LOS ANGELES — Planned Parenthood Federation of America defended its practices Thursday in a lengthy letter to congressional leaders and included a report by experts it hired who found undercover videos of officials discussing fetal tissue for research were heavily altered by anti-abortion activists.
The report supports the organization’s claims that the secretly recorded videos were distorted to misrepresent conversations employees had with anti-abortion activists posing as biomedical company employees interested in buying fetal tissue, Planned Parenthood said.
The letter and report were the most detailed defense to date by Planned Parenthood.
“It’s increasingly clear that this attack on Planned Parenthood is a fraud based on a web of lies and deception,” Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens told reporters.
Some conservatives vow to vote down must-pass legislation to fund the federal government this fall unless it strips money for the organization, raising the specter of a government shutdown over the issue.
A spokeswoman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said a letter from Planned Parenthood isn’t going to satisfy Congress.
“House committees have been investigating all of the participants involved in these horrific practices and building a strong case,” spokeswoman Emily Schillinger said.
The videos that include graphic images of tissue, organs and even a tiny arm, showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing in a businesslike way how they provide aborted fetal organs for research and what they charge for tissue.
Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, previously apologized for the “tone and statements.” But she defended the organization in her letter to Congress, saying it did nothing illegal and calling the videos a “smear” on its reputation.
Fewer than 1 percent of 700 affiliated clinics offer fetal tissue donation for research, the letter said.
At issue is a federal law that prohibits abortion providers from profiting from the sale of fetal tissue, inducing someone to have an abortion to provide the tissue, or altering the procedure in any way to harvest fetal tissue.
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