Congressional Panel: Defund Criminal Planned Parenthood Now!

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WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - After a year-long investigation, a congressional panel has determined Planned Parenthood and other organizations violated state and federal law by illegally profiting off aborted babies' body parts.

The final 418-page report by the U.S. House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives was released on January 4. It outlines a long list of federal and state laws broken by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and tissue procurement companies in California, Ohio and Arkansas.

The panel was formed after the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a series of undercover videos in 2015 showing doctors, executives and other staff members of Advanced Bioscience Resources, DaVinci Biologics and StemExpress conspiring with Planned Parenthood executives to illegally sell aborted baby parts.

Investigators David Daleiden, Susan Merritt and others released hundreds of hours of video showing Planned Parenthood executives making shocking admissions. Abortion activists claim the videos were "heavily edited" and "altered" to make PPFA look bad — a claim CMP debunked by releasing the full, unedited footage online.

Despite the fact that PP has never denied the shocking revelations made by PP officials in the videos, Daleiden was brought up on charges in California and Texas, even having his computers confiscated by the attorney general of California. In June, he was cleared of all charges in a Texas court.

The congressional report shows that PP and the tissue procurement companies unlawfully adjusted their accounting to show they made no profit from the sale of baby parts. Also, CMP alleges that companies would tell PP specifically which parts customers wanted to buy, and the abortionist would modify the procedure to keep the requested specimens intact — a violation of the law. PP also "routinely" violates patient privacy to make the transfer of baby parts easier.

Among several recommendations, the panel advocated 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)."

The panel further noted the abortion giant and biotech companies' obstinacy. "Virtually every entity and individual from whom the panel sought documents did not fully comply," it stated, "regardless of whether the documents were required to be produced pursuant to a subpoena, or were requested via a letter."

Both PP and the biomedical companies, however, have gone uninvestigated and unpunished for years.

In December, the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded its own investigation, releasing a 547-page document outlining the violations of PP and other organizations.

Senator Charles Grassley, the committee's chairman, addressed a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. He criticized them specifically, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in general, for "the failure of the DOJ, across multiple administrations, to enforce the law that bans the buying or selling of human fetal tissue with even a single prosecution."

A report published by Alliance Defending Freedom and the Charlotte Lozier Institute, titled "Profit No Matter What," shows updated statistics on publicly available audits of Planned Parenthood affiliates and other abortion providers. It documents "rampant fraud," waste and abuse on the part of abortion providers in the United States since 2013.

In September, Donald Trump told pro-life advocates he would defund Planned Parenthood "as long as they continue to perform abortions," and promised to make the Hyde Amendment "permanent law." Since 2010, the federal government has given more than half a billion dollars every year to fund abortion.

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