Unearthed audio has Senator telling abortion owner not to perjure herself regarding accusations of fetal harvesting

A leaked tape recorded by the Center for Medical Progress shows a Michigan abortion owner admitting that she once talked to “researchers” during her quest to find ways to dispose of the bodies of the babies her clinic aborted. Renee Chelian who operates the abortion clinic chain, Northland Family Planning Center, which performs abortions up to 24 weeks has previously denied under oath that her facility is involved in the harvesting of aborted babies.

(Image link here)

In a secretly recorded speech given by Chelian before a Michigan National Abortion Federation member session Chelian jokes about how difficult it has been to expose of fetal tissue, laughingly suggesting to her audience that the disposal problem belongs to the women who pay her to abort their babies. (note, Chelian’s conversation begins at the end of one video and the beginning of another video.)

(Video 1 begin ) “We were really tempted to give the fetus back,” Chelian is heard saying in the audio.

(Video 2 begin at very beginning) “We can do that. Um, we thought, we’ll give it to everybody in a gift bag – they can take it home, figure out what to do with it. It’s their pregnancy and why is this our problem?”

Below is video of what the abortion owner told the NAF audience next:

At approximately 3:49 into the video above you can hear Chelian say, “I talked to the researchers and they said we want your tissue, we don’t want all of your tissue.”

She later states (9:27 ) , “What ever you’re doing now there’s not a research company that will take all of our fetal tissue because they don’t want it all. And…you know this is an issue we are going to have to grapple with.”

Additional comments in the video are transcribed here:

(Begin 2:05)

“So in coalition, we started working with hospitals who didn’t want to be seen with us. We met them in like Denny’s restaurant, there’s not even many of those left…We talked about you know what are you guys going to do. They were terrified of a public relations nightmare. That hospital actually had big freezers with breasts and kneecaps and gallbladders and abortions or miscarriages. Um and they put all their jars together, at some point. and they go to Stericycle unless the hospital happens to have their incinerator which is rarer and rarer. The guy from Stericycle was quick to point that out to me.

“Um…Nobody wants to talk about dead bodies. Um, and nobody but me. I’m just saying. There was a point when Stericycle fired us that I had 5 months worth of fetal tissue in my freezers. We were renting freezers to put them in. It was all I thought about, was fetal tissue. Like, I was so consumed with fetal tissue, I was ready to drive to upper Michigan and have a bonfire. And I was just trying to figure out, you know, how I wouldn’t get stopped. Or, you know, how far into the woods would I have to go to have this fire that nobody was going to see me…I mean it was the worst, I dreamed about how to dispose of fetal tissue. And the garbage disposal was an option…”

“There was a point where I actually hired someone from another clinic to come in and take 20 bottles and put it my garbage disposal. And I had to fess up to my staff that I did the thing I’ve been criticizing what all these other clinics are doing but I didn’t know what else to do. I was so desperate, that the antis found a way to close us.”

However, in recorded testimony provided by pro-life activist Lynn Mills, Chelian once called a Michigan Senator a liar after he insinuated her clinic might be involved in fetal tissue harvesting. Chelian appeared before the State Senate Committee in 2012 to oppose any abortion restrictions in the state. Michigan Senator Rick Jones then grilled the clinic owner over whether there was a lab that would harvest fetal parts at her abortion clinic. He said he was contacted by a witness who told him the abortion clinic had attempted to convince her to give an “anatomical donation.”

“Have you ever suggested to patients or anybody in your office, your clinics suggest to patients that they could have a late-term abortion and then make an anatomical donation of part of the aborted baby?” Senator Jones asked Chelian.

Chelian then pauses before she finally responds by saying, “No.”

Senator Jones then reminds Chelian she could perjure herself if she is not being truthful, stating, “I’d ask you not to perjure yourself. There are witnesses.”

Chelian continues to deny the charges brought up by Senator Jones several more times.

At the time of her testimony, MLive.com reported the exchange this way:

Jones and Renee Chelian of Northland Family Planning Centers in southeast Michigan got into a testy exchange. Jones asked if the clinic had ever suggested to patients that they could have a “late-term abortion” and then make an “anatomical donation.” Jones asked if the clinic allowed a lab to “harvest parts.” Chelian said “no” in both cases and called Jones a “liar.”

Let’s recap – Chilean says this in CMP’s undercover sting:

“I talked to the researchers and they said we want your tissue, we don’t want all of your tissue.”

And denied being involved in fetal research before the Senate panel in 2012.

“This would not be the first time an abortion worker has denied that they took part in fetal harvesting in the past,” says Mills.

However, while Chelian has admitted that her clinics have problems disposing of all the “fetal tissue” i.e. remains of human preborn children, and that she has talked to researchers, she has denied that her abortion chain has had any involvement in fetal tissue harvesting. While we have no way to know whether all or some of Chilean’s admissions are true or not, we do know that these undercover videos recorded by the Center for Medical Progress are exposing the attitude and in some cases horrific actions of the abortion industry.

Renee Chelian with supporters outside Michigan Capital

Listen to the Audio from the 2012 exchange between Chelian and Senator Jones and read a portion of their exchange transcribed below:

Chelian: Well, first of all, I find you rather insulting.
Jones: Isn’t it true that you have a private lab to show up at your clinic to harvest parts?
Chelian: No! And sir, you are a liar!
Jones: No, I’m simply relating what witnesses have brought in.
Chelian: Well, you know, that is part of the problem with this bill is once again.
You have never taken the time to find out the facts because you are 100% wrong. I hope you are embarrassed and you’ll take that back to whoever gave you that information.
Jones: Well, I understand that you do routine gynecological tests for people 39 years old and younger but if they’re older than that, you won’t provide them; yet you will provide abortions.
Chelian: We provide routine gynecological care for the healthy younger population because we’re not specialists in menopause. And we don’t pretend to be specialists in something we’re not. Many doctors offices are specialists in menopausal care and generally after 39, it’s pre-menopausal and then going into postmenopausal care. That doesn’t have anything to do with the good gynecology care that we offer.
Jones: So you deny having LabCore and other groups come to your clinics to collect parts?
Chelian: We use LabCore when we want and any other lab when we suspect an ectopic pregnancy or a molar pregnancy. I’m not sure since you’re not a medical person that you know what that is and I would be happy to tell you if you would like to know. But those are medical problems that pathologists need to look at abortion tissue for. That is not what you suggested. That is in the continuum of good medical care.
Jones: Well, isn’t it true that they come when the babies are 14 to 24 weeks
Chelian: It is true that they come when we call them.
Jones: On Thursdays and Saturdays.
Chelian: You know, actually we do abortions more days than that. So you don’t have that right, either. They come…
Jones: Just the late-term ones.
Chelian: No, and actually we don’t really suspect an ectopic pregnancy in a late-term abortion. You really suspect an ectopic pregnancy when someone is early. Usually under 8 or 9 weeks and the patient, you, the patient, the amount of tissue that you obtain may be inconsistent with what you believe is the correct number of weeks and then we do a tissue float. Then we send it out to a lab and depending on what we find from the tissue float and beta which also goes out to a lab, you know it’s a blood test to measure hcg level. We can advise the patient to seek immediate care in a hospital. Or with her private doctor for the possible ectopic pregnancy or the discovery of a molar pregnancy, which is a pre-cancerous condition in which she needs to be followed up
with a doctor for about a year. Those are reasons that we use pathology labs – not as you …
Jones: Thank you for your testimony, Renee. I spoke yesterday with a witness who…
Chelian: Well, did you speak ? Did you call me…
Jones: spoke with your clinic and your clinic suggested that …
Chelian: Did you call me? Did you call..
Jones: a late term abortion they should make a …
Chelian: Sir, I suggest
Jones: an anatomical donation.
Chelian: You’re lying. Because…
Jones: No, I’m not. I spoke with …
Chelian: Well then your witness is lying. And if you would have picked up the phone and called me or the person who runs any one of my offices, and actually asked a question, honestly, instead of relying on some right to life flunky, with an agenda, who would lie to you because actually you should feel quite foolish right now. That is a lie. You were given false information and you’re accusing me of something, of doing something, based on your inability to get accurate information. I’m insulted
Jones: Renee, thank you for your testimony.

Chelian is a former head of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers. She was once called to task after her NCAP group’s executive director admitted that he intentionally misled the media about the numbers of partial birth abortions performed on healthy women. Ron Fitzsimmons, a spokesperson for NCAPS later said that he “lied through my teeth” when he stated that the late term abortion procedure was rarely performed only on women whose lives were in danger or in the case of the health of the preborn child. “It made me physically ill,” Fitzsimmons said.

‘‘The abortion-rights folks know it, the anti-abortion folks know it, and so, probably, does everyone else,” he said in an article in the Medical News, an American Medical Association publication.