In New Video, Planned Parenthood Exec Appears to Joke About Pricing Baby Parts

‘I want a Lamborghini,’ Dr. Mary Gatter says in the undercover video released today by the citizen journalist group Center for Medical Progress.

Dr. Mary Gatter, president of the Planned Parenthood medical directors’ council, discusses compensation for the provision of fetal tissues in an undercover video posted on YouTube.
Dr. Mary Gatter, president of the Planned Parenthood medical directors’ council, discusses compensation for the provision of fetal tissues in an undercover video posted on YouTube. (photo: YouTube/Center for Medical Progress)

WASHINGTON — Another undercover video released today allegedly shows a senior official at Planned Parenthood flippantly discussing monetary compensation for aborted baby organs and the alteration of abortion procedures to ensure that the organs are intact.

“It’s been years since I talked about compensation, so let me just figure out what others [Planned Parenthood affiliates] are getting. If this [price] is in the ballpark, it’s fine; if it’s still low, then we can bump it up,” Dr. Mary Gatter appears to tell actors posing as representatives of a fetal-tissue procurement company, before joking, “I want a Lamborghini.”

Gatter is president of the Planned Parenthood medical directors’ council and oversees a Planned Parenthood facility in Pasadena, Calif.

The eight-minute video was released by the citizen journalist group Center for Medical Progress, which reports on medical ethics. It is the second video released as part of the center's report “Human Capital,” the result of a three-year investigative study of Planned Parenthood and its transfer of body parts of aborted babies for money.

The first undercover video was made public last week, showing the organization’s senior director of medical services discussing the “donation” of body parts of aborted babies for “reasonable” compensation. The Planned Parenthood official estimated the price for the body parts from $30 to $100 per “specimen.”

Planned Parenthood has defended the practice, saying that it is not making significant or illegal profits from the process and that it receives appropriate consent from mothers.

The new video purports to show Gatter saying, “We’re not in it for the money, and we don’t want to be in a position of being accused of selling tissue and stuff like that. On the other hand, there are costs associated with the use of our space and that kind of stuff. … It has to be big enough that it is worthwhile.”

Gatter appears to suggest “$75 a specimen” as a price that would “work” for fetal tissue of aborted babies.

Federal law generally prohibits the selling of human tissue but allows for the donation of tissue with “reasonable payments” for the “transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control or storage of human fetal tissue.” It explicitly prohibits the sale of tissue for “valuable consideration.”

 

Adjusting Abortion Procedures?

The video also includes a discussion of possibly adjusting the abortion procedure of certain babies to better deliver an “intact specimen” to the organ harvesters.

“[If] our usual technique is suction, at 10 to 12 weeks, and we switch to using an IPAS or something with less suction, and increase the odds that it will come out as an intact specimen, then we’re kind of violating the protocol that says to the patient, ‘We’re not doing anything different in our care of you,’” Gatter appears to say.

“Now to me, that’s kind of a specious little argument,” she appears to continue, saying that she “wouldn’t object” to asking the abortionist “to use an IPAS at that gestational age, in order to increase the odds that he’s going to get an intact specimen, but I do need to throw it out there as a concern. Because the patient is signing something, and we’re signing something, saying that we’re not changing anything with the way we’re managing you, just because we agree to give tissue.”

“I think they’re both totally appropriate techniques. There’s no difference in pain involved. I don’t think the patients would care one iota. So yeah, I’m not making a fuss about that.”

At the end of the video, she appears to instruct one of the “buyers” to send her a business proposal. “And then, if we want to pursue this, mutually, I’ll mention this to Ian [the surgeon] and see how he feels in terms of how he feels about using a ‘less crunchy’ technique to get more whole specimens.”

 

More Undercover Videos

More undercover videos could be released in coming weeks. A lawyer from Planned Parenthood sent a letter to Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is launching an investigation into the organization after the release of the first video.

“We don’t know what the center will release next, but we know enough to be deeply concerned about the infiltration of Planned Parenthood and its affiliates,” the letter states. It said that Planned Parenthood had at least 65 meetings with the Center for Medical Progress and suggested that future videos could include racial questions and footage of an area used to process the tissue of aborted babies.

Shannon Mullen, Editor-in-Chief of CNA

Meet CNA’s New Editor-in-Chief, Shannon Mullen (July 31)

A new era has begun at the Catholic News Agency even as the news cycle continues to bring challenging stories both inside the Church and around the world. This week on Register Radio, we get to know Shannon Mullen, the new editor-in-chief of CNA. And then, we are joined by the Register’s Washington Correspondent, Lauretta Brown, to catch up on the latest pro-life news from the nation’s capital.

Shannon Mullen, Editor-in-Chief of Catholic News Agency.

EWTN’s Catholic News Agency Names Shannon Mullen as Editor-in-Chief

“As a young newspaper reporter, I drew great inspiration from Pope John Paul II’s annual remarks on World Communications Day,” Mullen said adding, “He emphasized that even those in the secular media could serve as apostles in the cause of human dignity, justice and the pursuit of truth."