A congressional probe into whether or not businesses profited from aborted baby body parts should scream big news. But not so for the three broadcast networks.
On Wednesday, the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives Subcommittee held a hearing on “The Pricing of Fetal Tissue.” The networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, didn’t say a word about the hearing during their morning and evening news shows following the event.
The congressional investigation on the harvesting of aborted baby parts began after the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a series of undercover videos last summer.
As representatives argued back and forth, House Republicans publicized documents that suggested businesses illegally profited from the trafficking of aborted baby parts for research.
The purpose of the hearing, according to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) who leads the committee, was to “examine business documents, invoices, marketing brochures, and management documents that reveal one for-profit procurement business and several abortion clinics may have acted in violation of federal law by profiting from the sale of baby body parts, organs and tissues.”
Last November, MRC Culture found that the six Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Select Investigative Panel had received more than $81,000 from Planned Parenthood.
When it comes to CMP's undercover videos, the networks refrain from covering congressional hearings – unless they star Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards.
But while the networks remained silent during their news shows Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, several pro-life organizations reacted to the hearing.
“The documents made public by the Select Panel confirm David Daleiden's findings from undercover videos exposing baby organ harvesting and sale,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement released yesterday. “Procurement companies like StemExpress market themselves to abortion clinics by explicitly offering them chances to make money. The documents make clear there is absolutely no cost to the abortion clinic so that all monies received go to their bottom line.”
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, addressed Planned Parenthood in her statement.
“The evidence presented publicly today not only vindicates David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), but implicates Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood,” she stressed, “who said in sworn testimony to Congress that her organization made no money from selling baby body parts.”
“In reality – the reality that everyone lives in besides the abortion industry – Planned Parenthood made significant income over the past five years selling the body parts of the babies they aborted,” Hawkins added.
Arina Grossu, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, continued, “It's time to get to the bottom of Planned Parenthood's black market of baby body parts. We need an answer to the question raised last month by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.): 'Have we reached a point in our society where there effectively is an Amazon.com for human parts, including entire babies?'”
Methodology: MRC Culture searched the evening news shows (April 20) and the morning news shows (April 21) from three broadcast networks, ABC, CBS and NBC.
