The videos were taken secretly by pro-life activists posing as buyers of fetal organs for research. In both cases, executives of Planned Parenthood appear eager to deal at the right price.

“It has to be big enough that it’s worthwhile to me,” one said in regards to a payoff. She said obtaining useable tissue was “not too big a problem.”

The other spoke about the market for intact organs such as livers and hearts, and how these could be harvested from late-term abortions.

“We’ve been getting pretty good at getting heart, lung, liver (and) because we know that, I’m not going to crush that part,” she said. “I’m going to basically crush below, I’m going to crush above, and I’m going to see if I can get it all intact.”

Various American authorities are now probing the possible existence of a black market for organs procured in abortions. Planned Parenthood admits fetal organs are sometimes provided for medical research but denies selling them for profit.  The stakes are high because Planned Parenthood in the United States, like its Canadian affiliates, is largely subsidized by government grants.

Although an American scandal, it is alarmingly relevant in Canada. The types of fetal tissues and organs most difficult to obtain and therefore most valuable are those harvested from second- and third-term abortions. In most Western nations, late-term abortion is illegal. But there are no such restrictions in Canada, where late-term abortion is purportedly rare but certainly legal.

This case provides one more reason why Parliament should finally address abortion and, as the Supreme Court concluded in its infamous 1988 Morgentaler decision, assert the state’s right to protect the unborn child. Polls consistently show that Canadians want an abortion law. They disagree on whether that law should impose an outright ban, set trimester restrictions or prohibit abuses such as abortion based on physical traits or gender. Views collide on the details but people overwhelmingly want legislation.

Planned Parenthood’s shameful conduct further underlines why Parliament must act. The business of organ farming — conceiving children to manufacture organs harvested in abortions — is the ugly dawn raised in these videos. Planned Parenthood is not accused of going that far. But its contempt for unborn children, treating them like commodities, raises the spectre of a future world in which the nightmare of organ farming is a reality.

Pope Francis has deplored modern society’s disposable culture. It doesn’t get much worse than this.