Republicans and Democrats fervently argued Wednesday over whether the GOP is contradicting itself during a heated hearing over the selling of aborted fetal body parts.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., sparred over what he called discrepancies in a series of documents on the practice of getting fetal tissue for research purposes.
Nadler questioned why one document says that the payments abortion clinics are getting for providing aborted fetal body parts are “pure profit.” However, other exhibits lists some of the costs incurred by clinics, Nadler said at the hearing of the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives.
Blackburn, the panel’s chairwoman, said that there is no direct contradiction between the documents. She tried several times to move on with the hearing, but Nadler protested.
“I have a parliamentary inquiry that is being sidestepped,” he said.
Blackburn objected to Nadler’s assertion that he is being silenced.
“This is not a parliamentary inquiry,” she said. “You are trying to debate the documents.”
The skirmish is the latest for a panel that has been marked by extensive partisan battles.
The panel was created in the wake of a series of undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the procurement of aborted fetal body parts.
Opponents of Planned Parenthood charged the women’s health and abortion provider was profiting from the sale of aborted fetal tissue, which is against federal law, but the organization responded that it was only reimbursed for transportation costs.
So far no charges have been levied against Planned Parenthood in any state, but a Texas grand jury has charged the activist behind the videos, David Daleiden, with felony charges connected to the undercover footage.
Democrats sparred with Republicans at the outset of the hearing, trying to rescind several documents that Republicans released detailing the practices of a procurement company.
That company is believed to be StemExpress, which was featured in several of Daleiden’s videos. The small biotech firm wrote in a letter to the committee that staff failed to properly redact the company’s name from several screenshots of StemExpress’ website used as exhibits and that nobody at StemExpress had authenticated the screenshots.
The panel voted 8-5 along party lines to keep the exhibits in.
