The Center for Medical Progress has obtained new records showing UCLA purchasing liver and thymus specimens in a series of questionable transactions from the same fetal tissue supplier once exposed on a famous undercover video.
Newly released public records show that a research project at UCLA paid $765 for every liver and thymus specimen acquired through Cercle Allocation Services, a firm which was previously known as Advanced Bioscience Resources.
The documents, acquired through a California Public Records Act on behalf of David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Progress, consist of purchase orders and email correspondence between Cercle and the Division of Hematology-Oncology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.
The records show that UCLA’s purchase orders for 21 specimens (14 livers and 7 thymus glands) in 2023 amounted to $16,065. Each specimen carried a charge of $765. CMP identified the specimens as aborted fetal tissue, even though the purchase orders themselves list the organs, sample numbers, and dates without specifically designating them as fetal. Cercle has been identified in peer-reviewed research as a supplier of human fetal tissue.
The records have once again raised questions about the difference between legally permitted reimbursement for the acquisition of fetal tissue and payments prohibited under federal law.
It is against federal law to knowingly obtain, accept, or transfer human fetal tissue in return for “valuable consideration” if the transfer has an effect on interstate commerce; offenders can face fines as well as imprisonment up to 10 years.
There is, however, an important exception in the statute: reasonable payments made in connection with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of fetal tissue do not count as valuable consideration.
The UCLA files do not contain Cercle’s original invoices or its cost calculations, which means it is not clear whether the $765 charges were reasonable procurement expenses allowed under federal law. Daleiden has said that the uniform pricing per specimen should be subject to further investigation.
Email exchanges between Cercle and UCLA also indicate that the company requested alterations to the purchase orders that referred to sales taxes. Cercle stated that the payments were for procurement services and not for the purchase of tissue.
“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 in 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 correspondence indicated that references to sales taxes might imply that Cercle was selling the specimens themselves; Cercle therefore requested that UCLA arrange its purchase orders as payments for procurement services associated with specific specimen numbers and dates.
The records show that the relationship continued into 2025; a Cercle ticket from February 2025 concerning UCLA was labeled “Liver and brain”. On March 3 Cercle told UCLA that it had been “unable to fulfil your request today” and canceled the ticket. However, the records do not prove that the tissue in question was fetal or that brain tissue was finally transferred.
CMP stated that Cercle had previously been known as Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), an organization that has provided fetal tissue for biomedical research. After CMP released its undercover videos in 2015, both ABR and Planned Parenthood affiliates came under congressional scrutiny.
The videos, recorded by Daleiden and fellow investigator Sandra Merritt, featured abortion industry officials discussing the acquisition of fetal tissue and the payments involved. Congressional committees subsequently investigated fetal tissue practices and forwarded criminal referrals concerning Planned Parenthood affiliates and tissue procurement companies to federal authorities.
The newly released records are also linked to CMP’s 2026 documentary, “What Happened to Clementine?”, which examines what CMP claims took place after an abortion at the Cherry Hill Women’s Center in New Jersey and the subsequent transfer of the fetal remains to Cercle.
CMP says that, on the basis of its examination of the medical records and the interviews it conducted, the circumstances raise questions about whether the child referred to as Clementine could have been born alive before the tissue was collected. However, those claims have not been independently verified in the recently released UCLA records.
Daleiden stated that the new records obtained from Cercle’s demonstrate what he says are strong financial incentives involved in “research” abortions and the harvesting of fetal organs. He connected those concerns to the case of baby Clementine and her mother and argued that similar cases may have occurred elsewhere.
The investigative work carried out by Daleiden and Merritt led to legal disputes that continued for more than a decade.
California prosecutors brought criminal charges against the two over recordings made during their undercover investigation. The investigation began when Kamala Harris was California’s attorney general, and prosecutors later brought charges under her successor, Xavier Becerra.
Liberty Counsel represented Merritt in the case. In January 2025, California reached agreements that allowed the criminal cases to conclude without imprisonment or fines. In April 2026, the last charge against Daleiden was dropped and his record was cleared, ending his years-long criminal case in California.
Still, the debate over fetal tissue continues. In 2021, the University of Pittsburgh came under fire after Judicial Watch (on behalf of CMP) obtained hundreds of documents about the university’s efforts to build and stock a fetal tissue bank supported by the National Institutes of Health. Among other things, the documents showed that Pitt researchers sought to harvest organs from at least five fetuses a week between the ages of 6 and 42 weeks’ gestation, many of which were likely obtained during elective abortions.
Federal policy concerning fetal tissue research has also changed across presidential administrations. In September 2025, the NIH announced that it would not renew grants involving research using human fetal tissue acquired from elective abortions.
Fetal tissue acquisition procedures are once again under scrutiny because of the new UCLA records. Although the documents do not show that the $765 payments violated federal law, Daleiden and CMP say the fixed fee charged per specimen should be investigated to determine whether it was a legitimate procurement cost or a prohibited payment.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said the documents show the need for further scrutiny of the fetal tissue industry.“The fetal organ harvesting business murders innocent babies for profit,” he stated. “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.”
The fight over the use of fetal tissue is ultimately about whether we still believe that every human life is sacred and worthy of protection because each person is created in the image of God.
Genesis 1:27 states that humans are created in God’s image. Psalm 139:13-16 speaks of God’s close involvement in forming life in the womb. The preborn child is not simply biological matter whose worth is determined by his or her usefulness to researchers. Each child is a human being made in the image of the Creator and is therefore worthy of protection.
Medical research has the potential to bring about real hope and healing, and Christians should support scientific progress that honors God and protects life. However, none of these aims can justify deliberately destroying innocent human life or creating a marketplace for the body parts of children who have been aborted.
UCLA’s records force Americans to confront difficult questions about a system in which the organs of children who have been aborted are assigned monetary values for procurement and used for research. The records do not establish that UCLA’s $765 payments violated federal law, but legality alone does not settle the moral question.
We must call for transparency, accountability, and ethical alternatives while firmly defending both mothers and their unborn children. Human dignity does not depend on age, development, usefulness, or location. It begins with the gift of life.
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