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Texas prosecutor with link to Planned Parenthood charges pro-life whistleblowers

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Planned Parenthood senior executive: organ harvesting so she can get a Lamborghini
Planned Parenthood senior executive: organ harvesting so she can get a Lamborghini

The Federalist has the story:

Months after the release of undercover videos detailing Planned Parenthood’s scheme to traffic aborted baby body parts, a grand jury has finally brought brought criminal charges. Not against Planned Parenthood, but against David Daleiden, the pro-life activist behind the undercover sting videos.

A grand jury in Harris County, Texas, returned two charges on Monday afternoon against Daleiden, the activist who planned and organized the undercover sting videos. Although the grand jury allegedly investigated Planned Parenthood, no charges were brought against the nation’s largest abortion provider, whose executives were shown in multiple videos attempting to sell trafficked organs and other body parts harvested from aborted babies. One Planned Parenthood executive, while haggling over the prices of aborted baby organs, noted that she needed to get the right price because, “I want to buy a Lamborghini.”

According to a press release from the office of Harris County district attorney’s office which was provided to The Federalist, Daleiden was charged with the purchase and sale of human organs, a misdemeanor, and with tampering with a governmental record, a felony. Sandra Merritt, one of Daleiden’s associates, was also charged with tampering with a governmental record.

“For more than two months, the 232nd Grand Jury extensively reviewed the joint investigation into allegations of misconduct by PPGC,” stated the press release. “This grand jury cleared PPGC of breaking the law. However, the grand jury did hand down indictments for two individuals who were involved in making the allegations against PPGC public via covert recordings made in April 2015.”

Lauren Reeder, one of the prosecutors in the Harris County district attorney’s office, revealed last August that she was a member of the board of directors for the Planned Parenthood affiliate that was targeted by Daleiden.

Reeder’s LinkedIn page indicates that she has been a Planned Parenthood board member since 2013 and a fundraiser for the abortion provider since 2009.

The maximum sentence for “tampering with a governmental record” (using a fake ID, which almost every teen does) is 20 years.

Well, what happens next? This Houston Chronicle says:

Days after Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson announced that she was launching a criminal investigation into the Houston-area branch of Planned Parenthood, Anderson said she had learned one of her subordinates was on the board of directors of the agency.

[…]”She will not be involved in any manner in this investigation,” Anderson said. “If at any time in the future, reliable and credible information is brought to my attention that would question our ability to continue to perform a fair, thorough and independent investigation of this matter due to her board membership, I will revisit the issue of seeking the appointment of an independent prosecutor and act accordingly.”

Seems to me that there should be a special prosecutor, because the district attorney’s office is obviously not going to be impartial. Even if the Planned Parenthood woman is not involved directly, she works with the people who are involved. The best thing to do is get a special prosecutor.

Meanwhile, the state of Texas is continuing to investigate Planned Parenthood as a result of the videos.

News

Texas raids Planned Parenthood offices in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott
Texas Governor Greg Abbott

This is from Life News. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

After a Houston-based Planned Parenthood abortion clinic was caught selling aborted baby body parts, state investigators conducted a raid today on multiple Planned Parenthood abortion clinics across the state.
Texas officials raided several Planned Parenthood facilities today in an unprecedented move that follows on the heels of pro-life Governor Greg Abbott announcing earlier in the week that the state would further de-fund the abortion business.  Abbott said this week “the gruesome harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood will not be allowed,” but so far the state has released no evidence of illegal activity by the group.

The raids were carried out at Planned Parenthood abortion centers in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio by representatives from the Texas Office of the Inspector General and the state served subpoenas on five total Planned Parenthood centers. The Houston Chronicle has more:

Officials with the inspector general’s office at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission went to two facilities in Houston as well as clinics in Dallas, San Antonio and Brownsville. The Brownsville center does not perform abortions.

Planned Parenthood was given 30 days to respond to the move; a legal challenge is likely.

On Thursday, Planned Parenthood officials decried the subpoenas as politically-motivated, saying officials were “looking for an excuse to take health care away from thousands of women and men who rely on Planned Parenthood for preventive care.”

“The investigators were seeking hundreds of pages of information, from patient records to employee home addresses, involving 10 Planned Parenthood facilities across the state” the Austin newspaper reported. “Officials would not confirm details of the investigation, but the sources said it’s related to suspicions of misspent Medicaid money.”

ECM was quite delighted with this story, and it does show why the United States of America is still a great country. My Canadian friends have been filling up my ears with laments. “Angry”, was how one Calgary man described his feelings to me. “I’m hiding under blankets” one Calgary woman told me. Well, yes. When the Liberal Party gets a majority in a country where federalism is severely crippled, then no matter where you live, you’re pretty much done for.

But that’s not the case in the USA, where a man can dream of living under Mary Fallin in Oklahoma, or Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, or under Sam Brownback in Kansas. Or even in Tennessee or Texas under other Republican governors. You have your pick. And when you open up the local newspaper, you are going to see things happening that don’t make you angry, or make you hide under blankets. What a country! We should be thankful for the boundary between federal and state governments, and seek to strengthen the jurisdiction of states.

By the way, Texas also defunded Planned Parenthood earlier this week.

News

Texas Governor Greg Abbott takes action to defund Planned Parenthood

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican

This story is from leftist ABC local news.

Excerpt:

Gov. Greg Abbott launched a new set of proposals Friday to defund Planned Parenthood and pass restrictions on the collection of fetal tissue.

[…]On Friday, Gov. Abbott announced a new initiative in response under the acronym “LIFE.”

“Gruesome – and potentially illegal – harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood cannot be allowed in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Treating unborn children as commodities to be sold is an abomination. The barbaric practice of harvesting and selling baby body parts must end.”

The initiative states, “Laws must be changed to make it a felony under Texas law to perform a partial-birth abortion; and make it illegal for abortion doctors to risk a woman’s health by altering the procedure to preserve fetal body parts.”

[…]It further states, “Funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers out of taxpayer money must be eliminated completely, both at the State and local levels.” Public funding has already been cut off in Texas, where affiliates don’t even participate in tissue donation.

Finally, the governor proposes to “eliminate and criminalize any sale or transaction of fetal tissue by an abortion clinic for any purpose whatsoever,” which would restrict tissue collection largely to hospitals.

Texas is a red state, although they have lots of blue major cities with Democrat mayors – yuck.

Meanwhile, there’s more good news from Nebraska – another red state.

Here’s the story from the leftist Lincoln Journal Star.

Excerpt:

Five state lawmakers already have approached Nebraska Right to Life this summer about sponsoring anti-abortion bills next year, according to Julie Schmit-Albin, the group’s executive director.

“I’ve had more interest,” Schmit-Albin said last week.

Among those is Bellevue Sen. Tommy Garrett’s planned measure to target so-called “dismemberment abortions,” a term used to describe a dilation and evacuation procedure that is standard practice in abortions beginning 12 weeks after conception.

Schmit-Albin described so-called dismemberment abortion bans as “another chipping away” at the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade guaranteeing women the right to abortion.

In 2010, Nebraska became the first state in the nation to ban most abortions beginning at 20 weeks. The change was based on the theory that by that point, a fetus has the capacity to feel pain. More than a dozen states have since passed similar bans.

Garrett is also a Republican.

LIfe News notes that Nebraska is not the first to propose a ban on dismemberment abortions:

Earlier this year, Oklahoma became the second state in the nation to protect unborn children from dismemberment abortions that tear them apart limb from limb. Previous to that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed similar legislation prohibiting dismemberment abortions in the state. Model legislation provided by National Right to Life is also under consideration in the legislatures of Missouri and South Carolina.

The Democrats would love to roll back all of these restrictions at the state and local level, but for now they don’t have control of the House and Senate to push their bill to do that through to Obama, who would undoubtedly sign such a bill.