A Way Out on Planned Parenthood Fight?

Yoder has proposed prohibiting any payment for aborted fetal tissue. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
Yoder has proposed prohibiting any payment for aborted fetal tissue. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
By Steven T. Dennis
Posted September 17, 2015 at 4:04pm

Defunding Planned Parenthood isn’t the only proposal that’s been placed on the table since videos emerged showing top officials at the women’s health group discussing the sale of body parts from aborted fetuses.  

A bill by Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kansas, filed before the August recess would prohibit money or other valuable consideration in return for fetal tissue — directly targeting the issue at hand. “These videos that exposed the practice of selling fetal organs have horrified our nation,” Yoder said in a statement to CQ Roll Call. “No matter where we are from or what political party we belong to, as Americans, everyone deep down knows this is wrong. My bill would close the loophole that is being exploited to traffic fetal organs, remove any incentive for an organization to do this again, and effectively end this barbaric practice.”  

Existing federal law dating to 1993 (and backed then by a bipartisan coalition, including many Republicans) bans profiting from the sale of body parts but allows reimbursement for expenses. Many Republicans, however, say that exception in effect provides an incentive for abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood to perform late-term abortions and use techniques aimed at producing intact brains and other organs from fetuses for money — something discussed extensively in the hours of videos released by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress.  

Asked Thursday whether the administration might consider supporting the Yoder bill as a possible compromise short of defunding, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he wasn’t aware of it and declined to comment on whether the president would consider it.  

Earnest declined to comment specifically on Carly Fiorina’s challenge that the president actually watch the videos, but repeated the administration line that it would not make sense for Republicans to threaten a shutdown over the issue.