Two members of the European Parliament have put the defunding of Planned Parenthood on the agenda in response to the sting investigation that caught executives of the abortion provider in the United States discussing the sale of the body parts of aborted babies.
"Europe is horrified by the scandalous harvesting and selling of human body parts allegedly for profit by Planned Parenthood in the USA," said Miroslav Mikolasik of Slovakia, chairman of a parliamentary working group.
Planned Parenthood, he pointed out, is active in the European Union and receives extensive funding from the European Commission.
WND has reported extensively on the investigation of the body-parts trade conducted by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress.
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Mikolasik has invited American pro-life leader Lila Rose, president of the non-profit Live Action, to "provide first-hand testimony about this practice in the USA."
Parliament member Alojz Peterle of Slovenia said it is "unacceptable that an organization which appears to be breaching human rights, ethical standards and laws is operating in the EU and is also being funded by EU taxpayers."
"I consider their activities as a serious offense over the first article of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which talks about the inviolability of human dignity," he said.
Live Action is known for its own undercover videos of Planned Parenthood staff members abetting the sex trafficking of minors, promoting sex- and race-selective abortions and returning sexually abused minors to their abusers.
On Thursday, Rose keynoted a meeting of the parliament on the Planned Parenthood body-parts scandal.
Several members proposed an inquiry into the U.S. scandal and noted that the international arm of Planned Parenthood, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, gets money from European taxpayers.
Rose spoke to the organization's Working Group on Bioethics and Human Dignity.
"Members of the European Parliament are concerned that Planned Parenthood's illegal activities don't stop at the U.S. border," said Rose in a prepared statement. "I'm grateful to see that members are taking the proactive steps to learn about the abuses we've witnessed in the United States and to question what the money they provide Planned Parenthood is actually funding."
She noted the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is currently under investigation in the United States "for the barbaric practice of dismembering and harvesting the body parts of children it aborts, illegally selling those parts for profit, harvesting organs from babies born with hearts still beating, and putting mothers at risk by illegally altering the abortion procedure to obtain more intact organs."
Earlier this week, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards informed the National Institutes of Health that, after denying it was doing anything wrong, Planned Parenthood decided not to accept payments any more for harvesting organs of aborted babies.
But the procurement of body parts will continue.
"The participation by a handful of our affiliates in supporting women who choose to make fetal tissue donation has always been about nothing other than honoring the desire of those women and contributing to life-saving research and cures," Richards wrote.
"In order to debunk the disingenuous argument that our opponents have been using – and to reveal the true political purpose of these attacks – our federation has decided, going forward, that any Planned Parenthood health center that is involved in donating tissue after an abortion for medical research will follow the model already in place at one of our two affiliates currently facilitating donations for fetal tissue research."
She said that particular affiliate "accepts no reimbursement for its reasonable expenses – even though reimbursement is fully permitted under the 1993 law. ... Going forward, all of our health centers will follow the same policy, even if it means they will not recover reimbursements permitted by the 1993 law," she said.
The videos have been released over the past few months by the Center for Medical Progress. The group set up a fake company and sent investigators with concealed video cameras to Planned Parenthood clinics.
Planned Parenthood officials were caught haggling over the price of baby body parts. A number of them talked about being paid per item, how they could adjust abortion procedures to salvage requested body parts and how they could create a revenue stream from such transactions.
One executive made plain her interest in huge payments, stating, "I want a Lamborghini," a $200,000-plus exotic car.
Two different expert investigations have concluded that the videos are substantially accurate.
Planned Parenthood is the abortion industry's largest operator in the United States, doing about 327,000 abortions annually and getting paid more than $500 million in taxpayer funds.
Federal law allows reimbursement for costs of tissue donation but no profit. Federal law also prohibits the adjustment of any abortion procedure to salvage body parts.
The videos show Planned Parenthood executives indicating that both of those standards were being violated.
Congress has proposed legislation to withdraw taxpayer funds, and four congressional committees are now investigating Planned Parenthood.
Several states already have moved to cut Planned Parenthood funding.
WND reported congressional panel has subpoenaed and received all of the uncut videos that were obtained by the CMP.
The subpoena was issued by the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rule.
WND also reported when a forensic analysis confirmed the videos "are authentic and show no evidence of manipulation." The analysis was delivered to the Alliance Defending Freedom, which hired Coalfire Systems Inc. to analyze the "raw video and audio data files" that have been creating havoc for America's largest abortion provider.
Planned Parenthood has contended the videos, 10 released so far, were manipulated.
However, Coalfire's conclusion was consistent with a previous analysis commissioned by Planned Parenthood.
Fusion GPS, hired by Planned Parenthood, concluded that while "cuts, skips, missing tape, and changes in camera angle" were "suspicious," its analysis commissioned by Planned Parenthood "did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation."
One video shows a Planned Parenthood executive worried about being "low-balled" in the sale of the body parts of aborted babies. In another, a Planned Parenthood executive explains the availability of "intact" fetal bodies. Another revealed an abortion executive talking about altering procedures to obtain the human organs that researchers would want.
One video features a former abortion worker explaining how she was told to remove the brain from an aborted child whose heart was still beating.
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:
In the second video, Planned Parenthood's Mary Gatter said, "I want a Lamborghini."
See her comments:
In the fifth, Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood's Houston clinic discusses "intact fetal cadavers":
The seventh video has the testimony of a Planned Parenthood worker who tapped an aborted infant's heart and saw it start beating.
And No. 8 has Cate Dyer, CEO of Stem Express, admitting Planned Parenthood sells fully intact aborted babies.
WND has reported on the videos as they have been released. They are posted online.
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