Commentary

The full House of Representatives approved a resolution yesterday, creating a special Select Committee to investigate numerous issues surrounding the harvesting and trafficking in organs and tissue from babies killed by abortion.

The committee will have special powers to subpoena witnesses and records under oath – similar to the panel investigating the Obama Administration’s failures in Benghazi. The measure was approved on a vote of 242-184. Idaho’s Congressmen Simpson and Labrador voted to empanel the special investigation.

The 13 member panel has been given the charge of looking into 6 broad issues highlighted by the horrific videos released over this summer and fall by the Center for Medical Progress:

1. The medical and business practices used by entities involved in fetal tissue procurement;
2. Any other issues related to fetal tissue procurement;
3. Federal funding issues related to abortion providers;
4. Practices of the abortion industry which may encourage late term abortions and partial birth abortion procedures in order to obtain tissue from born-alive infants;
5. Whether abortion providers are violating the Born Alive Infants Protection Act;
6. Issue recommendations regarding changes in law or regulation.

While the wheels of justice grind ever slowly, this is a major step forward in the battle to hold Planned Parenthood accountable. The mandate and authority of this panel is pretty broad, and should allow members to dig deeply into the web of evil which is Planned Parenthood.

One of the more critical issues facing the panel is how and why American taxpayers have become coerced partners of the Abortion Mafia.

Planned Parenthood has long contended, for instance, that it follows federal law with respect to keeping its massive public funding separate from funds it uses to pay for abortion. This is required by the Hyde Amendment.

However, just today, a former Planned Parenthood director, Sue Thayer, has issued testimony before a Congressional Committee arguing that Planned Parenthood regularly engages in Medicaid fraud by bill Medicaid for some of the services related to performing abortions.

Thayer served as a center business manager for Planned Parenthood in Iowa for 17 years. She told the committee:

“Because I had access to the billing system for the whole affiliate, I also know that Planned Parenthood would bill Medicaid for abortion-related services – ultrasounds, office visits, blood tests, medications, and other services that were part of an abortion.”

We had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Thayer this past winter when she came to Boise to testify in support of our legislation clamping down on Planned Parenthood’s use of RU-486 to perform chemical abortions. She is a soft-spoken woman demonstrating tremendous courage in going public about how Planned Parenthood actually operates.

For any member of Congress who isn’t owned by the Abortion Industry, her testimony about the flagrant abuse of taxpayer dollars should be enough to finally end our partnership with this criminal conspiracy.

The present move to defund Planned Parenthood is long overdue. While the energy for the effort stems largely from the horrific organ trafficking scandal – the truth is, there is a laundry list of abuses by Planned Parenthood, any one of which should be sufficient grounds to end their special taxpayer subsidies.