Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood
Democrat administrators in Colorado who claim they can’t investigate Planned Parenthood’s alleged profiting from the sale of the body parts of aborted babies because they lack evidence have been told they can find what they need on YouTube.
Dozens of members of the Colorado Legislature asked the state Department of Public Health and Environment to investigate allegations based on the evidence in videos released by the Center for Medical Progress.
CMP’s sting caught Planned Parenthood executives negotiating the sale of body parts from aborted babies to middlemen who resell the parts to researchers.
While federal law allows the transfer of such body parts for research, it bans profiting. One Planned Parenthood executive famously told the undercover investigators, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated prices.
Based on the videos released by CMP, dozens of Colorado lawmakers, led by Rep. Dan Nordberg, asked state officials in investigate “all Planned Parenthood Federation of America affiliates operating in Colorado for violations of all applicable state and federal laws and to take necessary legal action to end such practices.”
No can do, the state responded.
A letter from State Registrar Ronald Hyman responding on behalf of the state agency said the request was based “solely on a reference to a brief and edited video.”
“At this time, CDPHE has received insufficient information to commence an investigation,” Hyman wrote. “Should full, unedited, and raw footage, or other material evidence, be provided to CDPHE, the department will consider such information and determine whether further action is warranted.”
Look on YouTube, responded attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom who have joined with the lawmakers in the request.
As an alternative, ADF offered to provide copies of unedited video.
“The 33 members of the Colorado General Assembly listed below have authorized us to respond on their behalf to Mr. Hyman’[s] letter by offering to provide you with a copy of the transcript and the ‘full, unedited, and raw footage’ of the CMP video taken at the Denver Planned Parenthood facility on July 28, 2015,” the letter said. Please have your authorized representative contact me … to make arrangements to pick up this copy of the transcript and the video.”
Or, said the ADF letter signed by Michael J. Norton, the state investigators “could view the full unedited video [on YouTube].”
Norton pointed out Colorado law “specifically prohibits the purchase of aborted baby tissue from induced terminations of pregnancies.”
“In order to properly fulfill their oversight responsibilities, the members of the Colorado General Assembly listed below who have approved this letter have requested, and are entitled to, detailed explanations from State of Colorado executive branch agencies, including copies of any opinions of counsel, on these important issues. Flat denials will, in other words, be unacceptable.”
The letter also acts as a request for government documents, seeking copies of Planned Parenthood-related documents from the relevant time period.
It asks, “We also respectfully request that you advise us just what evidence or other allegations are required by this state agency to initiate an investigation as has been requested. In this regard, we respectfully request that you identify the standards or criteria that are required to initiate an investigation, i.e., probable cause, reasonable suspicion, etc., and if there are any such standards for criteria, how, if at all, the facts set forth in the CMP July 28, 2015 video of abhorrent trafficking in brains, livers, hearts, lungs and other body parts of aborted babies fall short of these standards or criteria.”
The case is just one of about a dozen that have been sought in states following the release of the CMP videos.
“No organization that traffics in the hearts, lungs, heads and livers of unborn babies is entitled to taxpayer dollars. The only thing it’s entitled to is an investigation,” said Norton, an ADF senior counsel and former U.S. attorney.
“The response that the Department of Public Health and Environment offered to these legislators was absurd, but we are happy to assist them and to provide the departments with what they think they need, even though the footage they want has been publicly available on the Internet for quite some time. Colorado officials should not further delay an investigation of this scandal-plagued enterprise, especially in light of the legitimate request of these representatives of concerned Coloradans,” he said.
“I am quite sure you will conclude, after you review the transcript and ‘full, unedited, and raw footage’ of the CMP video, that further action is indeed warranted,” the letter states. “This further action should include a serious investigation of Planned Parenthood’s abhorrent practices of trafficking in body parts of unborn babies and the immediate suspension of all payments of ‘tate taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood.”
WND reported last week that Congress issued a subpoena for the videos, and CMP was making arrangements to provide them.
The organization’s only complication was a California judge’s order to suppress some video portions, and their attorneys were working on a way to follow both orders.
Word of the plan to get the videos to Congress for an investigation of Planned Parenthood came with the release of a letter from Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society, which has been working with CMP.
WND has reported on the videos as they have been released. They are posted online.
See the most recent video:
In a letter to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the chairman of the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Breen noted receipt of the subpoena from the House.
“CMP intends to comply with the subpoena, to ensure that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has the information it needs to further its investigation into the trafficking by Planned Parenthood and others in the body parts of abortion babies, along with other related crimes.”
He noted the temporary restraining order issued by a California judge regarding video footage reportedly linked to the National Abortion Federation.
“We have respectfully contended in federal court, both before the Northern District of California and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, that this order is an illegal ‘prior restraint’ that violates CMP’s right to free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” he wrote.
Breen continued, “At this time, we are awaiting a decision by the Ninth Circuit on our Petition for Writ of Mandamus, which seeks to vindicate the free speech rights of CMP to release these videos.”
But he told Congress CMP “thus intends to deliver to the committee, as soon as practicable, requested video footage that is not prohibited from disclosure to ‘third parties.’”
“And for materials that are prohibited … attorneys are reviewing the relevant court orders to ensure that CMP may comply both with the court orders and the House of Representatives’ subpoenas as fully as possible.”
It was Judge William Orrick of San Francisco who blocked the release of some of the videos in response to a complaint from the National Abortion Federation, whose leaders apparently are on record in the videos.
In a similar, separate ruling, another court previously determined that the First Amendment allowed CMP to release the disputed videos.
The most recent video showed the abortionists were aware of how bad it would look if word got out about their baby-parts business.
“This is important,” said Vanessa Cullins, the vice president of external medical affairs for Planned Parenthood. “This could destroy your organization and us, if we don’t time those conversations correctly.”
And Deborah VanDerhei, the national director of Planned Parenthood ‘s Consortium of Abortion Providers, said, “Think New York Times headline when you’re creating your policy.”
She explained it’s an issue “you might imagine that we’re not that comfortable talking about on emails.”
“And so we want to have the conversation in person,” VanDerhei said.
Congress also has begun investigating and a move has been launched there to withhold federal tax funding from Planned Parenthood, the biggest player in the nation’s abortion industry.
Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, meanwhile, has promised to continue federal taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/baby-body-parts-trade-evidence-just-look-on-youtube/
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