The gravy train that taxpayers for years have been handing Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion industry player, could be in danger now that a congressional panel investigating the baby body-parts trade is recommending a cutoff of public funds to the organization.
That amounts to about half-a-billion dollars each year now.
“The panel … recommends that Congress take actions to ensure good stewardship of taxpayer funds, including: defunding Planned Parenthood and ensuring that grants no longer available to Planned Parenthood are awarded to healthcare providers that provide comprehensive preventive healthcare for their patients and that do not perform abortions (that are not covered by Medicaid under the Hyde Amendment),” explains the final report of the Select Investigative Panel of the Energy & Commerce Committee.
The panel, headed by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., reviewed information that had been uncovered by a series of undercover videos in 2015 that showed Planned Parenthood executives and others discussing the trade in the body parts of unborn babies.
Sold by vendors to researchers, the videos revealed the abortionists discussing their profits. One famously said, “I want a Lamborghini” to argue for higher payments. They also discussed how they could adjust abortion procedures to obtain the organs researchers wanted.
But profiting from such transactions and adjusting procedures for those reasons are violations of federal law.
The panel earlier referred a number of investigation subjects to prosecutors for possible criminal charges.
The nearly 500-page report cites the work of David Daleiden, an investigative journalist, and his crew at the Center for Medical Progress.
He went undercover to get information about the baby body-parts trade.
“The investigation culiminated with the release of 11 videos documenting the practices of local abortion clinics and groups affiliated with the fetal tissue procurement industry. Daleiden and his colleagues filmed hundreds of hours of meetings and conversations. … Multiple clips show abortion providers and executives admitting that their fetal tissue procurement agreements are profitable for clinics and help keep their bottom line healthy,” the report said.
“Multiple clips show abortion providers and executives admitting that they sometimes changed the abortion procedure in order to obtain a more intact specimen, and some use the illegal partical birth abortion procedure,” it said.
Stunningly, the congressional investigators found: “Planned Parenthood Federation of America also revealed that they intentionally had not set a policy about ‘remuneration’ for fetal tissue because ‘the headlines would be a disaster.’ While the organization’s executive told affiliates to ‘think, ‘New York Times headline” if this went badly, at the end of the day, they thought ‘[selling fetal tissue] is a good idea.’”
The panel used the videos not as evidence, but as a complaint, the report said. It ended up referring for investigation and possible charges StemExpress, the University of New Mexico, an abortion clinic in Arkansas, DV Biologics, Advanced Bioscience Resoruces, an abortion clinic in Florida, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast and a Texas abortionist.
Apart from the abortion businesses involved, the panel recommended informed consent for all donations of fetal tissue, clarifying the law to protect women, more oversight, full-fledged prosecutors of violators, protocols to protect infants born alive during abortions and more.
The report also said the law should provide “greater flexibility to states to enact laws prohibiting abortion providers from receiving Medicaid reimbursement and giving states discretion to choose subrecipients of Title X funding consistent with state policy.”
And the law should prohibit “federal funding of research involving tissue derived from inducted abortions in conjunction with the establishment of a program that would fund sources of ethically obtained fetal tissue (i.e., fetal tissue from spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) or stillbirths) for research.”
The report also noted that the subjects of the investigation were unhelpful, refusing to cooperate with congressional subpoenas.
Probably with reason.
“The panel’s investigation has revealed that whole baby cadavers of a viable age are transferred from some abortion clinics to researchers. The induction abortion procedure has increased the likelihood that infants will be born alive during abortions, even while the gestational age of viability has lowered due to medical advancements.
“As this report recommends, Congress should make Planned Parenthood ineligible to receive federal tax dollars and instead redirect those funds to support the thousands of better low-cost healthcare options for women and families,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden regarding the report.
“The report recognizes the many problems of a scandal-plagued organization with a long track record of abusive and potentially fraudulent billing practices, caught in authenticated undercover videos trafficking aborted babies’ body parts, and that has repeatedly failed to report the sexual abuse of girls. Congress should end taxpayer subsidies of an abortion business that has enjoyed nearly a billion dollars in profits over the last decade while taking more than $4 billion from American taxpayers. It’s time to end this immoral partnership that has been forced upon the American people.”
According to LifeNews, Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., a panel member, said, “This select panel conducted a thorough and fact-based investigation to provide the American people answers and to hold those who facilitated these horrendous practices accountable.”
Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., said: “Over the last year, the Select Panel’s relentless fact-finding investigation has laid bare the grisly reality of an abortion industry that is driven by profit, unconcerned by matters of basic ethics and, too often, noncompliant with the few laws we have to protect the safety of women and their unborn children. I have never shied away from my own pro-life views, but the findings of this panel should incense all people of conscience.”
The House panel’s referral of some individuals and organizations for investigation was joined by a referral from a Senate panel.
A letter from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey, posted by Operation Rescue, provides the details.
“In the summer of 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee began an inquiry into paid fetal tissue transfers involving Planned Parenthood. The committee has since obtained and reviewed more than 20,000 pages of information from the organizations involved, and engaged in detail discussions with the attorneys for those organizations,” Grassley writes.
“The report documents the failure of the Department of Justice, across multiple administrations, to enforce the law that bans the buying or selling of human fetal tissue … with even a single prosecution,” the letter said, referring to a 547-page report by the Senate committee.
“It also documents substantial evidence suggesting that the specific entities involved in the recent controversy, and/or individuals employed by those entities, may have violated that law. Moreover, that evidence is contained in those entities’ own records, which were voluntarily provided to the committee and are detailed in the report.
“I am referring the paid fetal tissue practices of the following organizations … to the FBI and the Department of Justice for investigation and potential prosecution,” the letter said.
While the letter was sent to the Obama administration, which has been ardently pro-abortion, taking the reins on Jan. 20 will be administrators appointed by President-elect Donald Trump, who has expressed harsh criticism of abortion.
“Although the Obama administration is unlikely to follow through on the recommendation, the referral will provide the Trump administration with a foundation to levy criminal charges against Planned Parenthood,” explained the Washington Times.
“I don’t take lightly make a criminal referral,” Grassley said. “But, the seeming disregard for the law by these entities has been fueled by decades of utter failure by the Justice Department to enforce it. And, unless there is a renewed commitment by everyone involved against criminalizing the trade in aborted fetal body parts for profit, then the outcome is likely to continue.”
When the House panel voted on a contempt citation for StemExpress, Democrats on the committee walked out.
“Let me have the record reflect the Democrats are refusing to participate in this illegitimate and unsanctioned effort to seek criminal contempt (charges),” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.
“We refuse to sanction or endorse this exercise by continuing to participate,” she said then.
The stunt, however, had no impact on the outcome, and the committee, after Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said, “The lady’s actions are noted,” continued with its vote, approving a report recommending StemExpress, an organ procurement company, and CEO Cate Dyer, be held in contempt of Congress.
They have failed to comply with “lawfully issued subpoenas,” the committee determined.
See Schakowsky’s statement:
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Among the fallout of the videos have been multiple decisions by states to defund Planned Parenthood. Major donors also are backing out, with Macy’s ending it support for the abortionists.
WND reported a popular radio talk-show host skewered Planned Parenthood for the talking points it gave to supporters so they could promote the abortion industry giant to their family at Thanksgiving.
“I get how carving a turkey would remind you of babies because of those videos, but that isn’t how most of us think,” wrote Dana Loesch.
I get how carving a turkey would remind you of babies because of those videos, but that isn’t how most of us think. https://t.co/qGq1AlMzTy
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) November 23, 2016
Loesch hosts her award-winning, nationally syndicated daily radio show, “The Dana Show: The Conservative Alternative” from Dallas, Texas, where she also hosts “Dana” on The Blaze television network.
She appears regularly on Fox News, ABC, CNN and others.
The exchange had started with Planned Parenthood’s tweet about “How to talk to your family about Planned Parenthood This #Thanksgiving.”
It included a link to a list of talking points promoting the abortion behemoth.
The guide instructed: “You know one of the most important questions people will ask – besides ‘Where’s the wine?’ and ‘Are two dozen pies really enough?’ – is: ‘What will happen to Planned Parenthood?”
That assumption by writer Kaili Gray was followed by the assurance that Planned Parenthood has been around for 100 years.
“It’s not going anywhere. … Planned Parenthood’s doors stay open, no matter what.”
She claimed “the majority of Americans support Planned Parenthood and don’t want to see it defunded.”
What supporters should do, she said, was “donate … donate … volunteer … volunteer” and “join.”
Twitchy reported Loesch was far from the only one outraged by Planned Parenthood’s plan to try to garner support for its abortion industry – despite “those videos” that came out last year revealing its baby body parts trade – while the mashed potatoes are being passed.
Added Vern Demerest, “Because nothing says ‘Thanksgiving’ like the thought of killing babies & selling off the parts for big $$!!.”
The videos were released during 2015 by the Center for Medical Progress, which sent undercover investigators to Planned Parenthood and other location.
One of the videos showed an official admitting Planned Parenthood sells fully intact aborted babies.
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Crushing babies
In the first undercover video released by CMP, Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on crushing babies.
“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact,” she said.
See the first video:
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In the second video, Planned Parenthood’s Mary Gatter discussed how her compensation for organs could rise when she said, “I want a Lamborghini.”
See her comments:
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The fifth video released shows Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood’s Houston clinic discussing “intact fetal cadavers”:
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The seventh video has the testimony of a Planned Parenthood worker who tapped an aborted infant’s heart and saw it start beating.
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from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/new-threat-to-planned-parenthoods-taxpayer-funded-gravy-train/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/new-threat-to-planned-parenthoods-taxpayer-funded-gravy-train/
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