Contact: Danielle Smith
Phone: (703) 522-2214
Email: dsmith@feminist.org
The Feminist Majority Foundation stands with Planned Parenthood in its new policy to provide patients with the opportunity to donate fetal tissue for medical research, without accepting reimbursements for their health centers’ reasonable expenses. Although reimbursement is allowed under current federal law, Planned Parenthood has taken this step to put to rest the unscrupulous claim that it had any financial interest in, or received any financial gain from, fetal tissue donation.
“It’s time to put these bogus allegations to rest,” said Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal. “Planned Parenthood has never sought to make a profit through fetal tissue research. These claims have been debunked time and time again. Planned Parenthood’s goal in this has always been to further medical research.”
“By focusing on maligning Planned Parenthood as an organization, recent congressional hearings have missed the mark and have threatened to jeopardize healthcare for millions of women,” added Smeal. “Rather than continuing this political agenda to ban abortion, there should be an effort to investigate the Center for Medical Progress and its deceptive editing of fraudulently obtained video footage to mislead the public.”
Only two Planned Parenthood affiliates, making up only one percent of its clinics, facilitate fetal tissue donation to further medical research. The policy announced by Planned Parenthood today goes beyond current legal requirements and is the model currently in place at one of the two affiliates providing this service.
Planned Parenthood has been the subject of a series of congressional hearings and state investigations as a result of the outrageous claims made by the extremist anti-abortion group calling itself the Center for Medical Progress. Although these claims are absolutely baseless, CMP, which fraudulently obtained video footage and falsified documents, has not been subject to congressional scrutiny. Anti-abortion politicians, however, have used these videos as an excuse to further their agenda to ban abortion and make reproductive healthcare – including birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing – inaccessible for millions of women.
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