Group sues to block public records info on Planned Parenthood’s fetal parts partnership with university

Pro-abortion group Legal Voice is suing the University of Washington, Family Policy Institute, and Center for Medical Progress to thwart the groups’ attempts to obtain public records that could shed light on UW’s relationship with Planned Parenthood’s possible sale of aborted fetal remains.

“We know that Planned Parenthood and the University of Washington have a relationship,” said FPI’s Joseph Backholm “What are the invoices? What are the contracts?”

Such records could shed light on Planned Parenthood’s oft-repeated claim that its tissue program facilitated nothing more than “donations,” rather than illegal profits as indicated by Planned Parenthood officials caught on tape by CMP’s undercover videos released last year.

However, Legal Voice justifies its resistance by arguing such a release would also include the identities of personnel involved. Backholm disputes that, saying, “We’re not looking for information on people. We’re looking for information about connections between entities and whether money was exchanged for human body parts.”

The Center for Medical Progress has also released a statement in response:

Last October, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards hailed the partnership between Planned Parenthood Greater Washington & North Idaho and the University of Washington as the exemplary model of their new program for profit-neutral baby parts harvesting. Numerous headlines proclaimed Planned Parenthood’s new “policy change” purporting to stop receiving payment for fetal body parts, after CMP’s videos had revealed Planned Parenthood’s senior leadership callously negotiating the harvest and sale of tiny baby hearts, lungs, and brains for profit.

Over the past year, the American people have watched as Planned Parenthood has scrambled to distract the public and public authorities from the scandal—even while Planned Parenthood has failed to answer the most basic questions about their baby body parts program. What is Planned Parenthood hiding about their new model baby parts program at the University of Washington? The American people, whose tax dollars make this entire barbaric industry possible, deserve to know the truth.

A hearing on the matter is set for later this in August.