ZitatYou learn a lot about America when you research abortion. The procedure is legal but it is seen as a sacred right by a large number of very vocal people and so it is surrounded by rules but very often goes virtually unregulated. And it is amazing what some very educated, very liberal people will do when they know people are not looking.
Researching abortion for my new film "Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer," I've learned that you can make a living - a "heathy" living selling the body parts of aborted babies. The trade was first revealed in 2015 by David Daleiden’s undercover recordings of Planned Parenthood executives.
Daleiden, of the Center For Medical Progress, even recorded one executive seeming to joke about buying a Lamborghini from the proceeds. The tapes created a stir, but media interest faded, particularly after Planned Parenthood commissioned an “independent” analysis by an outside company that called into question the accuracy and reliability of Daleiden’s dossier. The firm that discredited his findings was, at the time, a little-known company called Fusion GPS – who have since proven to have experience creating dossiers of their own of dubious credibility.
Undeterred by the conclusions of Fusion GPS’s investigation, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee immediately started their own. The committees were able to subpoena witnesses, records and invoices. The findings of both committees, released separately over the Christmas and new year period in 2016, went mostly unreported, but they uncovered a well-run, mature and massively profitable business selling almost every part of babies to elite hospitals and research institutions across the U.S.
The House investigation found one company that paid Planned Parenthood $55 for a fetus’s brain, then sold it on to a researcher for over $3,000 – that’s a 2,800% profit. The investigators pointed out that this was not an unusual transaction in the baby business.
The Senate investigation published invoices that showed another company buying an intact fetus from Planned Parenthood for $60. The Senate report outlined how the company then broke the fetus up for parts and “sold its brain to one customer for $325, both of its eyes for $325 each to a second customer, a portion of its liver for $325 to a third customer, its thymus for $325 and another portion of liver to a fourth customer, and its lung for $325 to a fifth customer.”
That one aborted baby brought the company $2,275 for a $60 purchase. Then they added fees for “disease screening” and shipping. The product being sold may have been unusual, but some of Planned Parenthood’s shady financial practices were typical of any dodgy business. For example, they “forgot” to pay sales tax on their sales, and the investigating committees found broker companies double-dipping on expenses.