A pro-life group is urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to extend the investigation by the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives — which has been looking into the possible illegal trafficking of fetal body parts in the United States — into the next legislative session.
Operation Rescue president Troy Newman stated in a letter to Speaker Ryan, “Making a public commitment to extend the Select Panel on Infant Lives is something positive you can do now to reassure those in the pro-life/religious liberty communities that justice will be done, and that promises have substance.”
Newman also stated that due to the “stonewalling and lack of cooperation” by fetal tissue procurement agencies as well as abortionists, “the Select Panel has not been able to fully complete their investigation…. We urge House Speaker Paul Ryan to commit now to extending the Select Panel on Infant Lives into the next Congressional Session, so they have the time they need to finish their work.”
One of the groups that has been “stonewalling” the investigation is StemExpress, a fetal tissue procurement agency made infamous after the Center for Medical Progress exposed the group’s partnership with various Planned Parenthood facilities. Operation Rescue notes that the group, along with CEO Cate Dyer, “have been referred for contempt charges for their defiance of Congressional subpoenas that requested financial records” — a story that was covered previously by Live Action News.
The Select Panel has uncovered possible illegalities surrounding the use and trafficking of fetal body parts. The University of New Mexico, for example, reportedly allowed summer camp students to dissect the brains of aborted babies in 2012 and 2014. The university had an ongoing relationship with late-term abortionist Curtis Boyd, who supplied the University of New Mexico Sciences Center with “body parts from preborn babies aborted both before and after 20 weeks of gestation.” The university also had a residency training program with the abortionists operating at the Southwestern Women’s Options late-term abortion facility in Albuquerque — that is, until this relationship came under scrutiny.
The Panel has also subpoenaed some late-term abortionists, including the circuit-riding LeRoy Carhart, a Germantown, Maryland, abortionist who has killed at least two women with his negligence, and who has a dismal record regarding women’s safety. A Live Action undercover investigation of Carhart reveals more on this dangerous man:
Colorado late-term abortionist Warren Hern is another who has received information requests from the Select Panel. As Live Action News reported yesterday, Hern called these requests a “witch hunt,” despite the fact that because he is a late-term abortionist, his practices would naturally be of particular interest to a committee seeking to uncover whether the demand for later-term fetal body parts led abortion facilities to sell them to third parties illegally. Hern, for his part, has been said to have “lingering ethical questions” with the way fetal tissue is harvested from aborted babies.
Operation Rescue believes that in light of the fact that more information must be gathered, disbanding the Select Panel “would allow abortionists that already think they are above the law” — such as those mentioned — “to get away with possible crimes as a reward for their lack of cooperation.”
