Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey — in response to undercover video of a Planned Parenthood doctor purportedly discussing the sale of fetal organs — has ordered state health officials to use "emergency rules" to ban the illegal sale of tissue from aborted fetuses,
USA Today reports.
"The footage released by The Center for Medical Progress regarding the alleged sale and trafficking of aborted fetal tissue and body parts by Planned Parenthood is horrifying and has no place in a civilized society," the governor said in a statement. "I am calling on the Department of Health Services to conduct a thorough review of the law and immediately promulgate emergency rules designed to prohibit the illegal sale of any tissue from an unborn child.
"This is consistent with federal law and will deter action that we all agree is abhorrent."
Story continues below video.
Ducey has ordered the Arizona Department of Health Services to work with the state Attorney General's Office.
The governor's actions come on the heels of the video, made by the Irvine, California-based Center for Medical Progress, which has gone viral. On it, two actors posing as representatives of a human biologics company are shown having lunch with Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Nucatola,
according to CNN, "is seen talking matter-of-factly about the organization's participation in tissue-donation programs."
In addition to discussing the price to purchase the human tissue (making a profit on human tissue is a felony), Nucatola is captured talking about doctors performing abortions using ultrasound in order to determine "the best location to grab the fetus with forceps," according to CNN.
"We've been very good at getting heart, lung, liver because we know that, I'm not going to crush that part," the doctor says.
New York University bioethicist Art Caplan told the network that altering how a medical procedure is performed in order to optimize the extraction of tissue is "a big no-no."
"In abortion, the primary goal is to give the safest abortion possible," Caplan told CNN. "Your sole concern has to be the mother and her health."
CNN also reported allegations by the Center for Medical Progress that Nucatola described "using ultrasound to manipulate the fetus so it comes out feet first, or breech presentation, instead of head first, or vertex presentation — something that 'is the hallmark of the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure,'" according to Caplan.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.