Health chief needs to go, pro-life organization says

The Center for Medical Progress caught Planned Parenthood executives on video speaking of their practice of monetizing the body parts of the babies they aborted.

The nation was horrified by the revelations in 2015. Congress investigated and settlements were reached that put at least two participants in the body-parts trade out of business.

The abortion industry responded with lawsuits, and, due to a Planned Parenthood-linked federal judge, several cases are pending.

But now Live Action, a pro-life group that has done its own undercover video investigations, is calling for removal of the head of the National Institutes of Health.

Francis Collins should be replaced, they say, because of his support for the sale of the body parts of unborn babies for research.

Collins recently defended the practice as "scientifically, highly justified." He also said fetal tissue work "will continue to be the mainstay" of research projects.

"There is strong evidence that scientific benefits can come from fetal tissue research, which can be done with an ethical framework," he claimed.

Not so, said the president of Live Action, Lila Rose.

"Experimenting on the bodies of babies killed by abortion is never ethical, but only adds to the victimization of these innocent children. It creates a market for their deaths, as we've seen from video footage of Planned Parenthood employees callously joking as they sorted through dishes of arms, legs, eyes, and brains; haggling over prices for individual parts so they could buy new Lamborghinis with the proceeds; and discussing putting mothers at greater risk by illegally altering abortion procedures to get more intact body parts to sell."

She said abortion is a "barbaric and horrific human rights violation."

"It is unconscionable that taxpayers are forced to fund the gruesome baby body parts trade and that our tax dollars have been used to create demand for aborted children's parts," Rose said.

"Director Collins must be replaced with someone who recognizes that children who are killed by abortion should be mourned, not experimented on."

According to Liberty Counsel, the NIH estimates it spent $103 million from taxpayers in buying and experimenting on human fetal tissue in 2018.

Dr. Tara Sander Lee of the Charlotte Lozier Institute said human fetal tissue is never needed for research because of viable alternatives such as adult stem cells, according the Liberty Counsel.

"We do not need fetal body parts from aborted babies to achieve future scientific and medical advancements. After over 100 years of research, no therapies have been discovered or developed that require aborted fetal tissue. History has shown us that we never needed fetal tissue," Lee said.

The campaign begun by the discovery of the horrific sales practices in the abortion business now has expanded to an effort to convince Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to end tax funding for research using baby body parts.

Already, one small contract to buy harvested organs has been canceled.

"It is encouraging that the Trump administration continues to unveil the unethical and immoral profit that is being made from aborted baby parts," said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. "Every human life is precious and should not be sacrificed as an experiment. These despicable acts by organizations and companies underscore why our client Sandra 'Susan' Merritt should be applauded for revealing the seedy underbelly of Planned Parenthood."

Liberty Counsel is defending Sandra Merritt against 15 felony charges, brought by the attorney general in California, to punish her for producing the videos that exposed Planned Parenthood.

Here are two of the videos released by CMP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LPlHjP1DVw