Planned Parenthood fetal tissue controversy is pure B.S.

Planned Parenthood is a great organization. Thankfully, a ridiculous attempt to defund it failed in the Senate today. 

Senate Republicans’ latest ploy to choke off all federal funding to Planned Parenthood failed, as expected, on Monday afternoon in a 53-46 procedural vote. The measure fell short of the 60 votes needed to move it forward.

It shouldn’t have been anywhere near that close.

But the perennial conservative effort to cripple the nation’s largest family-planning organization got a boost last month from a string of grainy, edited undercover videos released by an anti-abortion group, and purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the illegal sale of fetal tissue.

Of course, despite the group’s efforts to misrepresent the executives’ comments, the complete videos in fact show that there is neither illegality nor profit in what Planned Parenthood does. As one representative explained on tape repeatedly (and as at least two state investigations have confirmed), the organization follows federal law in allowing women to donate fetal tissue for research, and in charging small amounts to cover the costs of storage and shipment.

For decades, fetal tissue has been a critical tool for university and government scientists studying diseases including diabetes, muscular dystrophy and H.I.V. The National Institutes of Health give out $76 million in grant money annually for such research.

It’s infuriating when conservatives lie, lie, lie.

Planned Parenthood hasn’t broken any laws. It is providing valuable health services to women. What’s immoral are the right-to-life and GOP liars who knowingly spout falsehoods about the organization.

This video does a good job of explaining what the much-ado-about-nothing Planned Parenthood controversy is all about. (It’s worth sitting through the 30 second ad at the beginning.)