In the gruesome and now viral video that shows a Planned Parenthood medical officer talking to undercover actors posing as biotech entrepreneurs about the prospects of buying fetal body parts, the name of one company pops up several times.
In the context of selling aborted fetal tissue, Dr. Deborah Nucatola is seen and heard discussing her ongoing relationship with a company called StemExpress that works as the middleman between Planned Parenthood affiliates and research institutes that use the body parts in scientific experimentation.
The video, provided by the pro-life group Center for Medical Progress, purports to show an actual online order form from StemExpress where buyers can order the parts they want and the age of gestation. The pull down menu shows “brain, heart, heart (veins and arteries attached), lungs, liver, liver and thymus, spleen, large intestine” and so on. The order form allows the buyer to choose the gestational age of the baby to be aborted from four weeks upward.
StemExpress is a five-year old privately held for-profit business located in Placerville, California that describes itself as “a multi-million dollar company that supplies human blood, tissue products, primary cells and other clinical specimens to biomedical researchers.” The company says it “offers the largest variety of raw material in the industry, as well as fresh, fixed and cryopreserved human primary cells.”
StemExpress calls itself as “…the only company of its kind to both procure tissues and isolate cells for researchers’ individual needs in its own labs. Our human tissue products range from fetal to adult and healthy to diseased, and we also collect bone marrow and leukapheresis for isolation.” StemExpress promises that by partnering with them “you’ll get the high quality samples you need so that you can focus on the research.”
Some will wonder how something that is apparently illegal goes on so openly. David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress told Breitbart News, “It is the Kermit Gosnell effect. There is simply a lack of interest in enforcing this kind of law because of abortion.”
On the video Nucatola is heard talking about pricing, that “specimens” would range from $30 to $100. It is expected that Planned Parenthood will claim these charges are merely for their services and do not include a profit. Daleiden told Breitbart News that there are no extra services because companies like StemExpress are there at the facility to harvest the organs on order and walk out with them, not even shipping charges.
Daleiden said that while the practice goes on around the country, it is especially hard to prosecute in California because of the political power of the abortion industry.
The buying and selling of human body parts is illegal under the U.S. Criminal Code though companies can charge for expenses. The question becomes how a “multi-million dollar” for-profit company buys fetal body parts and sells them but makes no profit.
Repeated calls to StemExpress for a comment have gone unreturned. The company website crashed sometime today.
Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruse
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.