WASHINGTON — Opening long-awaited congressional hearings, a top Republican on Wednesday said an investigation of Planned Parenthood was intended to protect taxpayers from the kind of “horrors” suggested by secretly recorded videos of group officials discussing the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses.
In a session highlighted by partisan clashes, Democrats claimed the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee probe was just the latest in a decades-long effort to curtail abortion rights and was based on deceptively edited videos that show no evidence of wrongdoing.
“The purpose is to smear Planned Parenthood,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
Two months ago, a small group of anti-abortion activists began releasing videos it furtively recorded. Republicans and conservatives say those videos show Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue for profit and violating other federal prohibitions.
The committee chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., dismissed Democratic claims of unfairness.
