House investigators issued a dozen subpoenas Wednesday to procure documents required for their probe into whether Planned Parenthood affiliates harvested organs from aborted fetuses and sold them illegally.
“There should be no resistance to letting all the facts come out, but some abortion supporters seem to be clearly rattled with basic facts coming to light,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who is chairing the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives.
Blackburn’s committee was formed in response to a series of undercover videos published by pro-life activists that showed abortion provider employees discussing compensation for fetal organs, a potential violation of federal law that prohibits profiting from the sale of those organs. She has issued three previous subpoenas to organizations shown on the videos, but congressional Democrats say the investigation could undermine scientific research.
Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, the top Democrat on the committee, complained previously that Blackburn’s subpoenas were too invasive. “I’m not suggesting that they want to put these people at risk,” she told the Washington Post, “but they could be made to be at risk.”
Blackburn wants the companies that conducted the fetal tissue research to produce “all communications and documents” pertaining to StemExpress — the company shown in the videos coordinating with Planned Parenthood to obtain the organs — and various Planned Parenthood affiliates.
New subpoenas were issued to StemExpress and related persons; individuals with relationships to the University of New Mexico; BioMed IRB, which is an online Institutional Review Board service that purports to provide IRB clearance for research on human subjects and for the transfer of fetal tissue; and Ganogen, a company that is involved in the use of aborted fetuses for research involving transplantation of human organs into animals.
“The Select Investigative Panel is working in a thoughtful and thorough manner to find the facts about what exactly is going on at these abortion businesses and procurement organizations,” Blackburn said. “Unfortunately, some of these organizations have so redacted documents, even after being subpoenaed, that it is impossible for us to get the complete picture of what is actually going on.”
Her investigation is continuing even though a Houston grand jury indicted the activists who produced the videos. “You have these precious children that are aborted and then these parts are being sold,” Blackburn told the Post in February. “People want to give this a good and thorough look.”
