A congressional subcommittee targeting abortion providers expects to spend $1.2 million investigating discredited claims about abortion and fetal tissue donation by the year's end, according to a conservative aide in the House, Rewire reports (Grimaldi, Rewire, 7/18).
Background
The subcommittee is the fourth House committee to investigate Planned Parenthood following the release of a series of misleading videos targeting the organization. The subcommittee is allowed to probe, among other topics, federal funding for health care providers who also provide abortion services and providers' practices for abortions later in pregnancy. The subcommittee could recommend changes to laws and regulations based on its findings.
The subcommittee has issued several subpoenas requesting the names of fetal tissue researchers, spurring criticism from medical groups and liberal lawmakers who are concerned that the subpoenas could put researchers, students and medical professionals at risk of antiabortion-rights violence.
Liberal lawmakers in the House have repeatedly criticized the investigation and called for the subcommittee's disbandment. Several advocacy groups have urged the same (Women's Health Policy Report, 7/12).
Subcommittee spending
The conservative aide in the House said the $1.2 million figure represents the subcommittee's projected overall budget for calendar year 2016. According to Rewire, the aide's announcement is the first time conservative lawmakers have disclosed the amount of public funding being allocated to the investigation.
The Committee on House Administration approved $790,000 -- or about 80 percent of the chamber's funding reserves -- for the investigation. The committee initially transferred $300,000 to the subcommittee in 2015.
According to Rewire, the projected budget indicates there is a shortfall in funding between $410,000 and $710,000. However, the congressional aide said conservative lawmakers expect a shortfall of $450,000.
According to the aide, lawmakers have not yet determined how to make up for the shortfall. The aide said conservative lawmakers would have to find the funding by Dec. 1.
Comments
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), the ranking member on the subcommittee, criticized the investigation following the project budget disclosure. Conservative lawmakers "continue to waste taxpayer dollars recycling inflammatory and thoroughly discredited allegations of anti-abortion extremists," she said.
Schakowsky added, "The [subcommittee] started with a lie, and has been conducted to perpetuate that lie through manufactured, misleading 'evidence' and suppression of facts that run contrary to [conservative lawmakers'] predetermined narrative. It would be bad enough if this were just a waste of taxpayer time and money. But this Panel is putting women's health care and life-saving research at risk. America deserves better. Speaker Ryan can and should stop this witch hunt now" (Rewire, 7/18).
