Planned Parenthood affiliates and related organizations profited from the sale of aborted baby parts, according to a congressional report released last week.
The 418-page report, released by the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, concludes a year-long investigation into the gruesome and oftentimes illegal practices of the abortion industry. The Panel’s report will likely have resounding implications for Washington State relative to Attorney General Ferguson’s review of Planned Parenthood in 2015 and the University of Washington’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.
Here are three important takeaways from the report, which can be read here:
- Criminal Referrals
The Panel made 15 criminal referrals to law enforcement officials, recommending criminal charges against Planned Parenthood affiliates and other organizations, including Stem Express, a tissue procurement company that made 2,800 percent profit on baby brains.
The report documents the illegal behavior of abortion providers, tissue procurement companies, and medical researchers by detailing how the abortion industry profits from the sale of aborted fetal tissue, changes abortion procedures to maintain the monetary value of profitable aborted baby parts, and violates laws protecting the safety and privacy of patients.
“Over the last year, the Select Panel’s relentless fact-finding investigation has laid bare the grisly reality of an abortion industry that is driven by profit, unconcerned by matters of basic ethics and, too often, non-compliant with the few laws we have to protect the safety of women and their unborn children,” said Congresswoman Diane Black, a member of the Panel. “The findings of this panel should incense all people of conscience.”
- UW’s Business Relationship with Planned Parenthood and Attorney General Ferguson’s Seemingly Incomplete 2015 Review of Planned Parenthood
Eight pages of the report detail the questionable activities of the University of Washington’s Birth Defects Research Laboratory (UWBDRL), the nation’s largest fetal tissue bank that often acts as a middleman between abortion clinics and medical researchers. UWBDRL secures aborted fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics in Washington State, which it then sells to other medical researchers across the nation.
This section of the report validates concerns raised by the Family Policy Institute of Washington in late-2015 about UWBDRL and Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s investigation of Planned Parenthood affiliates.
Following the conclusion of Ferguson’s review of abortion providers, which claimed that Washington abortion providers had not engaged in illegal activity, FPIW filed a public records request to obtain documents and written communications relevant to the review.
FPIW’s examination of the documents appeared to indicate that the attorney general’s review was incomplete, especially concerning the relationship between Planned Parenthood affiliates and UWBDRL.
Most concerning from FPIW’s perspective was an email exchange between Deputy Attorney General Paige Dietrich and Ian Goodhew, Government Relations Director at the University of Washington.
This correspondence, quoted verbatim in the Panel’s report, details Dietrich’s request for business agreements between Planned Parenthood and UWBDRL as part of the then-ongoing attorney general review. Goodhew responded to this request by seeking assurances that “[the attorney general’s office] will hold those confidential and not share with anyone without consent?” After Goodhew had voiced his concerns about the agreements going public, Dietrich rescinded her request, replying, “I don’t think we’ll need copies of the agreements.”
After discovering this exchange, FPIW filed a public records request to obtain the business agreement.
But after months of foot-dragging by UWBDRL, who repeatedly delayed releasing the documents, Planned Parenthood eventually filed a lawsuit against FPIW to prevent the release of the business agreement. That lawsuit is currently playing out in a federal court.
Astonishingly, UWBDRL failed to provide the business agreement to the Panel’s congressional investigators, despite congressional subpoenas and a court preliminary injunction enabling the university to provide the House committee with the business agreement.
The congressional report concluded that “UW’s incomplete production raises more questions than it answers and demonstrates the need for further investigation.”
The report also details the failures of Ferguson’s 2015 review. It claims Ferguson’s office made conclusions “without apparently conducting” a forensic analysis of UW’s practices. The report asserts the attorney general’s inquiry “apparently ended without an examination of an agreement between UW” and Planned Parenthood clinics.
That congressional investigators reached many of the same conclusions as FPIW serves only to further vindicate FPIW’s concerns about the attorney general’s review and the relationship between UWBDRL and state abortion clinics.
- UW’s Close Relationship with Abortion Clinics
The Panel’s report identifies a cozy relationship between UW faculty and staff and Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics.
Several UW faculty members perform abortions at Planned Parenthood and Cedar River abortion clinics, and the former medical director for Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and Northern Idaho now serves as a UW clinical associate professor.
The University of Washington also places medical students at outside abortion clinics, including some that perform abortions well into the second trimester.
Furthermore, the University of Washington provides abortions through its family planning program at the UW Medical Center.
