Last June 30, after secretly videotaping meetings with Planned Parenthood officials, Daleiden emailed Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s research director and other employees with a proposed agreement to purchase fetal tissue, according to Planned Parenthood attorney Josh Schaffer. That agreement included an offer to pay $750 for each sample of fetal liver tissue and $1,600 for a liver-thymus combination from the same fetus. ...
But Schaffer said Planned Parenthood staff did not respond to Daleiden’s email because they realized he was “either trying to sting them or, if it was honest proposal, that he was breaking the law.”
The Texas Penal Code indicates that the mere offer to buy or sell human organs, including fetal tissue, is a violation.
While the sale of fetal tissue is illegal, abortion clinics may donate fetal tissue with a patient’s consent for use in medical research. Federal law allows clinics to be reimbursed for costs “associated with the transportation, implantation, processing preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue” for research purposes — an amount that typically ranges from $25 to $50.
Offering to pay health providers an amount higher than those administrative costs is also a violation of the law.
The charge against Daleiden is a class A misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to a year in jail.
