Planned Parenthood letter to Congress says videos are ‘smear’

LOS ANGELES – Planned Parenthood Federation of America defended its practices Thursday in a lengthy letter to congressional leaders and included a report by experts it hired who found undercover videos of officials discussing fetal tissue for research were heavily altered by anti-abortion activists.

The report supports the organization’s claims that the secretly recorded videos were distorted to misrepresent conversations employees had with anti-abortion activists posing as biomedical company employees interested in buying fetal tissue, Planned Parenthood said.

The letter and report were the most detailed defense to date by Planned Parenthood, which has come under fire from conservatives since the California-based Center for Medical Progress began releasing a series of undercover videos last month.

“It’s increasingly clear that this attack on Planned Parenthood is a fraud based on a web of lies and deception,” Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens told reporters.

Four congressional committees are investigating Planned Parenthood’s practices, and lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to strip the organization of federal funding.

Some conservatives are vowing to vote down must-pass legislation to fund the federal government this fall unless it strips money for the organization, raising the specter of a government shutdown over the issue.

The videos that include graphic images of tissue, organs and even a tiny arm showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing in a businesslike way how they provide aborted fetal organs for research and what they charge for tissue.

Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, previously apologized for the “tone and statements.” But she defended the organization in her letter to Congress, saying it did nothing illegal and calling the videos a “smear” on its reputation.

The organization provides health services such as birth control, sexual-disease screening and abortions. Fewer than 1 percent of 700 affiliated clinics nationwide offer fetal tissue donation for medical research, the letter said.

At issue is a federal law that prohibits abortion providers from profiting from the sale of fetal tissue, inducing someone to have an abortion to provide the tissue, or altering the procedure in any way to harvest fetal tissue, which is used for a variety of medical research.

California clinics were reimbursed $45 to $60 to recoup their costs, which is legal.