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The Daily Signal
Former Planned
Parenthood Clinic Director Explains the Tissue Donation Process
Kelsey Harkness
August 10, 2015
For eight years, Abby Johnson, who used to work for a branch of Planned
Parenthood, didn’t just witness the fetal tissue donation process—she
participated in it.
During her tenure at a southeast Texas clinic—the same location
featured in the fifth undercover video shot by the Center for Medical
Progress—Johnson said she would “coerce” women to sign up for studies,
then reap the financial benefits.
In 2009, a year after being named “Employee of the Year” at her clinic,
Johnson, 35, said she witnessed a doctor performing an abortion on an
ultrasound and quit her job.
The former clinic director has since become a pro-life activist,
regularly criticizing Planned Parenthood’s abortion practices. The
organization attempted to discredit parts of Johnson’s account and even
obtained a temporary injunction against her, but Johnson was quickly
cleared of any wrongdoing.
Now, in light of allegations that Planned Parenthood is engaging in
illegal activities surrounding its harvesting of fetal body parts,
Johnson walked The Daily Signal through her experience with the
donation process, from the moment she would ask a woman to participate
in a “life-saving” study to the second her facility shipped off the
body parts.
Planned Parenthood adamantly denies any wrongdoing in the recent string
of videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, which have
triggered multiple investigations and calls to strip the organization
of its taxpayer dollars.
When a woman walks in for an abortion, what are the first steps?
Nothing is different with her coming in, signing paperwork, all of that
is the same. The actual fetal tissue study—the research—is not brought
up until she goes into counseling. I’m saying counseling, but it’s
really when she goes in to sign all the papers. After she signs the
consent form for the abortion, then we would bring up the study.
What would you say?
We would tell the client that we are participating in a study and she
has an opportunity today to donate the tissue that’s removed from her
uterus to a research laboratory where they will be working on
life-saving treatments for various diseases such as Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s or other types of medical studies. We would tell her this
is an opportunity for her to possibly save the life of someone else by
donating this tissue. By creating this altruistic scenario, women would
almost always consent and say, “Yes, absolutely.”
Was there a strategy behind the way you phrased that question?
We never discussed, “They may want just a leg, or an arm, or these
specific organs.” That would create a sense of humanity in their unborn
child. And really, we would even shy away from calling it fetal tissue
research because just calling it tissue sanitizes it—the women don’t
necessarily think about the body of their baby, they’re just thinking
about blood and tissue.
Did Planned Parenthood officials train you on what language to use?
They did. In the fifth video that was released, that was actually my
affiliate, where I worked. Missy Ferrell—Melissa, we call her Missy—she
was head of the research department when I worked there as well.
Anytime we would embark on a research project, someone from the
research team would come in and say, “This is what we’re doing, this is
how you need to talk to the clients about it.”
Were Planned Parenthood employees told about the “life-saving
treatments” they were supposedly collecting tissue for?
We had absolutely no idea what the tissue was going to be used for. We
weren’t told that information. We simply had a contract with a research
facility, and they said, “Hey, we need to buy specimens from you, how
many can you provide? We’ll give you ‘X’ amount of dollars for each
specimen you send.”
Did you ever receive compensation associated with these research
projects?
At that time, and this was of course when I worked there until 2009, we
as staff members were compensated for every patient that we were able
to enroll in a study. It creates coercive tactics.
How much were you compensated?
It depended on how much Planned Parenthood was getting per research
participant. For our fetal tissue study, we got paid about $200 per
baby that we sent. If I recall correctly, I think the compensation to
the staff was about $20 per enrollment. If it was a minor study … one
time we did a study where they were testing different kinds of pap
brushes … we got about $5 for each patient.
Once a patient is enrolled in a fetal tissue study, what happens next?
Once the patient is enrolled, she’s taken back to the procedure room.
The abortion is performed, and nothing is different in the actual
abortion procedure. We don’t use any different types of tools or
anything like that.
There were times where doctors would use a manual aspiration technique
as opposed to the vacuum aspiration because the vacuum suction that we
used was so strong that it would basically just shred the parts of the
baby. If we were trying to get a more intact specimen, the doctor may
use a manual aspiration procedure, which doesn’t include the machine
and does less damage to the actual baby.
Doctors aren’t allowed to change the way they perform an abortion to
harvest tissue—how is this legal?
Planned Parenthood has done such a good job covering themselves because
both of those procedures are considered acceptable standard of care.
They can say, “We’re not doing the manual aspiration to get a more
intact specimen; we’re doing it because this woman’s concerned about
pain and this would be less painful than the vacuum aspiration
procedure.”
After the abortion is performed, what happens next?
Once the abortion is complete, the jar or the tube where everything was
suctioned would go into the products of conception lab. The product of
conception technician, who works for Planned Parenthood, would empty
everything that was suctioned out into a dish like what we saw in the
fourth and fifth video.
At that point, what did the product of conception technician do with
the different body parts?
If it was during a time that we were participating in a research study,
they would pick out whatever was requested—whether it was a specific
organ, eyeballs, whatever it was—they would take that out and put that
in a specimen bag.
Then we would put all of the bags that were going for research in a
Styrofoam container inside a freezer, and the ones that were not went
into a different bag. With each specimen we had to make a copy of the
consent form they signed and put it into the specimen bag.
At the end of the day, we would ship on dry ice the specimens to the
company that we were contracted with. Sometimes research labs will
actually come and pick up the box, but in our case we shipped it off.
How much did shipping typically cost?
The researchers provided the Styrofoam box and dry ice to Planned
Parenthood. Literally the only cost we had was shipping the box. And
that was about $20 every time we shipped. So Planned Parenthood is
getting $200 per specimen, and we’re taking all the specimens, putting
them in one box and shipping it off for $20. The different fetal body
parts are not shipped individually.
Does Planned Parenthood have to hire an employee to sort through the
body parts and put them in these containers?
It’s not like we hire someone just to separate these parts for research
because after every single abortion, a product of conception technician
reassembles the parts of the baby to make sure that everything was
removed. If they don’t, that can be fatal for a woman. We had several
instances where our product of conception technician failed the patient
because they would come back in and there would be a leg still in their
uterus and that causes very serious infection.
To send the body parts to a research laboratory, it’s just a matter of
separating them into different bags.
Do you think Planned Parenthood is doing anything illegal?
The way that the law is written currently, it allows them to charge for
these certain items as long as they are coded correctly on a line-item
budget. And that’s the problem with the law, is that it’s so subjective
as far as the cost. As long as they code it as, we need $100 for extra
work in collecting the tissue—well, there is no extra work. And that’s
what the videos are showing, with Dr. Mary Gatter, she said, “We don’t
have to change anything.” That’s true: they don’t have to do anything.
Read this and other articles with links at The Daily Signal
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