It’s hard to consider this good news when the core issue remains the same. On Tuesday, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards informed National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins that her organization is amending, albeit diminutively, its controversial fetal harvesting program. Unfortunately, the practice itself remains intact. We wish the same could be said of the victims. In a letter to Collins, Richards attacked the Center for Medical Progress and other “extremists” for allegedly smearing Planned Parenthood in a backdoor effort “to ban abortion in the U.S. and block women from getting any health care from Planned Parenthood.” She explained, “In order to completely debunk the disingenuous argument that our opponents have been using — and to reveal the true political purpose of these attacks — our Federation has decided, going forward, that any Planned Parenthood health center that is involved in donating tissue after an abortion for medical research will follow the model already in place at one of our two affiliates currently facilitating donations for fetal tissue research. That affiliate accepts no reimbursement for its reasonable expenses — even though reimbursement is fully permitted under the 1993 law.”

In other words, Planned Parenthood didn’t really change anything, except to make fetal harvesting “free” for prospective buyers. The said videos show Planned Parenthood representatives openly discussing profits — the main point of contention — and even ways to spend that money, like on a Lamborghini. Sounds to us like Richards’ decision is a concession of wrongdoing. Moreover, the organization may have just opened a can of worms. As Twitchy observes, “There’s an unasked question in all this reporting: if Planned Parenthood no longer receives reimbursement for its baby parts business, who pays? There are still costs involved. They think this solves the problem, but what it does is raise additional questions that the overhead associated with the fetal tissue donations will be paid for with taxpayer money.” In the letter, Richards contends, “Our decision is first and foremost about preserving the ability of our patients to donate tissue, and to expose our opponents’ false charges about this limited but important work.” The only thing being exposed is just how rotten this organization is.