Congress approves additional funds for Planned Parenthood investigation

House Republicans have doubled the budget for the investigation against Planned Parenthood regarding its alleged sales of aborted baby parts.

According to USA Today, the House Committee on Administration voted last Wednesday to approve an additional $800,000 to the previous budget of $790,000 for the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives.

The 14-member panel, headed by Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, was created last year after the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a series of undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials supposedly negotiating the sales of body parts from aborted babies.

Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, the top Democrat on the panel, described the investigation as a "witch hunt" and said that Congress should dissolve the panel and stop the proceedings.

Mallory Quigley, communications director for the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony (SBA) List, said in an email to The Christian Post that the organization is ready to work with the new administration in its efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.

"The pro-life grassroots must be involved. Now is not the time for complacency and my hope is that pro-lifers are more fired up than ever to call their elected officials and demand the defunding of Planned Parenthood," said Quigley.

SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser and Vice President of Government Affairs Hon. Marilyn Musgrave sent a letter to members of the Congress earlier this week calling on them to send a reconciliation bill to President-elect Donald Trump to defund the abortion provider.

"We must send a strong and early message to pro-life Americans across the country that the Republican-controlled Congress and White House are serious about saving the lives of unborn children and ensuring our tax dollars do not fund organizations that kill hundreds of thousands of unborn babies each year and sell their body parts to the highest bidder," the letter stated.

CMP founder David Daleiden stated that the panel has been highly effective and the investigations have confirmed the allegations in the videos he released.

He noted that the panel had discovered that Planned Parenthood's participation in the practice of selling fetal body parts was "even more widespread and even worse than anybody was imagining over a year ago."

The panel is due to release the final report by the end of the year. Daleiden has speculated that the investigations could continue next year even after the release of the final report.