House panel investigating Planned Parenthood's aborted baby parts scandal releases final report

The House Select Investigative Panel has concluded its investigation into Planned Parenthood's alleged sales of aborted fetal parts and has released its final report on Wednesday.

The panel, which was formed in response to the release of undercover videos by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), conducted a year-long investigation on abortion providers, fetal tissue buyers and other procurement businesses, according to World Magazine.

The findings indicated that Planned Parenthood affiliates violated privacy rules by sharing women's health information with tissue procurement companies as part of the efforts to sell aborted baby parts.

Planned Parenthood also convinced women to donate the organs of their aborted babies using inflammatory consent forms. The women were led to believe that the fetal tissue will be used to help find cures for cancer, AIDS and Parkinson's disease.

The panel has made a request to block federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood as well as research involving tissue from abortions. It also recommended a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks gestation.

"It is my hope that our recommendations will result in some necessary changes within both the abortion and fetal tissue procurement industries," said panel chairwoman Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

"Our hope is that these changes will both protect women and their unborn children, as well as the integrity of scientific research," she added.

Many of the individuals and institutions that were asked by the panel to submit documents have refused to fully comply with the investigation despite receiving subpoenas. The tissue procurement company StemExpress has been referred by the panel for criminal prosecution last year for refusing to release accounting records in response to a subpoena.

"Over the last year, the Select Panel's relentless fact-finding investigation has laid bare the grisly reality of an abortion industry that is driven by profit, unconcerned by matters of basic ethics and, too often, noncompliant with the few laws we have to protect the safety of women and their unborn children," said Rep. Diane Black, a member of the panel.

The panel made a total of 15 criminal referrals in its final report. It also sent letters to the Department of Justice and the Texas Attorney General requesting the prosecution of a late-term abortionist who allegedly murdered babies born alive.