The House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives released new
evidence April 19 of procurement businesses selling aborted baby body
parts for profit.
Amid growing optimism surrounding fetal tissue research in 1993,
Congress lifted the ban on obtaining samples from abortion centers. The
move was a bipartisan effort and included many safeguards designed to
ensure the sale of baby body parts never became a money-making business.
According to evidence obtained from tissue procurement companies, those safeguards failed.
The House panel released the new documents ahead of its second
congressional hearing. The papers show middleman businesses, separate
from abortion centers and research facilities, profit between 300 and
400 percent from each sample of fetal tissue sold.
Last summer, undercover videos collected by David Daleiden and the
Center for Medical Progress showed abortion facilities might be part of a
fetal tissue procurement network designed to profit from the sale of
baby body parts.
Congress established the House panel in October to investigate
questions raised by the videos, including federal funding and support
for abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, and the ethics and
policies surrounding fetal tissue procurement.
The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 reversed
the ban on fetal tissue transplantation research procurement. At that
time, two competing amendments in the House offered safeguards on the
operation—one filed by former Rep. Thomas Bliley Jr., R-Va., and one by
former Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Waxman’s version eventfully won out,
creating the guidelines for how fetal tissue procurement should work.
“It would be abhorrent to allow for a sale of fetal tissue and a market
to be created for that sale,” Waxman said during floor debates.
To ensure abortion centers would not suffer from the added cost of
providing tissue samples to researchers, the statute allowed for
reimbursements equal to related expenditures.
Congress crafted a non-profit model that allowed researchers to pay
abortion centers and abortionists equal to the amount of transportation,
storage, or other costs related to the process. Waxman even included a
10-year felony charge in the statute for anyone who violated the system.
After investigating one of the procurement businesses that can only
operate legally as a non-profit middleman, the panel found its annual
revenue grew from $9,000 in 2010 to more than $6 million in 2014. The
panel did not make the company’s name public.
The business operates by taking orders from researchers and partnering
with abortion centers to keep its supply in stock. In 2010, the
procurement business had three partner abortion centers, and before the
undercover videos came out, it was on track to have about 300 by 2016.
The panel will argue today that a business cannot grow at that torrid pace without making a profit.
But many continue to question the validity of those concerns.
Last week during a town hall hosted by MSNBC, Meet the Press moderator
Chuck Todd told Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz the scandal
surrounding Planned Parenthood and procurement businesses was “made up.”
“Let me tell you what there is no controversy about, it is a federal
crime—a felony with a 10-year prison term—to sell the body parts of
unborn children for profit,” Cruz retorted. “Listen, even if you’re
pro-choice, selling the body parts of unborn children as a commercial
endeavor is a horrifying thing.”
During the panel’s first hearing, Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., called one
fetal tissue procurement business “the Amazon.com for human parts.”
The panel saved several screen grabs from recently shuttered websites
that allowed customers to add baby organs such as brains, hearts, lungs,
and livers to virtual shopping carts. Customers could select how many
samples of each they wanted and from what gestational periods. Prices
were highest for babies at 14-19 weeks gestation.
At least one company hired procurement technicians for $10 an hour—plus
$30 for each sale—to do the leg work of rounding up parts at abortion
centers.
Technicians would visit partnered abortion centers at the beginning of
the week and match orders from customers to the list of women scheduled
for abortions. The technicians asked women to sign a consent form,
collected the baby’s remains after the abortion, and packaged and
shipped the order to customers.
“The procurement techs are promised bonuses for particular baby parts,
with stomachs, bladders, and lungs resulting in a higher per-item bonus
than ears, kidneys, or tongues,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president
of the Susan B. Anthony List, who viewed the panel’s research. “This
barbarism degrades our nation and violates federal laws against such
profiteering. We commend the select panel for its investigative work
thus far and call on the Department of Justice to take immediate
action.”
One procurement business invoice showed direct costs associated with
gathering tissue from a baby’s brain at about $300. The costs included
paying the procurement technicians an hourly wage, plus $30 for securing
the sample, paying the abortion center $50 for access to the sample,
and transportation costs.
The company sold brain samples to customers for more than $3,000 each.
Courtesy: WORLD News Service
Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com
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