations of its illicit baby parts trade, Planned Parenthood’s interstate criminal scheme to harvest and sell aborted baby parts continues without any transparency or accountability,” notes David Daleiden, CMP Project Lead. “The fact that a community like Orange County, CA, is open for business for baby body parts makes clear the need for law enforcement and elected officials to hold Planned Parenthood accountable,” Daleiden says. “And as the Supreme Court prepares to hear a landmark abortion business regulation case, Planned Parenthood’s baby parts scheme sends an urgent message about the critical need for States to have strong regulatory authority over the abortion industry.”