Documents Show Procuring Organs From Aborted Babies Cost $765 Each

Peer-reviewed research confirms that Cercle, which has previously harvested organs under the name Advanced Bioscience Research (ABR), has been a source of human fetal tissue for researchers. ABR and its partners at Planned Parenthood were the subject of Congressional criminal referrals in 2016 prompted by CMP’s undercover video reporting in 2015 by David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt who exposed Planned Parenthood’s aborted baby body parts trade.

Liberty Counsel defended Merritt against felony charges and in a civil suit for uncovering the truth about the abortion giant’s horrific trade in baby body parts.

CMP, a group of independent journalists reporting on medical ethics, published the documents after obtaining them through a California Public Records request. According to the documents, which included purchase orders and email correspondence between Cercle and UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine’s Division of Hematology-Oncology, there was a total of $16,065 paid to Cercle in 2023 for 21 aborted baby body parts—14 livers and seven thymus glands—for a flat fee of $765 each.

Federal law makes it a felony to “knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce.”

The email exchanges show Cercle guiding UCLA in revising its purchase orders to remove sales tax references to make the transaction untaxable “procurement services” instead of “items” being sold. The correspondence shows that Cercle was concerned about avoiding the appearance of something illegal.

“The overriding issue is the use of terminology that we must not use due to their improper implication that we are selling taxable items, which we are not,” stated a Cercle account manager in an email September 2023. “Due to the nature of our business, we must be very careful and clear that we invoice fees for our procurement services (untaxable).”

The records also indicate that ABR has sold FDA-regulated fetal organs for up to $7,000 each, and that Cercle had to cancel a March 2025 order for a fetal brain because it could not be obtained.

The records have surfaced alongside financial incentive allegations featured in CMP’s investigative documentary, What Happened to Clementine?, which examines the procurement practices of Cercle and its partners. Daleiden, founder and president of CMP, questioned whether these procurement-related payments are permissible reimbursements under federal law since these transactions create financial incentives for late-term abortion procedures that yield intact organs from live babies.

“These new records from Cercle’s abortion side business harvesting baby body parts show the extreme financial incentives that exist for ‘research’ abortions to deliver whole, preemie-size babies alive—as appears to have been done to baby Clementine and her mother, and potentially thousands of others,” said Daleiden.

These latest disclosures build on years of undercover journalism by Daleiden and Merritt, who first brought national attention to the black-market industry of aborted baby body parts with videos of Planned Parenthood executives negotiating with representatives of fetal tissue harvesters. However, California state prosecutors—beginning with then-Attorney General Kamala Harris and continuing with Xavier Becerra, now a California gubernatorial candidate—pursued nine years of litigation against Daleiden and Merritt alleging illegal secret recordings.

In January 2025, the state of California agreed to end its prosecution of the two journalists. Liberty Counsel negotiated on behalf of Merritt where the state Attorney General’s office agreed to end the case against her with no prison time, no fines, and only a “No Contest” pleading to one felony charge, which was reduced to a misdemeanor after a one-year probationary period and then expunged from her record entirely. Daleiden received the same settlement agreement, which was essentially a complete victory for both journalists in a politically motivated criminal case.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The fetal organ harvesting business murders innocent babies for profit. These public records obtained by the Center for Medical Progress show that the work must continue to expose these heinous acts by these abortionists, harvesters, researchers, universities, and companies. The barbaric slaughter of babies for profit must stop.”