Hire More Heroes Act of 2015--Continued

Floor Speech

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PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, last week I began a thorough examination of the facts in the case of Planned Parenthood and the scandal that is now engulfing our Nation's largest provider of abortions. Today I wish to review briefly the evidence against Planned Parenthood--evidence brought to light thanks to whistleblowers and the conscientious journalists working with an organization called the Center for Medical Progress.

After hearing that Planned Parenthood, in addition to performing almost 1,000 abortions every single day, was also selling the organs and body parts of its victims, CMP began investigating. CMP's investigation, which it calls the Human Capital Project, lasted for more than 2 years. Its findings have finally been published over the last few months in the form of a series of video documentaries posted on the Internet consisting mostly of interviews and undercover reporting of Planned Parenthood officials and facilities.

The videos have sparked debate and controversy and have thrown the abortion industry and its political clients back on their heels. But thanks to an indefensible coverage blackout in the pro-abortion mainstream media, most Americans have never even heard of, much less seen, these videos. Based on the vote the Senate took last month, and in particular based on the lack of substance coming from the other side of the aisle during that debate, it is a good bet that most of our colleagues defending Planned Parenthood haven't seen those videos, either. So I thought it might do some good to at least get the facts into the Congressional Record before we move forward.

To date, 10 of the expected 12 videos have been posted on the home page for the Center for Medical Progress. The first video was posted on July 14 and showed a luncheon meeting between CMP investigators posing as corporate buyers of fetal organs and Planned Parenthood's senior director of medical services. In the course of this business lunch, we learn from the senior Planned Parenthood official's own words that Planned Parenthood clinics traffic in the body parts of aborted children as a matter of routine; that Planned Parenthood keeps these transactions at the local franchise level for legal reasons that appear to be designed to sidestep corporate liability; that Planned Parenthood's abortionists may alter their surgical procedures--allegedly after consent forms have been signed--so as to maximize the organ harvest from unborn children. This was the infamous moment when we learned that Planned Parenthood doctors can ``crush below'' and ``crush above'' a baby's most lucrative parts. Finally, we learned that such alterations may involve performing dangerous and illegal partial-birth abortions.

These revelations by themselves--in and of themselves, all by themselves--shock the conscience, but they were only the beginning. In the Center for Medical Progress's second video released on July 21, we witness another undercover business lunch with investigators again posing as corporate organ buyers, this time with the president of Planned Parenthood's Medical Director's Council. What we see in this video, contrary to Planned Parenthood's protestations, is without question a financial negotiation about the price of baby organs. They are not talking about compensating Planned Parenthood for procurement and delivery costs; no, they are haggling. As the official herself, a medical doctor, jokes at one point, ``I want a Lamborghini.''

In another video released August 4, the vice president and medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains is seen not only discussing exactly this kind of market pricing but the need to conceal such transactions through message discipline. Here we learn that Planned Parenthood physicians do indeed alter their surgical procedures ``in a way that they get the best specimens''--that is, not to serve their patients but to maximize their sales numbers--because, as this vice president boasts, ``My department contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization.''

Subsequent videos have only corroborated these allegations. From the CEO of StemExpress, a major corporate buyer of fetal body parts, we learned that, yes, the price of fetal tissue is driven by supply and demand, not just cost reimbursements. And sometimes this market goes beyond organs and tissue and actually traffics in whole unborn children.

From a fetal tissue producer, we learned that sometimes babies are born alive and are killed outside the womb because, she says, it just fell out. Just this week, a new video showed a Planned Parenthood official admitting that some abortion clinics ``generate a fair amount of income selling baby organs.'' And these are just the undercover videos.

Other videos feature the heart-wrenching testimony of a former StemExpress employee who tells the harrowing stories of her work inside Planned Parenthood clinics. She tells not only of the screaming and crying of the patients but also witnessing unethical behavior by the medical staff. And, yes, the videos also contain horrifying, behind-the-scenes images at Planned Parenthood centers where the exploitation, butchering, and violence are worse than anything one can imagine. The images and stories will pierce the heart of anyone who has a child or has ever been one. But that is exactly why we must watch these videos. For those who don't already know what abortion clinics are like and what they do, these videos must be seen to be believed.

For anyone who has ever wondered why so many Members of Congress, so many citizens want to transfer taxpayer funding of abortion clinics to safe community health centers that actually practice life-preserving medicine as proposed in the bill recently introduced by Senator Ernst, watch these videos and you will know. Watch these videos and you will understand.

Every new video brings further corroboration not simply of particular instances of blood-chilling behavior but of what appears to be a pattern and practice of endangering vulnerable women by manipulating surgical procedures after consent forms have already been signed to perform abortions in a ``less crunchy'' way, for purposes not of women's health but greed; to harvest organs from aborted children and sell them to corporate purchasers; and to conduct this grisly business in secret to avoid public detection and outrage and, quite possibly, criminal indictment--yes, indictment.

That--the potential crimes of the abortion industry evidenced in these videos--will be the topic of my next speech on this scandal, for the behavior documented by the Center for Medical Progress is not just stomach-turning--it is that, to be sure, but it may well also be illegal, violating not only the moral laws of nature and of nature's God, which we already knew, but also the criminal laws of the United States of America.

I would encourage my colleagues and all Americans to view these videos for themselves so that they, too, can judge for themselves. We should all be warned: The videos are as difficult to watch as they are easy to find, but the price of self-government is self-awareness.

The American people need to know the truth about what actually goes on in America's abortion clinics, what lies are being told, and what crimes are being committed in their name and with their own money. The truth about human life and dignity has the power to set us all free, but first, we have to tell it.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

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