Missouri Investigation Finds Planned Parenthood Never Sold Fetal Tissue
This news does not sound like it is going to change any minds, but it is good news nonetheless. According to The New York Times, the Missouri Attorney General’s office announced that it had investigated charges that Planned Parenthood was “profiteering in baby parts,” and found the charges to be baseless. There is only one Planned Parenthood clinic in Missouri licensed to perform surgical abortions, and attorney general Chris Koster says investigation has turned up no wrongdoing on the part of that clinic. The investigation into that one clinic sounds pretty exhaustive. It covered more than 3,500 pages of documents and interviews and included lab results and waste-disposal tracking documents.
”As a result of our investigation, the office of the Missouri Attorney General has found no evidence that PPSLR has engaged in unlawful disposal of fetal organs and tissue,” the attorney general’s report said.
The Missouri investigation is one of many launched after secretly recorded videos claimed to show Planned Parenthood executives talking about selling fetal tissue for profit. The tapes were reportedly heavily edited to make it look like that was the case, while Planned Parenthood executives say fetal tissue has never been sold. It has been donated to scientific research, which is great and necessary, and the only money changing hands was to pay for packing and transport of the samples.
With the announcement of this new report, Missouri joins Pennsylvania, Georgia, Indiana, South Dakota and Massachusetts, all of which conducted their own investigations into Planned Parenthood and found the organization to have not broken any laws.