Planned Parenthood video subject of Congressional inquiries
WASHINGTON – The searing political conflict over abortion flared anew Wednesday as three Republican-led congressional committees said they will investigate whether Planned Parenthood is selling organs from aborted fetuses.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, criticized the group and said President Barack Obama should condemn and end the practice. Other GOP lawmakers and 2016 presidential hopefuls joined in, including some who said Congress should end federal aid to the organization.
The GOP offensive came a day after an anti-abortion group circulated a video it made secretly showing a Planned Parenthood official discussing the disposal of body parts from aborted fetuses.
“When an organization monetizes an unborn child – and with the cavalier attitude portrayed in this horrific video – we must all act,” Boehner said in a brief written statement. He said Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell should “denounce, and stop, these gruesome practices.”
Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions and other reproductive health services, said it legally helps women who want to make not-for-profit donations of their fetus’ organs for scientific research. It said it makes no money by donating the organs to science, and said the video was heavily edited.
“These outrageous claims are flat-out untrue, but that doesn’t matter to politicians with a longstanding political agenda to ban abortion and defund Planned Parenthood,” Planned Parenthood spokesman Eric Ferrero said Wednesday. He said women donating fetal tissue for research “should be honored, not attacked and demeaned.”
Minutes after Boehner released his statement, the House Energy and Commerce Committee said it would investigate the issue and “get to the bottom of this appalling situation.” The House Judiciary Committee also plans a review, and the Senate Judiciary Committee said it had written to Planned Parenthood and to the Justice Department, asking the agency about its enforcement of some anti-abortion laws.
Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said the video “is abhorrent and rips at the heart,” and promised to “get to the bottom of this appalling situation.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, a top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, called the upcoming investigations “another witch hunt” by Republicans.
Commercial sale of human fetal tissue is illegal under federal law. Noncommercial tissue donation is allowed if the woman undergoing an abortion gives her consent.