CHICAGO - Concerns about certain medical procedures at Chicago's publicly-funded Stroger Hospital are being raised after a mention of the hospital was found in the published transcript of a conversation that is drawing national attention this week. In the conversation a year ago in California, a high-level Planned Parenthood official discussed harvesting and selling human body parts.
While talking about possible contacts throughout the nation that may be sources for available human tissue following abortions, Planned Parenthood of America Federation's Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, suggested the "buyers" check with the family planning director at Cook County's Stroger Hospital.
From Page 30 of the Center for Medical Progress' transcript:
P[lanned] P[arenthood]: What about Cook County? Have you connected with Cook County?
Buyer: Where is that? Chicago?
PP: Chicago. The largest family planning provider in the Mid-West. Cook County hospital, Stroger Hospital-
Buyer: And it’s a hospital, not an out patient clinic?
PP: Not an out patient, it’s a hospital.
Buyer: And what is it called?
PP: Cook county, Ashlesha Patel is the family planning program director. I’ll put her on my list.
The "buyers" then ask about how late into the pregnancies Cook County's Stroger Hospital does abortions, and Dr. Nucatola says into the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy. She also says they "dig," which, as the transcript says she describes in other parts of the conversation, means that the abortionist uses the drug Digoxin to stop unborn babies' hearts from beating before the abortion takes place at 20 weeks.
Buyer: And, what’s their limit?
PP: 24. 20, 24.
Buyer: Do they do dig?
PP: Yea, they dig.
Buyer: How late?
PP: 20, most people do 20.
Nucatola then talks about making human tissue purchasing contacts outside of the Planned Parenthood system, and encourages Chicago as the "best opportunity" outside of the University of California-San Francisco to get "larger cases" - those preborn babies that have neared the range of five to six month development:
PP: This is the type of setting where they check to see if the dilation is enough, if it’s not they put another set, and have them come back the next day because they’re doing them five days in a row. There you have probably the best opportunity outside of UCSF to get those larger cases. But Cook County is fabulous, it’s in the center of Chicago, two airports, plenty of opportunities there.
While there is yet any confirmation as to whether Stroger Hospital is a source for baby body parts, the Planned Parenthood medical director was correct that the family planning department director at Stroger Hospital is Ashlesha Patel, MD. Stroger Hospital's website currently lists the name and position:
The segment allegedly mentioning Cook County Hospital and Dr. Patel comes from a transcript posted this week on the Internet by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). Two persons affiliated with CMP video-recorded their July 25 2014 conversation with Dr. Nucatola about possible persons that may be interested in working with CMP.
The controversial 8-minute video that hit the internet this week between Planned Parenthood of America Federation's senior medical director and two actors pretending to be interested in buying baby parts is being criticized by Planned Parenthood for being "heavily edited."
"A well funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and services has promoted a heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research," Planned Parenthood said in a statement Tuesday.
"Similar false accusations have been put forth by opponents of abortion services for decades. These groups have been widely discredited and their claims fall apart on closer examination, just as they do in this case.”
However, the full transcript of the conversation as posted by the Center for Medical Progress is raising more questions, especially with the specific mention of Stroger Hospital, which is funded by taxpayer dollars.
Presidential candidates are calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, and Congress members are calling for an investigation into the truthfulness of the claims Planned Parenthood's medical director made in the recorded conversation.
Abortions have been authorized at Cook County Hospital since 1992, when then-Cook County Board President Richard Phelan issued an executive order to resume the procedure after his predecessor George Dunne had stopped the procedure for 12 years.
At the time, Phelan defended his order, saying it would give poor women of Cook County the same right to an elective abortion that middle-class and wealthy women have had for years.
"We are righting a wrong," Phelan said.
A Chicago-based legal group told Illinois Review they will be filing requests for more information as to whether Stroger Hospital is involved in the human tissue market, as the Planned Parenthood director suggested.
