Blackburn & Ellmers: “These videos will make you sick - baby organs being discussed like parts to a car."
A new video came to light this week as the Health Subcommittee prepares for Thursday’s hearing on “Protecting Infants: Ending Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Providers Who Violate the Law." Life News reports, “This latest video catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts - including the heart, eyes, and ‘gonads’ of unborn babies." The Energy and Commerce Committee has been investigating the disturbing and abhorrent acts brought to light by a series of videos released over the past several weeks.
Tomorrow’s hearing will review two draft bills : one authored by full committee Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to bolster the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 and a bill authored by Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) that will bolster the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Both bills will ban any provider proven of violating either of these existing laws from participating in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. Additionally, these bills would clarify that states who suspect any violation of these existing laws can ban those suspected from the state’s Medicaid program.
Blackburn and Ellmers stated, “These videos will make you sick - baby organs being discussed like parts to a car. The bills we will review tomorrow are two important steps in protecting these innocent lives as our committee’s thorough investigation moves forward."
Committee member Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) on Tuesday held events at local Planned Parenthood clinics in his home district. The News Gazette reports Shimkus said, “Many of us, regardless of your position, felt disgust and outrage over the Planned Parenthood videos. In them we find a blatant disregard for life and an abuse of the system. The altering of procedures to target the specific recovery of organs is really a barbaric practice."
Among the witnesses for Thursday’s hearing are Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life, and Casey Mattox, Senior Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. In announcing the hearing, Chairman Upton and subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA) commented, “As the investigations into the despicable actions demonstrated in the series of videos continue, these bills take an important step forward in protecting human life."
Keep up with the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigation into the Planned Parenthood practices online here.
