Planned Parenthood has been battling negative publicity brought by an undercover video investigation showing its executives negotiating the prices of body parts of aborted children.
One of the executives famously said, "I want a Lamborghini," when discussing what she would be paid, referring to the exotic car.
So, Planned Parenthood must have breathed a sigh of relief when Congress approved a spending bill last week that ignored a push in Congress to suspend federal funding for the organization while investigations continue.
But that might have been premature.
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On Tuesday, the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a new investigation into the fetal tissue trade.
The Washington Examiner reported the investigation was announced by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a candidate for the GOP nomination for president.
The investigation primarily will target human fetal tissue research work that is done under the direction of the National Institutes of Health.
The investigation came in response to a letter sent by Paul and nearly three dozen other senators months ago.
It was the investigation revealing the callous comments by abortion providers that prompted the outrage in Congress and beyond.
Two members of the European Parliament also have put the defunding of Planned Parenthood on their agenda.
"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.
WND has reported extensively on the investigation of the body-parts trade conducted by the Center for Medical Progress.
Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards, has called the videos "disingenuous" even though two reviews confirmed they are accurate.
The Center for Medical Progress 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.
Planned Parenthood is the abortion industry's largest operator in the United States, conducting about 327,000 abortions annually and receiving 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.
WND reported a congressional panel has subpoenaed and received all of the uncut videos that were obtained by CMP.
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.
Explained Sen. Paul, "Planned Parenthood selling body parts of the unborn demonstrates that the organization deserves not one penny more of our taxpayer dollars, and I am confident this investigation will give further proof of that."
According to the London Daily Mail, Inspector General Daniel Levinson has confirmed plans to interview people with the HHS as well as the National Institutes of Health.
CNN reported Levinson told Paul, "Our goal is to obtain information related to fetal tissue research grants, NIH's monitoring procedures over third-party certifications and those related to the department's internal fetal tissue research, and any known violations of federal requirements."
Court action continues, and Planned Parenthood now is embroiled in another controversy, regarding the disposal of fetal remains in Ohio.
There, Planned Parenthood officials had been ordering the remains steam-cooked and then dumped in landfills.
Investigators also have revealed that Democrats appointed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to a special committee investigating Planned Parenthood for its sale of aborted-baby body parts have received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from Planned Parenthood.
"All totaled, the abortion industry has paid more than $305,000 for the six Democrats appointed to the Select Investigative Panel tasked with investigating Planned Parenthood," noted Matthew Clark in a commentary at the political Redstate.com.
"These are far more than abortion rights supporters; these members are handpicked by the abortion industry. They are practically on Planned Parenthood's payroll," he wrote.
Named by Pelosi to be the minority party's representation on the committee were Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado, Suzan DelBene of Washington, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Jerrold Nadler of New York, Jackie Speier of California and Bonnie Coleman of New Jersey.
The Media Research Center, through its Newsbusters outlet, said, "It's called following the money trail – and the media should do more of it."
The report said Planned Parenthood has given the six Democrats in the range of $80,000 directly.
It cited the Center for Responsive Politics figures for Planned Parenthood giving Schakowsky $11,865, Nadler $5,535, DeGette $36,735, Speier $4,000, DelBene $19,232 and Coleman $2,500.
The report said that earlier this year, Schakowsky and Nadler sent a letter to the U.S. attorney general calling for an investigation into the Center for Medical Progress, which produced the undercover videos, not Planned Parenthood.
Among the committee members, DeGette admitted in 2011 that she was a member of the Colorado Planned Parenthood board "for several years" in the 1990s.
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