House Democrats are calling on Republicans to disband their special committee that has been investigating the use of fetal tissue over the last six months.
The committee’s lead Democrat, Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, and other members issued a resolution Thursday morning accusing Republicans of staging a “McCarthy-like witch hunt” by using the committee as a political weapon to attack healthcare providers and scientists involved in fetal tissue research.
“Today, I stand with my colleagues to introduce a resolution that will disband this partisan Republican Select Panel without further delay before more damage is done and more lives are put at risk,” Schakowsky said.
The panel, led by Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, was created in the fall after a series of undercover videos from abortion foe David Daleiden catapulted Planned Parenthood into the national spotlight for its involvement in supplying aborted fetal tissue to biomedical companies.
While Planned Parenthood has since banned its clinics from being compensated for fetal tissue, Republicans created the panel saying they wanted to investigate the practice further to find out whether anyone is illegally profiting from such tissue.
But Democrats on the panel have accused Republicans of using the committee to attack abortion and fetal tissue research rather than shed more light on the issue.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the panel “an outrageous campaign of misrepresentation and intimidation.”
“Now, Republicans are engaged in abuses that have not been seen on Capitol Hill since the days of Joseph McCarthy,” Pelosi said. “Republicans’ Select Panel is disgraceful, dangerous and should be disbanded immediately.”
The committee has held two hearings. A spokesman for Blackburn didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
