Versión Español
By John-Henry Westen
EspañolFor nearly two months, undercover videos have revealed that Planned Parenthood has engaged in illegal abortions in order to illegally harvest the organs and other body parts of unborn babies.
While this has horrified many US Americans, and led to investigations by Congress and more than a dozen states, it is important to note that these practices are not new, not limited to Planned Parenthood, and not even limited to the United States.
Instead, this is worldwide, abortion-industry-wide practice that goes back to at least 1999.
While the United States has received most of the attention, it was, in fact, Canada that saw the first proof of illegal and unethical harvesting of organs from unborn babies. It was only the following year in which a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas was famously investigated for profiting from selling fetal tissues, both by Congress and state officials. Even ABC’s prime-time news program 20/20 covered the controversy, conducting its own investigation.
Last year, Canada was again in the abortion and fetal-parts spotlight, when an abortion clinic shipped dead babies labeled as “medical waste” to Oregon. There, the babies were used as a source of energy in an incinerator.
This grisly tale quickly ended, as Oregon officials shut down the program.
Europe has seen its own share of horrific practices. In 2006, a clinic in the Netherlands was harvesting babies at 12 weeks’ gestation so that wealthy British women could have beauty treatments. Likewise, a clinic in Ukraine did the same for Russian women, and in that country, prematurely born babies may have been sold for parts.
As Congress’s investigations formally kick off next week, there are at least three illegal activities they should examine. The first is whether the harvesting itself was done for profit, which seems pretty clear. A second potential violation is conducting partial-birth abortions, which is a practice banned by a law upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2007. A final violation is changing how an abortion is done to get fetal organs, which multiple videos have shown to be a regular practice at Planned Parenthood.
Lawbreaking by Planned Parenthood is, of course, nothing new. More than six years of undercover videos from Live Action have highlighted the organization’s employees choosing to cover up statutory rape and illegally hide that information from state authorities. Likewise, employees have ignored reporting requirements when people posing as pimps and trafficked women have asked for abortions.
It’s long past time for Planned Parenthood and its allies to stop forcing taxpayers to pay for the killing of the unborn — both in the United States and elsewhere.
John-Henry Westen is a cofounder of Voice of the Family, an influential international coalition of pro-life and pro-family groups, which defends life and family in the media. He is also a cofounder of LifeSiteNews.com, a leading daily news website on life and family issues.
Editor’s note: the PanAm Post, as a publication, does not take a stance on abortion.
