Posted on 08/18/2015 7:26:45 AM PDT by wagglebee
August 18, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told Congress late last week that Planned Parenthood has been following the law in its practice of attaining fetal tissue and body parts for sale.
HHS also insisted it does not fund fetal tissue research or elective abortion through Planned Parenthood. Rather, it gives the nation's largest abortion provider money for its "critical health services."
In a letter sent late Friday and addressed to Sens. Joni Ernst and Roy Blunt, HHS's assistant secretary for legislation contended that HHS "knows of no violations" of U.S. fetal tissue laws on the part of government researchers or the companies that supply the tissue, and said also that HHS takes the word of non-profits supplying it fetal tissue for research that they are operating in line with all aspects of the law.
"Currently, we know of no violation of these laws in connection with the research done at our agencies," stated Jim Esquea in the letter. "Furthermore … we have confirmed that HHS researchers working with fetal tissue obtained the tissue from non-profit organizations that provided assurances to us that they are in compliance with all applicable legal requirements."
Sen. Ernst's office provided a copy of the letter to LifeSiteNews. While the senator is away on military duty, a spokesperson for her provided the following response:
Senator Ernst is still reviewing the letter and there are several state and congressional investigations into Planned Parenthood's selling of baby body parts. As she has stated, Senator Ernst does not believe that taxpayers should be forced to foot the bill for roughly a half a billion dollars annually for an organization exhibiting such disrespect for human life.
In its letter, HHS also said fetal tissue research has been significant in efforts to cure disease and plays a vital part in vaccine development.
"The use of fetal tissue in medical research has been an instrumental component of our attempts to understand, treat, and cure a number of conditions and diseases that affect millions of Americans," the letter stated. "In addition, research using cell lines derived from fetal tissue has also played an essential role in the field of vaccine development."
This is disputed by Debi Vinnedge, executive director for Children of God for Life, which advocates for ethical vaccines.
"Fetal tissue research has not produced great advances in medicines," Vinnedge told LifeSiteNews. "In fact, there is not one single use of aborted fetal tissue or cells that has not been accomplished using moral sources as well."
Federal research on fetal tissue has gotten more attention in the month since the first in a series of undercover videos was released showing various high-ranking Planned Parenthood executives negotiating the sale of fetal body parts and tissue from children aborted at its facilities.
The videos raise the possibility of Planned Parenthood profiting from the sale of fetal remains, and also show the abortion giant planning specific abortion procedures to best allow for procurement of intact body parts, both in violation of federal law.
Also exposed by the videos was Planned Parenthood's willful use of partial-birth abortion to harvest fetal body parts and its stealing aborted baby body parts without the consent of the babies' mothers, both also against federal law.
Ernst and Blunt were the top two signatories in a July 22 letter from 50 U.S. senators to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell questioning Planned Parenthood's practices and whether they are in compliance with federal laws pertaining to the use of fetal tissue and partial-birth abortion.
Taxpayers have funded two federal agencies that purchase aborted children's remains over the last seven years with more than $300,000. The National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration both take part in research using fetal tissue.
Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), identified in the Planned Parenthood videos as a fetal tissue supplier, has received $257,000 from the NIH and roughly $73,000 from the FDA since 2009.
The letter told Congress that it had assurances from fetal tissue providers to the NIH and FDA that their tissue procurement was in accordance with the law.
HHS concluded with the qualification of the funding that it does provide to the nation's largest abortion chain, and listing its self-styled services.
"While HHS provides funding to Planned Parenthood federation of America through competitively-awarded grants and contracts, the funding does not support research involving fetal tissue," it said. "Instead the funds are used to provide critical health services, including annual wellness exams, cancer screenings, contraception, and to further the study of sexually transmitted diseases."
Planned Parenthood claims that abortion makes up only 3% of its services, when statistics bear out that the number of abortions it performs far outweigh its other activities. Planned Parenthood and its advocates also continually claim that the abortion behemoth needs federal funding to provide mammograms, when it does not provide them, instead referring women to other organizations that do.
The culture of death has just used the promise of medical advance as another reason to kill babies.
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Well, that does it.
If ever there’s a cause for God’s judgment to fall on this nation, the obama administration just sealed the deal.
Well, the Obama Admin said its perfectly legal so we can rest assured it is perfectly legal.
Obama goes from darkness to gross darkness.
I am beginning to DESPISE this “Country” more and more. PLEASE COME LORD JESUS!
It sounds like Obonzo has been talking to his “lawyer” toadies again. They have about the same amount of knowledge of the law that “constitution perfeser” Obonzo has of the U.S. Constitution. It’s a “Have It Your Way” thing. “Whatever.”
great picture!
If you tell O otherwise, you’re a racist bigot.
“Harvesting” their organs might be “legal”. However, murdering them to begin the “harvest” IS NOT!
Congress to Obama: It isn’t legal for you to act in place of the judicial branch.
Did he just look them in the eye and determine that they were doing everything legal? Just like Hillary? I would like to know when and where this investigation took place and who did it?
Did HHS audit PPH to ensure they didn’t use the money for other than its intent? If so, let’s see the audit trail for the last 10 years. I bet they just gave bulk grants of money to them to fund the abortion mill.
Obama is a serial liar.Why should anything he says he believed.I’ll bet that once he became President the Taxpayers were paying for those abortions and the organ harvesting.
This should be investigated,but it won’t.Knowing how gutless the Republican Majority has become.
Why Planned Parenthood Can’t Donate Tissue Harvested From Babies
JULY 29, 2015 By Katie Geary
If you haven’t watched the damning videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing fetal tissue donation (or, in plain language, exchanging aborted babies’ body parts for money), you should watch them now before you read further.
The first alarming question is whether Planned Parenthood illegally sells aborted fetuses’ organs and tissue. This is what Planned Parenthood and its defenders have repeatedly focused on, insisting that they are compliant with all laws.
But it is what precedes that “fetal tissue donation” that needs attention. Specifically, does Planned Parenthood regularly flout the federal ban on partial-birth abortion using loopholes? How do they get away with this? Do their patients—the women who apparently choose to donate the “fetal tissue”—know what’s going on in explicit terms?
Federal law prohibits partial-birth abortion, a gruesome procedure in which an unborn baby is intentionally turned to the breech position to ensure that delivery of the body happens before delivery of the head. Once the baby’s head is stuck in the birth canal, the abortionist punctures the skull, evacuates the contents, and the baby is dead.
There’s a good reason this practice is banned—it’s barbaric. Many Americans may not know that the term “partial-birth abortion” is not a medical one but a legal one. And, according to Planned Parenthood doctor Deborah Nucatola, some abortion providers don’t consider it with any seriousness. In her own words, “It’s not a medical term, it doesn’t exist in reality.” What?
Why It’s Good to Give Babies a Heart Attack
It’s clear Nucatola thinks the law is irrelevant—or, as she says, up for “interpretation.” She explains how abortion providers get around the law by injecting a fatal quantity of digoxin, a cardiotoxic drug, into the baby’s heart before dismembering or delivering it. In Nucatola’s words, using the slang for digoxin, they “dig.” (Here’s the full footage of Nucatola and the transcript.)
Abortion providers get around the law by injecting a fatal quantity of digoxin into the baby’s heart before dismembering or delivering it.
She explains: “Providers who use digoxin use it for one of two reasons. There’s a group of people who just use it so they have no risk of violating the Federal Abortion Ban. Because if you induce a demise before the procedure, nobody’s going to say you did a ‘live’—whatever the federal government calls it. Partial-birth abortion.” The second reason providers use it is “because they actually think it makes the tissue softer and it makes it safer and easier to do the procedure.” She counts herself in the second group.
So, if you “dig,” you’re guaranteed a dead baby and a successful abortion without having to worry about the law. Moreover, you’ll find that a baby that has already died from a heart attack is apparently “softer” and easier to pull apart with metal instruments.
I wonder how candid Nucatola is with her patients about this process.
You Can’t Be Humane If You’re Extracting Baby Parts
Maybe digoxin seems humane to some—at least when compared to the primitive method of tearing a live baby apart in the womb. But unfortunately, that’s not the case when the abortions lead to Planned Parenthood’s “fetal tissue donation.”
These babies are being strategically maneuvered, crushed, and dismembered under ultrasound guidance—while still alive.
In the second video, we find out explicitly from Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter that abortions performed with feticides aren’t viable for fetal-tissue donation. If digoxin is used, it renders the fetal stem cells unusable. (See the footage and the transcript.) Knowing this, Nucatola’s graphic explanation of how to “crush” unborn babies to maximize organ retrieval requires a clarifier. These babies are being strategically maneuvered, crushed, and dismembered under ultrasound guidance—while still alive.
This poses an ethical question. Do the women consenting to fetal-tissue donation understand what’s happening during the procedure? Do they know that their babies are alive at the start of the butchering? A 2001 study showed that 91 percent of women in the study “preferred their fetuses were dead before the abortions.” How “informed” is their informed consent?
It also poses a legal question. Is Planned Parenthood breaking the law—whether in its procedures for “donating” fetal tissue or by altering abortion methods—in order to get better specimens? If so, stripping it of federal funding would be a half-measure.
If Planned Parenthood is not breaking the law, then we need to change the law. None of us, neither pro-life nor pro-choice, should support the types of practices Planned Parenthood abortion doctors casually discuss over lunch.
But from what I read, it is a federal felony to sell them.
Since PP has been selling them, and that is not a controversial fact, the government should not be giving one penny to PP.
The government should not support any organization who is practicing or has practiced actions that are against federal law.
The obvious reason for making the sale of organs illegal is that due to man's tendency to creep towards immorality and criminality if given the opportunity, we would soon be pulling the plug or practicing euthanasia on patients just for the money in their organs.
The US government must stop funding any and all PP activities.
It probably is legal. While this is disgusting .. never forget that it is perfectly legal to kill the babies in the first place.
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