If last summer's undercover videos revealing Planned Parenthood executives nationwide apparently illegally bartering over the prices for unborn baby parts wasn't a sufficient warning that jail terms could be just around the corner, they probably should have been.
The controversy has moved into Jefferson City, Missouri, now, where state lawmakers have subpoenaed information from the chief of the St. Louis Planned Parenthood, as well as the owner of a lab that provides reports to the abortion business, and are being snubbed.
That means, according to a report in St. Louis Today, they could be facing jail time.
"Mary Kogut, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, and James Miller, owner of Brentwood-based Pathology Services, Inc., were issued subpoenas in November for documents and witnesses to appear before a Missouri Senate committee investigating the abortion and health care provider," the report said this week.
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"Neither appeared before the Senate committee or sent the documents requested, even though Miller testified a month prior in front of a House committee investigating the same matter."
Officials with Operation Rescue, which has been active in fighting abortion across the nation, said the brewing battle may finally answer the question about whether Planned Parenthood is above the law.
"In ignoring the legislative subpoena, Planned Parenthood is sending the message that they are above the law. We hope the Missouri Senate will let Planned Parenthood know that abortion businesses are not exempted from legal compliance," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "This is all about Planned Parenthood covering up for their own wrongdoing and has nothing to do with patient privacy."
Newman said that it is in the public's interest to know why so many women are being hospitalized from botched abortions at the St. Louis Planned Parenthood.
The Missouri Senate Interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life is led by Sen. Kurt Schaefer and already has recommended contempt charges against Kogut and Miller.
"I guess there's something they don't want us to find out," Schaefer said when the two parties refused to respond to the state senate.
The legislative committee is investigating Planned Parenthood and already had uncovered an illegal relationship between Missouri University and Planned Parenthood’s Columbia office that resulted the Planned Parenthood being forced to halt abortions in Columbia, Operation Rescue reported.
At issue in St. Louis are the 50 medical emergencies there, and investigators are demanding the records of the emergency ambulance trips to and from the facility.
Operation Rescue said it already, in a separate fight, is suing the St. Louis Fire Department for "improperly" withholding public 9-1-1 records "to protect Planned Parenthood."
"Public records laws cannot just be ignored because an abortion business is involved," said Newman. "This is just another example of how Planned Parenthood has convinced some people in authority that laws somehow do not apply when they are involved."
WND has reported extensively on the videos, which were made by the Center for Medical Progress. It set itself up as a procurer of body parts to make contacts inside the abortion industry.
The negative portrayal of abortion-company executives negotiating their fees for body parts – one famously said, "I want a Lamborghini" – has made a big impression across America.
Just weeks ago, 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.
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.
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