Operation Rescue calls for a Special Prosecutor to oversee the Houston Planned Parenthood criminal investigation
ambulance-HoustonPP-lg
Houston, TX – At the request of Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson has opened a criminal investigation into Planned Parenthood’s aborted baby parts trafficking scheme.
This action was prompted by the fifth video released by the Center for Medical Progress that focused on Planned Parenthood’s massive Houston abortion facility, showing not only negotiations for the sale of intact fetuses of 16-22 weeks gestation, but grisly scenes from the “POC Room” featuring technicians rummaging through the dismembered remains of a 18-week aborted baby looking for marketable organs.
“We certainly hoped for criminal investigations and prosecutions of Planned Parenthood for the illegal selling of aborted fetal remains and for using the banned Partial Birth Abortion process that likely resulted in the birth of live infants. However, we are concerned that the investigation will be headed up by Attorney General Devon Anderson, who dropped the ball on a previous abortion-related investigation for which we provided prima facie evidence that babies were intentionally murdered after having been born alive during abortions at another Houston abortion facility,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, who also serves on the Board of the Center for Medical Progress.
Newman was referring to a grand jury investigation of Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen, which took place in the wake the conviction of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell on three counts of murder for intentionally killing babies born alive during abortions. Operation Rescue had worked for months with four former Karpen employees, who provided Operation Rescue will cell phone photos of large aborted babies that bore devastating injuries that could only have been inflicted after birth. [Read Operation Rescue’s original report on Karpen’s activities and view the evidence.]
However, Anderson failed to subpoena the evidence in the custody of Operation Rescue that would have verified that those photos originated from a former abortion worker during her employment with Karpen. Without verifying the photos, it is doubtful that the photos, the most damaging evidence against Karpen, ever reached the grand jury.
Anderson’s grand jury failed to indict Karpen. Since then, he has been barred from committing abortions because he does not qualify for the required hospital privileges. Karpen closed one of his two abortion facilities, but continues to operate the other with the help of an abortionist that does maintain hospital privileges.
“We certainly do not want another prosecutorial fiasco in Houston. We demand that a neutral special prosecutor be appointed to oversee the grand jury investigation of Planned Parenthood. Any investigation should be centered on the facts alone, and not on the personal or political biases of prosecutors,” said Newman.