The Select Panel on Infant Lives has published its final report summarizing its investigation of Planned Parenthood’s role in the trafficking of body parts of aborted babies. The Panel was established by Congress after David Daleiden released a series of videos showing Planned Parenthood directors engaged in negotiations to sell the cadavers of the babies aborted in its facilities.
The Panel cited violations of numerous federal laws, including statutes protecting human research subjects and patient privacy, particularly provisions that protect people who are vulnerable to coercion. For example, consent forms asserting that the fetal tissue of a woman’s aborted baby will be used to “treat and find a cure for such diseases as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and AIDS” unduly influence women to abort their babies.
These claims are misleading, if not downright fraudulent. The Panel reports that “not a single responding institution provided substantive evidence for the value of fetal tissue research.” “In over 100 years of unrestricted clinical research, human fetal tissue has failed to provide a single medical treatment.”
The Panel referred 14 separate entities for more than 20 criminal violations, recommending that Planned Parenthood and its abortion allies be investigated and prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, and various state law enforcement agencies. Among these are several referrals based on evidence that fetal tissue broker StemExpress illegally gained access to the private health records of women seeking abortions at Planned Parenthood facilities.
StemExpress sued Life Legal client David Daleiden for exposing its role in the trafficking of aborted babies. StemExpress sought money damages, as well as an injunction to keep Daleiden from publishing any additional evidence of StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer’s criminal activity. This is known as a “prior restraint on speech” and violates one of the most sacred First Amendment principle protecting the right to free speech.
The Panel obtained invoices showing hundreds of thousands of dollars in purchases of intact babies and body parts from Planned Parenthood. StemExpress then sold its human contraband to universities and research facilities for a substantial profit. In just four years, StemExpress grew from $150k in revenue to over $4.5 million.
The Panel issued subpoenas to employees and patients of several late term abortionists, including Douglas Karpen of Harris County Texas who routinely kills babies just weeks or days before they would otherwise be born. Karpen’s employees stated that he conducted himself with “depraved indifference to infant life,” and that he committed “acts of murder.” During a typical week, Karpen performs 40 late-term abortions. Of those, about ten percent are born showing signs of life. In every case, Karpen killed the babies by cutting their spinal cords, twisting their heads, or slicing their necks.
In the course of its investigation, the Panel found that Planned Parenthood routinely overbilled Medicaid at a cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers, in part by fraudulently billing abortions as other services. Under the Hyde Amendment, federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortion procedures. According to the report, “Planned Parenthood affiliates have overbilled $132.4 million in Medicaid and other healthcare funding programs.”
Several large California affiliates are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood in 2016 seeking millions of dollars in damages from David Daleiden.
The Panel’s report will be used as evidence of the need to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funds. House Speaker Paul Ryan has promised that he will include a provision to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider in his bill to repeal the healthcare law (Obamacare).
Life Legal Executive Director Alexandra Snyder was in Washington DC last week to meet with members of the House congressional leadership team. They reiterated their commitment to draft a bill to defund Planned Parenthood that can be passed by the U.S. Senate. President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in in 10 days, has pledged to sign the bill.