An FBI request for unredacted documents obtained by the Senate during their 2015-2016 investigation of fetal body part trafficking within the abortion industry, is a clear signal that the Bureau may be preparing to launch its own investigation into possible criminal activity.
The Hill is reporting on the news that Senator Chuck Grassley, (R-IA) chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, received a request from the FBI for documents pertaining to the procuring and selling of body parts from aborted babies. Grassley had referred Planned Parenthood and several other abortion providers to the FBI for investigation last December after conducting a lengthy probe into the fetal tissue market.
At the time, Grassley said that his committee had uncovered evidence that abortion providers had transferred tissue and body parts from aborted fetuses to research firms and had charged more than the cost of procurement – which is against the law.
The Senate investigation was undertaken after the 2015 release of undercover videos obtained by The Center for Medical Progress which showed abortion providers haggling over fetal body parts and openly discussing how they are procured and sold.
These videos prompted an investigation by the Senate committee whose members conducted interviews and gathered documentation suggesting criminal activity may have taken place.
Planned Parenthood denies this and cites several subsequent investigations that found no evidence of wrong-doing, including a Texas probe conducted by the Harris County DA’s office which was later caught colluding with Planned Parenthood.
The nation’s largest abortion provider responded to the latest news with the usual pro-abortion talking points.
“These accusations are baseless, and a part of a widely discredited attempt to end access to reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood,” said Dana Singiser, Vice President of Government Affairs for Planned Parenthood. “Planned Parenthood has never, and would never, profit while facilitating its patients’ choice to donate fetal tissue for use in important medical research.”
Grassley is standing firm, however, and says his Committee’s report should have sparked an investigation much sooner.
“The report documents the failure of the Department of Justice, across multiple administrations, to enforce the law that bans the buying and selling of human fetal tissue,” Grassley wrote last December when he asked the FBI and Justice Department to investigate Planned Parenthood and other abortion and fetal tissue providers. “… It also documents substantial evidence suggesting that the specific entities involved in the recent controversy, and/or individuals employed by those entities, may have violated that law.”
His report concluded that the prices paid for aborted baby tissue and body parts exceeded the actual costs and, in some cases, the costs weren’t even calculated until after investigators began to look into the matter.
As The Hill reports, in one example cited by the Senate report, a firm’s own records show it paid $60 for an aborted fetus from a Planned Parenthood clinic, then transferred the various parts for $2,275 – including the brain for $325, two eyes for $650, and a part of a liver for $325. The firm also charged additional fees for shipping and disease screening, the report said.
“The companies involved in transferring fetal tissue have been free to receive substantial payment with impunity, relying on an expansive interpretation of the exception to the ban on buying and selling fetal tissue,” the report said.
Pro-life organizations are applauding the FBI request.
“We, of course, applaud any action taken to follow the evidence to where it leads and to hold Planned Parenthood accountable,” said Lila Rose, president of LiveAction.
David Daleiden, head of the Center for Medical Progress, told The Hill that the FBI probe is “long overdue” and that the “sale of aborted baby body parts is the greatest human atrocity of our times and must finally be brought to justice under the law.”
But why did it take this long?
“It is sad that it has taken over two years for the FBI to take action against this gross epidemic of criminal behavior among America’s abortion industry — but it is good that, at last, an investigation is going to begin,” writes Cassy Fiano of Live Action.
“Justice is owed to the preborn babies who have been killed and had their bodies exploited by Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, and justice is owed to the women who were unaware that their children’s bodies were being sold for profit after they were killed. It cannot, and should not, wait any longer.”
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