The art of killing and dismemberment deserves better than some wine-soaked rambling about “crushing” above and below the chest cavity to preserve the heart, liver, and other vital organs. That’s an entirely too … accurate description of what’s involved here.

Three points. One: This is officially a Category Five PR clusterfark if PP’s high priestess feels obliged to apologize for anything. I’m curious, frankly, what she thinks was the problem with Nucatola’s “tone.” If a fetus is a blob of tissue, who cares if it gets “crushed”? Two: She’s taking a risk by assuring her audience that no way, no how did Planned Parenthood profit from any organ sales. If it turns out, either from congressional investigators or from forthcoming undercover videos by pro-lifers, that that’s not true then she’s lied on video. That’ll push this to Category Six, if such a thing exists. Three: Like Mollie Hemingway, I’m interested to hear more about the “reimbursement” process in all this. Planned Parenthood’s PR firm issued talking points recently to assist the many, many sympathetic reporters in the media who are eager to help them spin this story, and one point stressed was that Nucatola’s reference in the video to a $30-100 fee was misunderstood. It wasn’t PP that was receiving that money, the firm insisted, it was “the range of reimbursement that patients can receive after stating they wish to donate any tissue after a procedure.” So … the woman having the abortion gets a cut of the deal too? Hemingway:

Because the explicit sale of human tissue or body parts is prohibited by federal law, those professionals who traffic in such sales work very hard to arrange them in such a way as to portray the program as donor-based. So abortion clinics “donate” the body parts. Those seeking abortions must consent to “donating” the body parts of their children. In return, clinics are paid fees related to the “donation” of the body parts. These can be site fees for rental of space where harvesting technicians obtain the items needed from their menus of requested body parts. Purchasers and sellers of the body parts claim, then, that they are just transferring money as reimbursement for associated costs…

The transcript and videos are clear that Nucatola is discussing how much money to sell aborted baby parts for. But in this backgrounder, Planned Parenthood is claiming the discussion was actually about how abortion clinics pay mothers $30 to $100 per abortion if they donate the body of their child. That’s certainly an interesting claim. Journalists should ask them to explain more about this payment program, as well as what the total payment they receive from purchasing companies for the bodies of aborted children. If they claim they’re paying mothers $30 to $100 for the bodies of their aborted babies, how much more than that are they claiming to sell the bodies for since, as they state, there are many “additional expenses related [to] tissue donation“?

How is it a “donation” in the first place if the patients are getting paid? I hope Boehner and whatever committee chairman will be in charge of this have some good forensic accountants.

Needless to say, because this is a liberal discussing abortion and therefore a hard dose of Orwellianism is inevitable, you’ll find Richards dismissing the undercover video as “heavily edited” even though the full, unedited version has been available for viewing for days.