If what is seen on two
undercover sting videos is true, Planned Parenthood is breaking the law and its funding should be removed, says Rep. Diane Black, who has introduced a bill to stop the millions of dollars the federal government gives the organization while an investigation is held.
"I don't think there is any doubt from what you see on that video, they are breaking the law," the Tennessee Republican told
Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program Thursday, "and they need to be brought to accountability for breaking the law."
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In the two videos that have been released by the Center for Medical Progress, Planned Parenthood officials are seen allegedly discussing the sale of recovered fetal tissue, and how to perform procedures in ways that as much as possible can be recovered.
"They're selling body parts, which is against the law," said Black, a registered nurse. "And partial-birth abortion is also against the law. It's very clear on that video he that they are doing both of those things."
In a speech delivered Tuesday while
introducing the bill, Black said Planned Parenthood "has blood on its hands."
"Over the last week, we've seen multiple videos showing its employees brazenly discussing the harvesting of aborted babies' tissue and organs," she said. "But the truth is, Planned Parenthood's culture of depravity runs much deeper than a couple of videos."
She told Fox News that her bill has just a little fewer than 100 co-sponsors, and that it calls for not only defunding Planned Parenthood but also an investigation to determine "what Planned Parenthood is really doing."
The funding moratorium would not only include Title 10 funds, but also money spent through Medicaid and other federal grants.
"Title 10 is the dollars that are supposed to be used for healthy family planning, and Planned Parenthood has been getting about $500 million a year of that money, doing about 327,000 abortions a year," Black said.
She noted that unlike other pending legislation that forbids funding abortions with taxpayer dollars, hers targets Planned Parenthood specifically "to say until we get this investigation completed, there are no taxpayer dollars that go to fund their operations."
Earlier on the same program, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a vocal pro-life advocate, said Republicans need to be on the forefront of calling for an investigation into Planned Parenthood, but with the controversy surrounding the marketing of body parts, "this is an issue that Republicans, Democrat, pro-life, pro-choice, should be able to rally around."
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The latest video, meanwhile, "is a horrific video that shows the extremism of the abortion movement," Santorum said. "If this were the other side and they had such a video that showed extremism there would have been votes, investigation, and it would have been continuous from the beginning."
Santorum warned that there will be more videos to come, and they will show more "egregious things."
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