Democrats Say GOP Is on a 'Witch Hunt' Over Planned Parenthood Fetal Tissue Subpoenas 

By JE Reich  |  March 3, 2016 | 3:50am
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The investigation over Planned Parenthood supplying fetal tissue for medical research is officially in full swing—and Democrats are already crying “witch hunt” over measures introduced at the March 2 committee hearing.

GOP members of the House at the panel have requested the names of medical researchers involved in the kerfuffle, which was exposed en masse to the American public last year when video footage of a meeting about Planned Parenthood’s involvement went viral. The subpoenaed documents currently in discussion were demanded after GOP lawmakers claimed information necessary for the House committee was being withheld.

The request has sparked voluminous criticism from Democrat Members, who insist that including these names would put the lives of medical researchers in danger if they were to be made public—or, as Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat from New York put it, make Members of the House possibly “complicit” in any harm, even murder, that could hypothetically befall the researchers.

(Yup—“witch hunt” sounds about 100 percent correct. Pretty awful.)

The potentially affected parties include Southwestern Women’s Options, the name of an abortion clinic in New Mexico, and Stem Express, a “stem cell procurement firm,” according to The Hill.

When directly asked about the utility of including the names in the subpoena, “avert at all costs” was the name of the game. Republican rep Marsha Blackburn answered, “No, sir, I am not going to answer that.”

The same meeting in which the Democrats likened the inclusion of names in the subpoenas to McCarthy-era tactics, the reps made attempts to block the subpoenas, but were unsuccessful after a motion that lost 8-6.

The news comes the same day as the Arizona House passed a bill that will make it easier to bar abortion clinics from public funding through Medicaid in the state.

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Image via Getty.

 
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