Planned Parenthood has asked the federal government to convene a panel of independent experts to study issues surrounding research that uses fetal tissue. The request is coming at a time when the organization is under fire over donations of fetal tissue obtained from abortions that is used in medical research.
Senate Republicans are seeking to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal funds after videos were distributed that were secretly made by an anti-abortion group and edited to make it appear the organization profited from selling fetal tissue. Republicans have 54 Senate seats but will need 60 votes to keep the bill alive. Planned Parenthood gets more than $500 million of its $1.3 billion annual budget from federal and state programs.
Selling fetal tissue is illegal. However, fees can be charged to cover the cost of preparing and shipping the tissue. Planned Parenthood says it abides by laws that allow for reimbursement of costs and only does it in fewer than five states. All tissue that is used for research is provided only with the mother's consent, the organization said.
"The inflammatory and misleading videos have pushed this issue into the national spotlight," said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards in a letter to the National Institutes of Health. "And a thoughtful, careful review by leading medical and ethical experts could do a lot to help the public and policymakers think through this issue and reach informed conclusions."
Planned Parenthood says that it has only a "limited" role in fetal tissue research, a field it said is dominated by leading medical institutions and the NIH.
Scientists have done research using fetal tissue for decades, using it to look for treatment for conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and Down syndrome. The National Institutes of Health spent $76 million on human fetal tissue research last year.
In the late 1980s, an NIH panel studying fetal tissue transplants the research was acceptable, and added that such experiments were promising and did not influence a woman's decision to have an abortions. It recommended guidelines aimed at preventing commercial sales of fetal tissue and separating the decisions about having an abortion and donating the organs.