Planned Parenthood Baby Parts Vendor Stem Express Backs off Lawsuit against Center for Medical Progress

The for-profit company Stem Express, one of Planned Parenthood’s biggest contractors for the harvesting and selling of aborted baby parts has dropped its lawsuit against the videomakers.

The Center for Medical Progress published undercover investigative videos highlighting the illegal activities that Stem Express employed in order to make a profit off of the sale of aborted baby organs and tissue. Stem Express was additionally caught advertising to abortion facilities that the sale of fetal tissue would be “financially profitable” for them. According to the press release put out by the Center for Medical Progress, “this advertisement was endorsed by Dr. Dorothy Furgerson, Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte where StemExpress harvested and purchased body parts.” This type of advertising has been shown in other cases to subsequently encourage abortion facilities to illegally alter their abortion procedures to procure better, more “fresh” baby parts.

Other videos released by the Center for Medical Progress feature high-ranking Planned Parenthood employees haggling over prices for fetal specimens as well as describing altering abortion procedures to obtain more intact fetal body parts for tissue procurement agencies. At a business lunch meeting with CMP investigators David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, remarked over wine and salad: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.” In another video, Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter haggled with undercover investigators over the price per fetal specimen, insisting, “You know in negotiations the person who throws out the figure first is at a loss, right?” and laughing, “I want a Lamborghini.”

Stem Express and Planned Parenthood Federation of America were recently both referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Select Investigative Panel to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. Live Action News reported:

…StemExpress has bigger problems than CMP since the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives issued its  final report, which was laden with criminal referrals recommending both state and federal prosecution for the fetal parts organization. If the Panel’s recommendations are followed, in addition to criminal prosecution, businesses like StemExpress would no longer be able to operate. The report, detailing the activities of StemExpress (pages 136+) lists the deep profits the fetal brokers made by selling fetal parts to Planned Parenthood using a “middle-man business model.”

According to the press release issued by the Center for Medical Progress:

StemExpress sued CMP in late July 2015, seeking an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech with a preliminary injunction gag order to prevent the release of undercover video of a business dinner with its Founder and CEO, Cate Dyer. In the video, Dyer made several shocking admissions about StemExpress obtaining fully intact fetuses from abortion cases, seeking “another 50 livers a week” from a “volume institution” like Planned Parenthood, and asserting that supplying fetal tissue should be “profitable” for abortion clinics.

Dyer’s recorded statements corroborated the whistleblower interview testimony of Holly O’Donnell, who worked as a procurement technician at StemExpress in Planned Parenthood clinics and observed profit motive between StemExpress and Planned Parenthood and the harvesting of intact fetuses.

“StemExpress was the first of Planned Parenthood’s accomplices to file a retaliatory lawsuit against citizen journalists and the first to seek an unconstitutional prior restraint on our First Amendment rights to speak and publish,” notes CMP Project Lead David Daleiden in the press release. “Now, the video is out for all the world to see, StemExpress faces criminal referral in multiple jurisdictions, and they are walking away from their own lawsuit empty-handed.”

The sale or purchase of fetal tissue for profit is a federal felony.

The fact that Stem Express’ legal representation has backed away from the case is a huge win for pro-lifers – mothers, fathers, and preborn babies – everywhere.