In 2015, an anti-abortion organization named the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released several videos that had been secretly recorded. Members of the CMP posed as representatives of a biotechnology company in order to gain access to both meetings with abortion providers and abortion facilities. The videos showed how abortion providers made fetal tissue available to researchers, although no problems were found with the legality of the process. All of the videos were found to be altered, according to analysis by Fusion GPS and its co-founder Glenn R. Simpson, a former investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The CMP disputed this finding, attributing the alterations to the editing out of "bathroom breaks and waiting periods". CMP had represented a longer version of the tapes as being "complete", as well as a shorter, edited version. The analysis by Fusion GPS concluded that the longer version was also edited, with skips and missing footage. Nonetheless, the videos attracted widespread media coverage; after the release of the first video, conservative lawmakers in Congress singled out Planned Parenthood and began to push bills that would strip the organization of federal family planning funding. No such attempts by Congress to cut federal family planning money from Planned Parenthood have become law. Conservative politicians in several states have also used this as an opportunity to cut or attempt to cut family planning funding at the state level.
Officials in twelve states initiated investigations into claims made by the videos, but none found Planned Parenthood clinics to have sold tissue for profit as alleged by CMP and other anti-abortion groups. An investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee found no evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. A select committee, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood, was formed to further investigate Planned Parenthood. The Republican-controlled Select Investigative Panel released its final report on December 30, 2016, recommending that Planned Parenthood be defunded. The report was heavily criticized as partisan and inaccurate by Democratic members of the committee, Planned Parenthood, and some news media.
In January 2016, a Texas grand jury chartered to investigate Planned Parenthood found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood but instead indicted CMP founder David Daleiden and member Sandra Merritt for creating and using false government IDs and attempting to purchase fetal tissue. The charges against Daleiden and Merritt in Texas were dismissed six months later on the grounds that the grand jury's indictment authority had extended only to Planned Parenthood. In March 2017, Daleiden and Merritt were charged with 15 felonies in the State of California – one for each of the people whom they had filmed without consent, and one for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy. In June 2017, all the invasion of privacy charges (but not that of conspiracy) were dismissed with leave to amend, but in July 2017, the State of California re-filed amended charges.
CMP's videos The CMP videos consisted of portions of secretly recorded, hours-long conversations between members of CMP and abortion providers. Members of CMP posed as representatives of a non-existent company called Biomax Procurement Services, presenting themselves as potential buyers of fetal tissue. CMP stated that it has "hundreds if not thousands of hours of recordings".
The videos were made over a period of 30 months, and were released approximately once per week to increase exposure, including media coverage, and to allow the public more time to consume and react to each video. Americans United for Life began working with CMP beginning in January 2015, providing them with advice. There were widespread protests at Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) affiliates. The debate over abortion was reinvigorated.
One of the videos includes an image of a stillborn fetus, published in the Daily Mail in January 2014, used without the permission of the woman in the photo, and in a way that falsely suggests that the stillborn was aborted.
Financial aspects CMP alleged that the videos were evidence of Planned Parenthood engaging in the illegal sale of fetal tissue. Their dummy corporation Biomax offered one clinic for tissue, but the affiliate declined the offer. The New York Times has characterized the offer as an attempt to "trap the affiliate in the act of accepting a high payment for fetal tissue".
In a less-edited version of the first video, PPFA staff repeatedly state that the organization makes no money from tissue donations, and that the $30100 charge only covers procurement costs. PPFA have said they may donate fetal tissue at the request of a patient, but such tissue is never sold. At one point in the video, a PPFA staffer states "nobody should be 'selling' tissue," and "that's just not the goal here."
According to several experts in the field, the money Planned Parenthood received for fetal tissue was too little to make any profit for Planned Parenthood and constituted reasonable compensation for the costs of procurement, as allowed by federal law. These experts included Sherilyn J. Sawyer, the director of Harvard University's and Brigham and Women's Hospital's biorepository; Jim Vaught, president of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories and formerly the deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's (NCIs) Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research; and Carolyn Compton, the chief medical and science officer of Arizona State University's National Biomarkers Development Alliance and a former director of biorepositories and biospecimen research at the NCI.
On October 13, 2015, Planned Parenthood announced it would no longer accept reimbursement for the costs of collecting and shipping fetal tissue to research labs. Citing an "anti-abortion agenda" by some in Congress, Planned Parenthood stated the move was designed to remove a reason for politically motivated attacks.
Alleged variation in abortion procedures The CMP alleges that the videos show Planned Parenthood officials offering to make adjustments in the techniques used in abortions in order to acquire more intact fetal tissues and organs. Federal law prohibits changing from one abortion procedure to another procedure in order to obtain human tissue for medical research, as well as for delivering intact fetuses. Planned Parenthood spokespeople have responded to CMP's allegations by stating that the organization follows "all lawsperiod", and that accusations made in CMP's videos "are false".
Alleged lack of consent from donors In the sixth video, Holly O'Donnell, an anti-abortion former StemExpress technician, says that she was told by her superiors to encourage women seeking abortions to sign the consent forms, and that even when women refused to sign the fetal organs and tissues were sometimes taken anyway. In the unedited first video, representatives state the donations are only made with the patient's consent. StemExpress, a supplier of biological specimens mostly stem cells for research, has "unequivocally" denied O'Donnell's allegation, stating that the video is "deceptively edited and falsely worded to suggest impropriety or illegality where none exists". Eric Ferrero, vice president of communication for the PPFA, noted that O'Donnell "has never worked for Planned Parenthood", and called her allegations "false and outrageous".
Aftermath The editorial board of The New York Times described CMP's actions as a "campaign of deception against Planned Parenthood", and wrote that the "video campaign is a dishonest attempt to make legal, voluntary and potentially lifesaving tissue donations appear nefarious and illegal". Supporters of Planned Parenthood have complained that the videos were "highly edited".
Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, "personally [apologized] for the staff member's tone and statements", saying the videos were "unacceptable". Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of PPFA, stated: "The latest [fifth] tape has at least 20 substantial and unexplained edits. Previous tapes released by this extremist group were 'heavily edited' in order to distort what was actually said. These videos are intended to shock and deceive the public." In a letter to a Congressional committee, PPFA wrote: "A group of extremists who have intimidated women and doctors for yearsin their agenda to ban abortion completelyare not 'documenting' misdeeds; they are trying to create them, quite unsuccessfully."
In response to Planned Parenthood, CMP stated that "we look forward to showing the public more clear evidence that Planned Parenthood routinely profits from the sale of baby parts and changes the abortion procedures it uses on pregnant women in order to do so".
Investigations Responding to the videos and to CMP's allegations, three different Congressional committees, and officials in a number of states, launched investigations into Planned Parenthood's tissue collection activities. One Congressional committee asked to interview the filmed representatives to see whether the statements made in the videos are consistent with existing federal law.
On July 30, 2015, former Indiana Governor Mike Pence announced that the state's investigation did not find any evidence of wrongdoing in Planned Parenthood's handling of fetal tissue. In Massachusetts, where there is no fetal tissue and organ donation program, Attorney General Maura Healey found that aborted fetuses are disposed of properly in a report that "voiced strong support for" Planned Parenthood. In Florida, investigators from the Agency for Health Care Administration found on July 31, 2015 that three Planned Parenthood clinics were performing second-trimester abortions without the proper licenses, and that one clinic was failing to keep proper logs relating to fetal remains. Planned Parenthood rejected the findings.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced an investigation into practices in Texas, and said that the state would "expand its investigation" after the release of the second video, and Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster announced that his office would investigate Planned Parenthood for any potential wrongdoing at its clinics in that state. Investigations were also launched in Ohio, Kansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, with calls for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate.
At the local level, the Harris County district attorney launched a criminal investigation in conjunction with the Texas Rangers and the Houston Police Department after the fifth video was released showing a Planned Parenthood executive in that city.
Altogether, the videos prompted investigations in fifteen states, including Texas where one undercover recording operation took place; eight other states refused to investigate their Planned Parenthood clinics, including California and Colorado where other CMP recordings also occurred.
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced an investigation into the CMP's practice of undercover recording.
Officials in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, South Dakota, and Kansas investigated and failed to find any evidence of Planned Parenthood clinics breaking any state laws concerning the collection of fetal tissues. The state of Pennsylvania cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing. In September, the Missouri Attorney General found no evidence that the state's only clinic that provides abortion services mishandled fetal tissues. The report stated, "As a result of our investigation, the Office of the Missouri Attorney General has found no evidence that (Planned Parenthood) has engaged in unlawful disposal of fetal organs and tissue."