Pro-life groups sent a letter to the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday, asking it to continue the investigation into Planned Parenthood and its harvesting of aborted babies’ body parts.
The letter is addressed to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
The pro-life groups referred to the findings by the U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives, which concluded its investigation of the abortion industry earlier this year with a series of criminal referrals.
“The previous administration decided to turn a blind eye to the wrongdoing, which led to the creation of the Select Panel,” the letter states. “We request that the Justice Department continue the investigation into the practices surrounding this scandal.”
Those signing the letter include the March for Life, Americans United for Life, Susan B. Anthony List, Family Research Council, Eagle Forum, Liberty Counsel Action, Concerned Women for America, American Values, Christian Coalition of America, Coalition for a Strong America, Tradition, Family Property, Inc., One Nation Under God Foundation and the American Conservative Union.
Both the U.S. House and Senate launched investigations into Planned Parenthood, other abortion groups and human tissue procurement groups after an undercover investigation by the Center for Medical Progress revealed potentially illegal sales of aborted babies’ body parts.
Last week, another undercover video showed top abortion industry leaders describing in gruesome detail how they abort unborn babies. Dr. Ann Schutt-Aine, a Planned Parenthood abortionist, was shown talking about “pull[ing] off a leg or two, so it’s not PBA [partial-birth abortion].” Another abortionist made jokes about eyeballs from aborted babies “rolling down into their laps.” A federal judge later ordered that the video be taken down.
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More than a dozen undercover videos have been released as part of the investigation, led by journalist David Daleiden.
After investigating what Daleiden exposed, the U.S. House panel made 15 criminal and regulatory referrals to states involving the handling of aborted babies’ body parts by Planned Parenthood and other groups in January. A U.S. Senate investigation also concluded with seven criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.
The letter to Sessions and McCabe refers to the investigations’ findings, including “evidence of violations of laws protecting human research subjects and patient privacy; laws regulating anatomical gifts for transplantation, therapy, research, and education; laws protecting late-term and born-alive infants; and laws pertaining to public funding for fetal tissue research and abortion providers” by the House investigation.
According to the letter, the Senate investigation also found evidence of potential wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood and other groups:
“It appears that Planned Parenthood Federation of America learned that its affiliates were engaging in paid fetal tissue programs in noncompliance with 42 U.S.C. §289g-2. As to what transpired between Planned Parenthood Federation of America and these affiliates, the facts uncovered raise a reasonable suspicion that these organizations, and/or individuals employed by them, may have engaged in a conspiracy to violate the fetal tissue law (18 U.S.C. § 371).”
Sessions, who President Donald Trump appointed as attorney general, is pro-life. During his confirmation hearing in January, Sessions said the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which allowed abortion on demand, was one of the worst decisions of all time.
