An Arizona bill to stop the inhumane treatment of aborted babies’ bodies by abortion clinics and research facilities came one step closer to becoming law on Wednesday.
Arizona state Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, introduced Senate Bill 1474 earlier this year, saying she was “shocked” by the undercover videos by the Center for Medical Progress showing top Planned Parenthood officials selling aborted babies’ body parts.
Arizona needs to end “this horrendous trafficking in body parts, baby fetal body parts,” Barto said.
The bill would make it a crime to knowingly “sell, transfer, distribute, give away, accept, use or attempt to use any human fetus or embryo or any part, organ or fluid of the human fetus or embryo resulting from an abortion.” The bill includes exceptions for pathological studies to determine the cause of death and diagnostic tests to preserve the life of the mother or the unborn baby.
On Wednesday a state House panel voted 4-2 to move the bill forward to the full House for a vote, according to the Arizona Daily Star. The state Senate approved the bill in February.
The newspaper reports more about the committee vote:
Cathi Herrod of the Center for Arizona Policy said Arizona had a law that was thought to ban research using fetal tissue. But she said it was struck down in 2000 by a federal appeals court over its wording.
SB 1474 goes beyond the ban on research. It would make it a state crime not only to sell fetal tissue, something already illegal under federal law, but even to give it away or transfer it, something that is now permitted.
Rep. Randall Friese, D-Tucson, said that would even undermine the ability of a woman who terminates a pregnancy to tell the clinic to donate the tissue for medical research. But Herrod said that’s not necessary, calling fetal tissue research “antiquated science” and saying that any medical advances are coming from adult stem cell research.
The federal law that technically prohibits the sale of aborted babies and their body parts was written by a pro-abortion Congressman decades ago and essentially spells out a process by which sellers of aborted baby body parts can meet certain criteria that allows the sales to be legal. That’s why a Colorado congressman has introduced legislation to totally ban the sales of aborted baby body parts.
Pro-life leaders in several other states, including Indiana, Wisconsin and Colorado, also have introduced bills to ban the sale and/or donation of aborted babies’ body parts for research.
The Arizona House committee also approved two other pro-life bills on Wednesday, according to the report. Senate Bill 1324 would ban dangerous chemical abortions after the seventh week of pregnancy, as recommended by FDA guidelines, and Senate Bill 1485 would remove Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups from the state employee charitable giving program.
In reaction to the horrific undercover videos, Arizona lawmakers also are moving forward with a bill that would make it easier to defund Planned Parenthood. On Tuesday, a state Senate panel approved state House Bill 2599, which would penalize abortion groups that currently receive taxpayer money if the groups do not segregate the taxpayer funds from their abortion practices, LifeNews reports.
As LifeNews previously reported, the Planned Parenthood videos have sparked outrage across the country from grassroots activists and stay-at-home-moms to lawmakers and even presidential candidates. In the first undercover video, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical research for Planned Parenthood, admits that Planned Parenthood charges per-specimen for baby body parts, uses altered abortion procedures in order to get intact body parts, and is aware of their own liability for doing so and takes steps to cover it up.
The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all twelve:
- In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
- In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
- In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
- In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
- In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
- In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
- In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
- In the eighth video: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
- The ninth video: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
- The 10th video: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies. The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
- Unreleased Videos: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
- The 11th video: catches a Texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
- The 12th video in the series shows new footage of Jennefer Russo, medical director at Planned Parenthood in Orange County, California, describing to undercover investigators how her abortion business tries to harvest intact aborted babies’ bodies for a local for-profit biotech company and changes the abortion procedure to do so.
