Resources from colleagues on Capitol Hill regarding the Planned Parenthood baby parts scandal:
One year ago the first of a series of videos showing Planned
Parenthood and fetal tissue brokers discussing harvesting and selling baby body
parts was released. In the months following, the House responded to the
information in the videos by voting to defund Planned Parenthood six times. The
House also passed a bill to protect babies who survive abortions and
established a Select Panel on Infant Lives to investigate.
Resources
Executive Summary
Select
Investigative Panel Interim Update to the House
I.
Congress
Created the Select Investigative Panel
a.
Following
the release of undercover videos documenting shocking admissions and graphic
footage of abortion clinics and so-called “tissue procurement companies,”
Congress initiated hearings and subsequently created a Select Investigative
Panel to carry out an in-depth investigation into the allegations revealed by
the videos. The primary allegation was that abortion clinics received a payment
for aborted babies’ body parts from tissue procurement companies who then
resold those parts for researchers.
II.
Formation
of the Investigative Plan- Applicable Laws, Regulations, and Commissions
a.
Federal
Laws that Address the Treatment of Women and Children
i.
There
are guidelines in place meant to prevent the callous treatment of women and
children whose privacy and well-being the Panel’s investigation reveals are
being violated. Among them are the Born Alive Protection Act, the Belmont
Report, the findings of several Presidential Commissions on bioethics, the
HIPAA Privacy Rule, the Common Rule, Institutional Review Board Regulations,
and federal statutes. Investigative evidence shows that the motive for
disregarding these safeguards is financial gain. Abortion clinics remedy these
problems by, among other activities, overbilling the government for Medicaid
reimbursements and, more disturbingly, profiting from the sale of the leftover
body parts of babies they have just aborted.
b.
Federal
Statutes Governing the Transfer of Human Fetal Tissue
i.
The
NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. § 289g-1 and 42 U.S.C. § 289g-2):
Rep. Waxman, a Democrat, offered the amendment to the NIH Revitalization Act of
1993 that governs the donation of fetal tissue, specifically §289 g-2(a). It
states that “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.”
ii.
The
Statute Informed the Panel’s Investigative Plan: The main point of the Panel’s
inquiry centered on this question: If fetal tissue is transferred from one
entity to another, does the transfer violate the intent of §289 g-2? To answer
this question, the Panel has analyzed four business models currently operating
in the market sector and one operating in the public sector: 1) The Middleman
Model; 2) The University/Clinic Model; 3) The Biotech Company/Clinic Model; 4)
The Late-Term Clinic Model; and 5) The Government Funded Research Model.
iii.
Fetal
Tissue Sales and Abortion Clinic Fiscal Problems: Although abortion providers
and abortion rights advocates have a long history of stating that “it’s not
about the money” but about women’s reproductive health, the Panel’s
investigation has produced evidence that financial interests are increasingly
driving management and clinical practice decisions.
III.
The
Ethics of Fetal Tissue
a.
Amazing
scientific and biomedical advances are continuously being discovered and
developed. Congress, research institutions, and the medical community must
continue to work together to promote medical advancements while simultaneously
ensuring that laws and regulations on ethics remain up to date. On March 2,
2016, the Panel held a hearing entitled Bioethics and Fetal Tissue. The
hearing focused on ethical issues raised as a result of information recently
made public about fetal tissue donations, transfer of fetal tissue, and use of
fetal tissue by research institutions.
IV.
Case
Studies of the Fetal Tissue Industry
a.
At
a hearing on The Pricing of Fetal Tissue, the Panel compared documents
produced from StemExpress, LLC, a for-profit business, to the applicable
federal statute. StemExpress obtains fetal tissue from abortion clinics and
offers it for resale to researchers. The documents show that StemExpress
embedded employees within a group of abortion clinics to procure fetal tissue,
and those employees then shipped the tissue to customers. StemExpress paid the
abortion clinics a per-tissue fee for each tissue its employees procured, plus a
per-tissue bonus to StemExpress employees.
V.
Biomedical
Research and Fetal Tissue
a.
The
Panel’s investigation has produced a fact-based picture of the history,
utility, and uses of fetal tissue in biomedical research. The importance of
fetal tissue has been mischaracterized by political rhetoric. The Panel
continues to seek ethical methods for the conduct of important research to find
treatment and cures for injuries and disease.
VI.
Compliance
with Congressional Subpoenas
a.
At
least four entities from whom the Panel requested documents have failed to
fully comply with the Panel’s requests. As a result, the Panel was forced to
serve subpoenas on Southwestern Women’s Options, the University of New Mexico,
Advanced Bioscience Resources, and StemExpress. However, none of these entities
have complied with their subpoenas, making it impossible for the Panel to fully
conduct its investigation. In some cases, the Panel has been made aware,
through other sources, of documents missing from productions. The absence of
these important documents raises the concern that others are missing as well.
