GOP: Probe into Planned Parenthood to protect taxpayers from ‘horrors’

WASHINGTON – Opening long-awaited congressional hearings, a top Republican said Wednesday an investigation of Planned Parenthood was intended to protect taxpayers from the kind of “horrors” suggested by secretly recorded videos of group officials discussing the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses.

In a session highlighted by partisan clashes, Democrats said the investigation by the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee was just the latest in a decades-long effort to curtail abortion rights and was based on deceptively edited videos that show no evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood.

“The purpose is to smear Planned Parenthood,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. In a reference to infamous hearings of the 1950s that featured unfounded allegations that some federal officials were communists, Nadler added, “Sen. Joseph McCarthy would be proud of this committee today.”

Two months ago, a small group of anti-abortion activists began releasing videos it furtively recorded. Republicans and conservatives say those videos show Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue for profit and violating other federal prohibitions.

Planned Parenthood and its defenders say there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

Representatives from Planned Parenthood and the Center for Medical Progress, which made the videos, did not testify.

Planned Parenthood provides contraception, tests for sexually transmitted diseases and abortions in clinics across the country. It receives more than $500 million each year from federal and state governments, more than one-third of its overall $1.3 billion annual budget. Numerous Republicans want to end federal payments to Planned Parenthood.