Human tissue firm cuts ties with Planned Parenthood

StemExpress, one of the tissue companies that works with Planned Parenthood, is cutting its ties with the women’s health organization after a series of sting videos that have prompted congressional inquiries.

“We value our various partnerships but, due to the increased questions that have arisen over the past few weeks, we feel it prudent to terminate activities with Planned Parenthood,” the company said in a statement. “While we value our business relationship with Planned Parenthood, that work represents a small percentage of our overall business activity and we must focus our limited resources on resolving these inquiries.”


The small biomedical tissue procurement company is distancing itself from Planned Parenthood after finding itself tangentially linked to what abortion opponents allege is Planned Parenthood’s illegal trafficking of fetal tissue and organs.

Both StemExpress and Planned Parenthood have denied doing anything illegal or improper. They say that they only facilitated the donation of fetal tissue for medical research with a patient’s consent.

StemExpress, a five-year-old company based in Placerville, Calif., notified Planned Parenthood and Congress Friday of its decision to end the relationship, the source said. The House Energy and Commerce and the Senate Judiciary committees had asked StemExpress to explain its relationship with Planned Parenthood.

The company said that it wants to remain focused on its goals of “accelerating research, advancing medicine and saving lives” and expressed hope that the investigations will end soon so that it can turn its full attention back to that work.

It released the statement after POLITICO had reported the decision to sever the relationship.

StemExpress worked inside several Northern California Planned Parenthood clinics. Typically, after a patient told a Planned Parenthood physician that she was going to have an abortion, a StemExpress technician would ask for consent to obtain the fetal tissue. If consent was granted, the technician would then facilitate and process the donation of the tissue for StemExpress.

In two of the six videos released to date, former StemExpress technician Holly O’Donnell claims that she once saw another technician appear to obtain fetal tissue without a patient’s consent. StemExpress “unequivocally” denied the claim.

In July, a court at StemExpress’s request issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Center for Medical Research, the anti-abortion group that made the videos, from releasing any secretly recorded video of the company’s employees. StemExpress lawyers said the group violated California’s anti-wiretapping laws.

StemExpress worked with Planned Parenthood only in Northern California. The undercover videos also showed people discussing what it alleges are illegal tissue sales practices by Planned Parenthood in other locations.

Planned Parenthood said that affiliates in two states offer patients the option of fetal tissue donation. “One of those affiliates works with StemExpress,” said Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

“Like all of Planned Parenthood’s services, this is completely voluntary, it is focused on improving women’s health and public health, and it follows the highest medical and legal standards,” he said. “Anti-abortion activists have made a range of outrageous, false claims about Planned Parenthood, which fall apart upon closer inspection. Indeed, in every state that has concluded an investigation into these claims, officials have cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing.”

The group has pointed to investigations that were closed in several red states, such as Indiana, South Dakota, Florida and Georgia. No clinics in those states have appeared in Center for Medical Progress videos.

In July, a court at StemExpress’s request issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-abortion group that made the videos, from releasing any secretly recorded video of the company’s employees. StemExpress lawyers said the group violated California’s anti-wiretapping laws.

The furor that erupted when the first video was released last month shows no sign of abating. The Center for Medical Progress’s David Daleiden has said that he has enough videotape material to release about 12 films in total. Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested that they want to hold hearings, and more congressional attempts to defund Planned Parenthood are likely after the August recess. The 2016 Republican presidential field has voiced strong support for defunding, too.

Rachana Pradhan contributed to this report.

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