{"id":80686,"date":"2015-11-25T13:26:27","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T18:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=80686"},"modified":"2015-12-02T15:21:37","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T20:21:37","slug":"katie-couric-didnt-show-babies-stored-freezers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/katie-couric-didnt-show-babies-stored-freezers\/","title":{"rendered":"What Katie Couric didn’t show you: Babies stored in freezers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Katie Couric’s recent tour<\/a> of a $4.5 million Planned Parenthood abortion center in\u00a0Queens<\/a>,\u00a0New York, interestingly failed to show viewers\u00a0the room where aborted babies are stored, potentially in freezers\u00a0– the\u00a0“POC” (products of conception) room. \u00a0A common feature of every abortion facility, undercover video released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) showed<\/a> how staffers working in a POC room at a Houston Planned Parenthood stored\u00a0aborted babies in\u00a0a freezer.<\/p>\n

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\"Planned-Parenthood-Gulf-Coast-freezer\"<\/p>\n

In that video<\/a>, CMP actors posing as fetal tissue procurement agents were taken into Planned Parenthood\u2019s back pathology room where they ask to view any “fresh specimens” (i.e., aborted babies). With a smile on her face, the Planned Parenthood assistant told CMP, \u201cWe had a really long day and they are all mixed up in a bag.” Then they tell CMP that they keep the \u201cspecimens\u201d frozen.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0transcript from\u00a0April 9, 2015, CMP detailed a conversation they had with Melissa Farrell, Director of Research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, in which Farrell\u00a0states<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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After the physician has confirmed the tissue correlates with gestational age, tissue is placed in a biohazard container and gets discarded into a single container and then is placed in the freezer<\/strong>. Anything after 16 weeks is immediately placed in the freezer <\/strong>after the procedure. And it is all sent away once a week for incineration. So that\u2019s kind of the scope.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In another portion of the conversation, Farrell\u00a0told CMP:<\/p>\n

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Under a sample acquisition protocol where everyone that\u2019s coming in gets approached, not just African-American or whatever, everyone gets approached about donating fetal tissue, maybe we can even think, and I recognize that a lot of this has to be fresh, but maybe even banking, a tissue banking part, that we have it built into the consent form-protocol-in the event that you don\u2019t have a use-first trimester, you don\u2019t have a use for it currently, you saw the refrigerator freezer <\/strong>space we have, we have plenty of space. We can store it, and then if you have a need, because some researchers start with frozen specimens <\/strong>or preserved specimens first, we could look at doing that as well.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But Houston is not the only Planned Parenthood center where aborted babies are stored in freezers. An unannounced inspection<\/a> by South Carolina state health investigators describes a similar system where aborted children are kept in a freezer at Planned Parenthood of South Atlantic in Columbia.<\/p>\n

\"south-carolina-planned-parenthood\"<\/p>\n

During the walk-through of the Planned Parenthood, investigators identified two locations where biohazard waste was stored. The first one, although it contained bio-hazardous waste, did not contain any fetal tissue. But when inspectors asked if there were any other places where “POC’s” or products of conception were kept, Planned Parenthood staff replied, “Yes, in the POC room in the freezer.”<\/p>\n

According to the inspection report<\/a>, inspectors followed the Planned Parenthood staff into the “POC room” and opened the “upright freezer which had a biohazard sticker in the top right hand corner.” Inside the freezer were several metal shelves lined with blue disposable pads. One shelf had a large red plastic biohazard bag that was tied with numerous (in excess of 20) smaller red plastic bags, the report stated.<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood staffers told inspectors that “individual products of conception” (or as pro-lifers rightly describe them, aborted preborn children) are placed in a smaller red biohazard bag after examination by the abortionist. They are then placed in the large bag in the freezer, the inspection report notes.<\/p>\n

Inspectors then asked Planned Parenthood staffers what the next step would be for the “fetal tissue” or preborn aborted children in the freezer. Abortion workers\u00a0told inspectors that on the day of “medical waste… pick up” that the large bag would be placed in a cardboard box in the “biohazard room” and sealed and labeled where a manifest would be generated. It would then be passed off to the “transporter” or the medical waste pick up company.<\/p>\n

\"Planned<\/p>\n

In addition to finding aborted babies stored in freezers, which is not in and of itself illegal, officials suspended the license of the Columbia South Carolina Planned Parenthood after officials discovered several health violations. South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control’s Bureau of Health Facilities Licensing and Bureau of Land and Waste Management detailed the gross violations in a September 11, 2015,\u00a0letter <\/a>addressed to South Carolina Planned Parenthood CEO Jenny Black, which included<\/a> the following:<\/p>\n