House Republicans demanding a federal investigation into Planned Parenthood continued to press the Department of Justice Monday, demanding to know how it typically handles alleged violations of federal abortion and tissue sale laws.
The Committee on the Judiciary is investigating allegations Planned Parenthood is selling aborted baby parts for profit — sometimes altering the abortion procedure for the sake of the harvest — and is calling on the DoJ to take action. (RELATED: See How The ‘Research’ Sausage Is Made In New Planned Parenthood Video)
In July, the committee demanded Attorney General Loretta Lynch launch a separate DoJ investigation. This week, Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Rep. Trent Franks, Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee chairman, demanded the DoJ detail how it has handled similar allegations in the past.
“We write regarding our interest in understanding the history of the enforcement of these laws at the Department of Justice,” they wrote in the letter to Lynch, referring to allegations Planned Parenthood is illegally selling baby parts, altering abortion procedures to preserve the parts, and performing banned partial-birth abortions.
“Please provide the Committee with a copy of the complaint in every case filed by the Department in which a violation of … any related federal laws, is alleged,” they wrote. (RELATED: Planned Parenthood Allegations Turn On Squishy McConnell-Backed Law)
Goodlatte and Franks pointed specifically to undercover footage recently released by the Center for Medical Progress in which a top Planned Parenthood doctor explains how she strategically aborts babies to keep certain parts intact.
“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 says in the video.
“New evidence suggests that this disturbing practice of altering the procedure is more than an isolated instance,” Goodlatte and Franks wrote, referring to a follow-up video in which a different Planned Parenthood executive also describes “kind of violating the protocol” by changing the abortion procedure in order to save the desired parts.
“If our usual technique is suction at 10 to 12 weeks and we switch to using a [manual vacuum aspirator] or something with less suction … then we’re kind of violating the protocol that says to the patient, ‘We’re not doing anything different in our care of you,'” the doctor says.
“Now to me, that’s kind of a specious little argument, and I wouldn’t object to asking Ian … to use a [manual vacuum aspirator] at that gestational age in order to increase the odds that he’s going to get an intact specimen.”
Planned Parenthood promises patients who consent to donate their aborted baby to the clinic that the abortion procedure will not change as a result. And it’s illegal to sell any human organs or any part of an aborted baby for profit, although it is legal to receive compensation for the exchange based on costs, such as transportation and shipping.
The Department of Justice has promised to review “all the information” surrounding the videos.
Planned Parenthood and its supporters dismiss the videos as “highly edited,” and call CMP a right-wing extremist group dedicated to limiting women’s access to healthcare by taking down the organization. (RELATED: Nearly 1 In 3 Abortions Happen At Planned Parenthood ‘Health’ Clinics)
CMP released uncut versions of the videos and full transcripts when it released the edited versions. (RELATED: New York Times Finally Corrects Erroneous Planned Parenthood Stories)
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