Planned Parenthood Website Hacked

Planned Parenthood's website went down Wednesday afternoon in what the nonprofit health services organization called "an attack by extremists."

The hack comes in the wake of the publication of several undercover videos by anti-abortion activists seemingly showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of fetal tissue and organs for medical research. Selling fetal organs for a profit is a felony, but the footage is highly edited and it is not clear that is what the officials are discussing.

The website was downed using a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, a tactic used by hackers to flood a site with traffic and keep users from accessing the site, said Dawn Laguens, Planned Parenthood's executive vice president, in a statement issued Wednesday evening.