Planned Parenthood Thursday filed a federal lawsuit alleging anti-abortion activists engaged in a "complex criminal enterprise" to produce undercover videos and defraud the reproductive health organization over the past year.
The lawsuit alleges a group of individuals and the anti-abortion organization, the Center for Medical Progress, engaged in wire fraud, mail fraud, invasion of privacy, illegal secret recording and trespassing.
Planned Parenthood alleges several individuals used fake government IDs and formed a fake tissue procurement company called Biomax. The lawsuit alleges the group illegally taped conversations with physicians and other providers and spliced videos together to make it look like Planned Parenthood profits from the sale of fetal tissue.
The organization notes a small number of its affiliates offer patients an option to donate fetal tissue for medical research, but the process is under high legal, medical and ethical standards and requires full patient consent.
Investigations in 11 states have not found Planned Parenthood guilty of profiting from fetal tissue donation and eight states declined to investigate, citing lack of evidence, according to Planned Parenthood.
In a statement, the CMP called the lawsuit "frivolous."
"This last-ditch move of desperation is going to expose all of the sordid dealings of the California Planned Parenthood affiliates to the light of the legal system and the public will see them for the corrupt abortion and baby body parts profiteers that they really are," a CMP statement reads.
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