2. Event:
• July 15, 2015: Center for Medical Progress released video showing Planned
Parenthood selling fetal tissue/getting reimbursements for fetal tissue, from
July 2014
3. Facts:
• Selling and buying of individual or fetal tissue is illegal under federal law (42
U.S. Code §289g–2)
• Individual and fetal tissue donation is legal
4. DifferingViews:
• Exposing illegal activity: Planned Parenthood
is making a profit
• Planned Parenthood is altering the way it does
abortions
• Process is partial birth abortion, banned in
2003
• Transactions were merely covering expenses
• Video released was edited to show something
extremely different
• Center for Medical Progress has clear agenda,
not reporting unbiasedly
5. Questions:
• Is it ethical to pretend you’re someone you’re not?
• How much video editing is ethical when reporting?
• Should an organization mired in controversy receive federal funding?
• No matter what is ethically/morally/scientifically right, if companies break the law, is it wrong?
• Can humans or human parts, in any form, be sold? Can, as John Boehner put it, human beings be
“monetized”?
• At what point is a human just flesh? Upon death? Upon willing or inevitable death? Upon death
with consenting donation?
• If the abortive medical procedure is altered to obtain the fetal tissue donation in a way that
causes more harm or creates greater risk for the mother, is this unethical? Should the patient’s
health be the only concern of the doctor? For example, when someone is dying, should doctors
change how they treat the patient in order to harvest good tissue for donation after death.