Abortion Rights Advocates Cry Foul at New Step in Fetal Tissue Inquiry
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — A special House committee empaneled to investigate fetal tissue research is preparing to issue 17 subpoenas to medical supply companies and laboratories, seeking the names of researchers, graduate students, laboratory technicians and administrative personnel — and prompting charges of intimidation.
Abortion rights advocates and some university officials say the House investigation into how some of the nation’s most prestigious universities acquire fetal tissue threatens to endanger the lives of scientists, doctors and their staff. The new subpoenas will only escalate a battle that some researchers fear could shut down studies seeking cures for Parkinson’s disease, the Zika virus and a host of other conditions.
Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, who opposes most fetal tissue research because of its association with abortion, intends to issue the subpoenas on behalf of the Republicans on the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives. The panel was created to investigate fetal tissue research after the release of surreptitiously recorded videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to profit illegally from the sale of such tissue.
Twenty states have cleared Planned Parenthood or decided not to investigate; few affiliates nationwide were engaged in fetal tissue transfers. The videographers were indicted in Texas. On Thursday, a federal lawsuit by Planned Parenthood and its California affiliates alleging fraud, illegal recording, trespassing and invasion of privacy was broadened and joined by affiliates in Colorado, Texas and Louisiana that were implicated in the covert videos.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/us/politics/house-seeks-names-of-fetal-tissue-researchers-prompting-claims-of-intimidation.html
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No one on the list is going to testify. They will all plead the fifth. If Blackburn and cohorts are trying to prove fetal tissue was SOLD vs. reimbursement fees, then that would be a crime perpetuated by all parties involved. That is to say that the Universities, personnel and laboratories would ALL be complicit and therefore, subject to prosecution. How well is that going to go over with the public.....GOP arresting and attempting to prosecute scientists, students, research assistants from Harvard, Yale, John Hopkins, etc. 
