11 Questions Lawmakers Want Answered in Planned Parenthood Probe

Lawmakers on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are investigating how Planned Parenthood uses federal funds.

Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are investigating how Planned Parenthood is using the federal funds that the organization receives.

Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent letters to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Planned Parenthood President and CEO Cecile Richards inquiring about Planned Parenthood’s “potentially unlawful transactions involving fetal tissue.”

Undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress depict Planned Parenthood staffers discussing the price “per specimen” of fetal organs. Planned Parenthood has denied allegations that it profits from its tissue donation program and has called the filmmakers “anti-choice extremists” and their videos “heavily edited.”

In the letters, Chaffetz and Jordan express concern that federal funding may have been used to support “transactions” involving fetal organs and request documents and information regarding federal grants to the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Profiting from the sale of fetal organs is illegal in the United States.

“According to its 2013-14 Annual Report, Planned Parenthood received more than $500 million in government funding in the last fiscal last year alone, accounting for more than 40 percent of the organization’s total revenue,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Burwell. “The Department of Health and Human Services provided a significant portion of the federal funds that Planned Parenthood received. It is not clear whether Planned Parenthood used any federal funds to support transactions involving fetal tissue.”

Read the 11 questions below:

Source: 11 Questions Lawmakers Want Answered in Planned Parenthood Probe