[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 120 (Tuesday, July 28, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S6077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
By Mr. INHOFE (for himself, Mr. McCain, and Mr. Rounds):
S. 1877. A bill to require the Attorney General to appoint a special
prosecutor to investigage Planned Parenthood, and for other purposes;
to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have all been disturbed--just really
outraged--about the things that have come from Planned Parenthood
recently. We have seen the videos exposing their casual disregard of
human life. It is unconscionable. It is very sad. We have known this
for a long time. The junior Senator, Mr. Lankford, back when he was in
the House of Representatives was introducing bills to defund Planned
Parenthood, and that was before the most recent events that have
happened.
The Center For Medical Progress spent 3 years investigating Planned
Parenthood and produced at least three videos revealing what appears to
be an intentional and illegal harvesting of body parts from aborted
babies.
There are countries such as China that condone killing children, but
our Nation should not be condoning the act of killing our own children
or allowing these corrupt organizations to sell body parts for profit.
There was a book that was written that I remember very well entitled
``Modernizing China'' by Anthony Kubek. This was 30 years ago, when
there was still a separation between China and Taiwan. They talked
about at that time having a limit on how many babies people could have.
They would go in and find out that there was one more child than they
should have had, and they would take that baby and kill it. Of course,
the harvesting of body parts was taking place there. That was China.
This is America. It is hard to believe this could be happening.
It is not about being pro-life or pro-choice anymore; it is about our
country's moral conscience. If Planned Parenthood has either profited
from selling aborted babies' organs or they have modified procedures
used to conduct an abortion for the purposes of obtaining body parts,
then they have broken the law.
In fact, the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993
states that ``no alteration of the timing, method or procedures used to
terminate the pregnancy [may be] made solely for the purposes of
obtaining tissue.'' That includes arms, legs, kidneys, and body parts,
but this is exactly what Planned Parenthood has admitted to doing in
these videos.
The Federal law also states it is unlawful to sell human fetal
tissue. Title 42 of the U.S. Code, section 289g-2(a) states: ``It shall
be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise
transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the
transfer affects interstate commerce.'' Again, it is illegal.
Based on the evidence in these videos, particularly with the Planned
Parenthood employees haggling and negotiating over prices, joking about
it, and using the income of the dead babies' body parts to buy a
Lamborghini--some kind of automobile--it seems as if it is commonplace.
There is a total disregard for the babies or what they were doing.
My colleague Senator Ernst of Iowa and I, along with others in the
Senate, wrote to the Department of Health and Human Services requesting
answers to these questions.
One thing that is important to note is that Planned Parenthood
receives $1.4 million of taxpayers' money every day. It is unthinkable
that they are being supported by the taxpayers in the United States,
according to their 2013-2014 annual report. They received 528.4 million
taxpayer dollars and then performed and profited from illegal and
immoral actions taking the lives of innocent babies. This is so
incredibly evil it is even hard to talk about.
We are talking about women being manipulated into putting their
health on the line for a government-funded organization to profit from
harvesting their child's body. Vulnerable women are being coerced into
having abortions and delaying the abortions until the baby has grown to
the age within the womb that they would have fully developed body parts
in order to sell. This is what is happening today.
Planned Parenthood fights to keep mothers from seeing the human value
of their babies with an ultrasound. They don't want the mother to hear
the baby inside their womb with an ultrasound, but they will use the
same technology to guide them to more valuable organs as they perform
abortions for monetary gain. These actions deserve to be fully
investigated. Crimes have been committed. It is our moral obligation to
fully prosecute any violations of the law.
Today I have introduced legislation that would require the
appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute these
atrocities. To pay for this, the legislation would rescind all moneys
that have been appropriated to Planned Parenthood and provide the
special prosecutor with as much of this money to conduct the
investigation as is necessary.
We have to protect innocent lives. Now that this has opened the door
to a reality that has been suspected for so many years, this Senator
wants America and the world to know that endangering women's health and
profiting from killing children is not acceptable.
The video just released today shows a lab technician placing and
celebrating the monetary value of a baby's arms, legs, kidneys, and
spinal cord as they pulled apart its body.
The bill is S. 1877. We have gotten a lot of calls about it. I didn't
want to let this opportunity go by without coming to the floor and
getting something started to do something to stop the barbaric acts we
are seeing on behalf of Planned Parenthood.
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