After Iowa Governor Calls for Bible-Reading Marathon, Groups Threaten to Sue

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Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad is encouraging citizens of his state to spend more time reading the Bible by calling for a Bible-reading marathon. And now a couple of organizations are threatening to sue over what they believe is a violation of the separation between church and state.

Branstad, a Republican, signed a proclamation encouraging Iowans to read the Bible on a daily basis “each year until the Lord comes” and to participate in a 99 county Bible reading marathon from June 30 to July 3.

The Bible reading marathon is set to take place with Bible scripture read out loud in front of the courthouses in all of Iowa’s 99 counties. Several Christian-based groups, including the Iowa Prayer Caucus, are organizing the events. Some of the events will include prayers every 15 minutes, The Des Moines Register reported.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation have criticized the proclamation and are considering suing, The Des Moines Register reported.

“The Governor’s proclamation is frankly outrageous and embarrassing, and inconsistent with our core American and Iowan principles of inclusion and respect of all its people of all faiths, as well as those who are not religious,” ACLU of Iowa Legal Director Rita Bettis said in a statement to The Daily Signal.

Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor told The Daily Signal that her organization, an atheist and agnostic nonprofit based in Madison, Wisconsin, is asking Branstad to rescind the proclamation.

“It’s totally beyond the purview of a governor or any public official to request that people read the Bible, much less that they engage in a Bible marathon or that they read any ‘holy book,’” Gaylor told The Daily Signal. She added: “Government is supposed to be neutral towards religion. It’s not supposed to play favorites.”

Gaylor says the proclamation is “unconstitutional” and “egregious” and that her organization is “hoping to sue.”

“We have a godless, secular Constitution,” Gaylor said. “There’s no Bible in it.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to Branstad on Wednesday saying that the proclamation sends a message that “Iowa prefers and endorses the Christian faith over other religions and over nonreligion,” of which the organization says violates the separation of church and state.

Branstad says he was “shocked” to have groups threaten to sue him over the Bible reading proclamation.

“Virtually every president since Abraham Lincoln has signed proclamations encouraging prayers and Bible reading right on through including President Obama,” Branstad told WHO Radio. He added: “Other governors, of both parties, have done this.”

Branstad told WHO Radio that First Liberty Institute, a legal organization that exclusively defends Americans’ religious freedom, “has offered to defend us” if sued. Branstad said:

I feel very confident based on the information they [First Liberty Institute] provided me that we will be successful if they’re stupid enough to file the lawsuit. It may be just a threat or an effort for them to raise money from left-wing groups, but I just think this is absurd to threaten a public official for doing something good to encourage people to read the Bible or to pray.

“The governor has every right to issue this proclamation,” Hiram Sasser, deputy chief counsel for First Liberty Institute, said in an emailed statement to The Daily Signal. “These types of proclamations have been issued by governors and presidents since the days of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Whenever courts are asked to address these proclamations, the courts have routinely thrown the cases out because, since no one is injured by them, no one has standing to sue over them. So Gov. Branstad’s proclamation is beyond judicial question.”

The executive director of The Family Leader Ambassador Network, Greg Baker, wrote that Branstad’s proclamation is “clearly constitutional.” The Family Leader, the umbrella organization for The Family Leader Ambassador Network, is based in Urbandale, Iowa, and is on a mission “inspiring Christ-like leadership in the home, the church, and the government.”

“In fact, Gov. Branstad’s proclamation echoes Benjamin Franklin’s suggestion at the very Constitutional Convention itself that an appeal to God needed to be made for His intervention and that each day of the Convention must begin in prayer,” Baker wrote. “Or when President Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural address boldly proclaimed that God was judging America for its sins and in order for the Civil War to end, America need to repent.”

Branstad told WHO Radio that Iowa Prayer Caucus State Director Ginny Caligiuri had approached him about doing this particular proclamation.

Caligiuri defended the marathon in an email to The Daily Signal:

The separation of church and state was to protect the church from the state, not the state from the church. It was to protect our nation from coming under the rule of one particular denomination, such as happened in Great Britain, not to keep men and women of faith out of the government.

“We are reading the Word of God on the grounds of our courthouses,” she added, “because we as a nation have turned from our biblical foundations and our nation is in big trouble.” (For more from the author of “After Iowa Governor Calls for Bible-Reading Marathon, Groups Threaten to Sue” please click HERE)

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Hillary’s First Stop as Nominee – a Planned Parenthood Abortion Conference

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Hillary Clinton’s very first campaign event since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee will be a speech for Planned Parenthood, America’s number one abortion provider.

Planned Parenthood has endorsed Clinton for president saying she would “always defend” taxpayer funding for the organization, according to a press release by the Susan B. Anthony List. The abortion organization receives over $500 million in federal funding every year and accounts for one-third of all abortions in the U.S.

In response to the news, the Susan B. Anthony List called Clinton’s visit “revealing”:

“It’s revealing that Hillary Clinton’s first major stop as the Democratic presumptive nominee would be to Planned Parenthood, the leader of the deep-pocketed abortion industry. Clinton has put abortion at the center of her campaign and has said the ‘unborn person has no constitutional rights.’

“What Clinton does not realize is that on the issue of life, the majority of Americans – including majorities of young people and women – stand with us, not her. Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion and support a compassionate limit on abortion after five months. She has staked out her turf far outside the mainstream. We welcome this opportunity to engage and expose her, confident the American people will reject her abortion ideology at the ballot box.”

It’s actually quite fitting that Clinton, who is currently under “criminal investigation” for her use of a private email server, will be speaking in support of Planned Parenthood, an organization recently under investigation for their alleged illegal sale of baby body parts.

In contrast to Clinton’s attendance at a pro-abortion Planned Parenthood conference, conservatives are defending religious liberty at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event. The event, Road to Majority 2016, will run through Saturday, June 11th. (For more from the author of “Hillary’s First Stop as Nominee – a Planned Parenthood Abortion Conference” please click HERE)

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Power Play? Kansas Supreme Court Threatens to Shut down Schools

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A 40-year-old funding fight that touches questions of the proper separation of government powers has reached fever pitch in the state of Kansas. The state Supreme Court has threatened to shut down public schools should the state legislature fail to appropriate an additional $38 million in funds by the court mandated deadline of June 30.

The court ruled in May that the state’s $4 billion block grant appropriation of school funding was “inequitable and unconstitutional,” giving the legislature its deadline to rework the school financing. The court issued its proclamation at 4:55pm on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, the last weekend before the legislature adjourned for 2016.

The block grant program was adopted as a temporary replacement of a decades old program of school finance that was causing automatic spending increases Kansas Republicans deemed wasteful. In scrapping the old program for a block grant program, the court decided Governor Brownback and the Kansas legislature had violated the state constitution.

Governor Brownback has proclaimed a special session of the legislature to begin June 23 — two weeks from now, to resolve the finance issue. In a statement released by the Governor’s office, Brownback said it was “distressing that the Kansas Supreme Court has put the schools and legislature of Kansas in this position over less than 1 percent of school funding.”

The Legal Problem

The Supreme Court found that Governor Brownback’s block grant funding program violated the Kansas state constitution because it did not provide “equitable and adequate” funding for Kansas schools.

Article 6, Section 6 of the Kansas constitution requires that “The legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.” Historically, the courts in Kansas have defined the word “suitable” to mean “equitable and adequate.”

The Wichita Eagle, reporting on the court’s May decision, explained how the court decided Governor Brownback’s block grant program didn’t meet the “equitability requirement” of the Kansas constitution.

“The reason was that it contained a “hold harmless” provision that guaranteed the bill wouldn’t reduce local option budget funding for any school district, although the vast majority wouldn’t get any more. The local option budget, or LOB, is money that voters can elect to tax themselves to provide extra funding for their own schools.

Inequity creeps in because property-rich districts can easily raise large sums of money with relatively small increases in their tax rate. Not so for the poor districts, where it takes a large jump in property tax rates to generate comparable income for the schools.”

“It is unfortunate that the Kansas Supreme Court has put at risk the education of Kansas students and livelihood of teachers across the state by threatening to close schools on June 30,” Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said in a statement. “The court is engaging in political brinksmanship with this ruling, and the cost will be borne by our students.”

The Funding Fight

Governor Brownback’s administration has been characterized by fiscal restraint. The growth of government spending in Kansas was reduced to 1.7%, which is less than half of the growth rate under Brownback’s predecessor, Democrat Kathleen Sebelius. Executive agency employees were reduced 25% and Brownback slashed cabinet level spending across the board.

And Brownback’s administration accomplished this while signing into law the largest tax cut in the state’s history.

Yet education has remained a top priority of Brownback’s administration and education funding has remained at record levels despite cuts to spending elsewhere.

In his 2015 State of the State address, Governor Brownback issued a call to reform the school finance process. “For decades now, Kansas has struggled under a school finance formula which is designed not to be understood,” the Governor said. “A formula designed to lock in automatic, massive increases in spending unrelated to actual student populations or improved student achievement.”

Governor Brownback’s office provided Conservative Review with a copy of the archaic and complex formula used to determine school finance appropriations in the state of Kansas, for much of the past 20 years.

2014 2015 k12 school funding formula

In his State of the State, Brownback called for a “timeout in the school finance wars,” a repeal of the old formula, and he proposed a simple program of block-grant funding for two years as a temporary solution to the state’s education finance woes. Brownback’s plan froze school funding at FY 2013-2014 levels until the legislature could develop a new scheme to replace that archaic and confounding mess of a budget formula.

The Republican controlled legislature passed the block grant scheme, and state Democrats assailed them for doing so, accusing the Brownback administration of slashing funds for education. But that’s not accurate.

Kansas is actually investing a record $4 billion in K-12 education. The state spends the 3rd most on education of any state in the country as a percent of the state budget: 50%. Kansas spends about $1000 more per pupil than the national average of state education spending. Increases in education funding have outpaced both inflation and enrollment growth.

kansasschoolbudget

The additional $38 million the state Supreme Court is ordering is less than 1% of the funds already appropriated to Kansas schools.

The specific fund in question, Local Operating Budget Equalization, goes to property tax relief, which does not affect the ability of schools to fund their classroom operations. It is this particular fund that the Supreme Court says is creating the “inequitably” that violates Kansas’ state constitution.

A Separation of Powers Issue

At the heart of the matter is a simple question. What does “suitable funding” mean? And which branch of government gets to answer that question?

Responding to a request for comment, Eileen Hawley, a spokeswoman for the governor, said “other courts have faced a similar question. The Texas Supreme Court correctly recognized that the Constitution guarantees the power of the purse to the Legislature, stating ‘accordingly, we decline to usurp legislative authority by issuing reform diktats from on high, supplanting lawmakers’ policy wisdom with our own.”

Supporters of Governor Brownback’s block grant scheme argue it is the legislative branch, the branch invested with the power of the purse, that should decide what funding is “suitable” when it appropriates funds.

Governor Brownback has indicated he is open to the legislature granting the court’s request for an additional $38 million in funds, though he views the excess government spending as unnecessary. Yet his administration seems to wish to keep in mind the constitutional separation of powers, telling Conservative Review that the governor would “welcome any alternatives that the legislature may propose.”

Hawley added, however, that it is “unlikely that the Court will uphold any action without an increase in funding.” (For more from the author of “Power Play? Kansas Supreme Court Threatens to Shut down Schools” please click HERE)

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Where’s the Media Outrage Over Hillary’s $12K Armani Jacket?

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There was no liberal outrage when news broke that Hillary Clinton wore a $12,000 Giorgio Armani spring tweed jacket during her New York Primary victory speech in April. Clinton even dared to stress inequality in her speech – was not her own conscience screaming?

But where is the liberal media now?

You may recall during the 2012 presidential election the liberal media’s obsession with casting Mitt Romney as a rich, out of touch patrician, indifferent towards the little guy.

When Mitt’s wife, Ann Romney, wore a designer blouse costing $990 to a campaign event they could not contain themselves.

A stunning example of such was an article for the Washington Post by Suzi Parker titled “Ann Romney’s $990 T-shirt is indicative of a tone-deaf campaign.”

“Does Ann Romney wear her $990 designer shirt while driving one of her two Cadillacs?” Parker began her rant.

“Ann’s pricey shirt will not help her husband change those perceptions, no matter how many Laundromat photo ops are on the campaign’s daily itinerary. Romney’s wardrobe choice could haunt the campaign indefinitely. If it were a solid color, the designer tee might have been forgotten after awhile. But the yellow bird print is unique enough to become emblematic of wealth that most Americans could only wish to have.”

Later Parker said that the Romneys should not be ashamed of their wealth, but suggested, “maybe it’s time to buy something off the rack at a lower-end store.”

Similar critiques of Hillary Clinton are impermissible, however. Rachel Lubitz, writing an op-ed for Time Magazine even labeled it “sexist” to call out Clinton for wearing the Armani jacket while lecturing on inequality.

That’s just high fashion hypocrisy. (For more from the author of “Where’s the Media Outrage Over Hillary’s $12K Armani Jacket?” please click HERE)

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UCLA PROVES ONCE AGAIN: Gun-Free Zones Are Magnets for Murderers

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You say someone violated a newly defined “gun-free zone” to shoot innocents at UCLA?

Impossible! Preposterous! Outrageous!

Economist-slash-statisticians Tim Groseclose and John Lott, Jr. explain (more patiently than I could) for the mentally defective and the Left, but I repeat myself.

The fatal shooting at UCLA wasn’t supposed to happen. Late last year, California passed a ban on people being able to carry a permitted concealed handgun on college campuses. California instituted the ban despite the previous rule being in effect for over 100 years without a single example of any problem.

Both of the authors here have taught at UCLA, and we don’t take these arguments lightly… The shooting last week at the campus engineering building took place only about 400 yards from the UCLA police station. But despite police being so important in stopping crime, this case again illustrated a simple fact: Police virtually always arrive on a crime scene after the crime occurs.

…Since at least 1950, all but three public mass shootings in America have taken place where general citizens are [unconstitutionally] banned from carrying guns. In Europe, there have been no exceptions. Every mass public shooting has occurred in places where general citizens are not allowed to have guns. And Europe is no stranger to mass shootings, with a fatality rate virtually the same as that in the U.S…

…Those advocating gun-free zones argue that permit holders will accidentally shoot bystanders. Or that arriving police will shoot anyone with a gun, including the permit holders. At colleges, fears are raised that students will get drunk and misuse guns.

Out of the dozens of cases where concealed-carry holders have stopped shootings in malls, churches, schools, universities and busy downtowns, no permit holder has ever shot a bystander. Nor in these cases have the police ever accidentally shot a permit holder.

Gun-free zones are a magnet for murderers. Even the most ardent gun control advocate would never put “Gun-Free Zone” signs on their home. Let’s finally stop putting them elsewhere.

(For more from the author of “UCLA PROVES ONCE AGAIN: Gun-Free Zones Are Magnets for Murderers” please click HERE)

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School District Grapples With the Transgender Debate

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A few short miles outside of Washington, D.C., a public school community appears divided over a policy that allows transgender students to use the bathrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-specific facilities in accordance with their gender identity.

Supporters view it as a positive step in the name of equality, while opponents view it as an infringement on the privacy and safety rights of the rest of the students.

In some ways, this community, Fairfax County, Virginia, has been ground zero for the transgender issue. Last spring, a year before the Obama administration issued guidance mandating that transgender students be granted access to facilities that match their gender identity, the Fairfax County School Board passed its own transgender non-discrimination policy.

This has made Fairfax County a test case, in some ways, of what’s to come with the Obama administration’s new transgender policy.

To find out how the community is dealing with the issue, The Daily Signal attended a Fairfax County School Board meeting, where we spoke with people on both sides of the debate. Watch the video to hear their response. (For more from the author of “School District Grapples With the Transgender Debate” please click HERE)

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Katie Couric Accused of Deceptive Editing in Second Documentary

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Katie Couric’s 2014 documentary Fed Up includes instances of deceptive editing similar to 2016’s Under the Gun, according to several people familiar with the making of the film.

Fed Up, which focuses on obesity and the food industry, was directed by Stephanie Soechtig and produced by Couric. The film includes two interviews with figures who hold viewpoints counter to the narrative of the film, and sources say both interviews include at least one misleading or deceptive edit intended to embarrass the interviewee.

Dr. David Allison, an interview subject in the film and the director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center, says he was a victim of shoddy journalism. “What she did to me is antithetical to not only just human decency and civility but it is antithetical to the spirit of science and democratic dialogue,” he told the Washington Free Beacon.

After a brief exchange in the film between Allison and Couric over whether or not sugary beverages contribute more to obesity than other foods, Couric asks Allison about the science behind his objections. Allison then begins to explain before stumbling and asking Couric if he could pause to “get his thoughts together.”

Allison said Couric had told him it would be all right to pause and gather his thoughts at any point during the interview if he felt he needed to. (Read more from “Katie Couric Accused of Deceptive Editing in Second Documentary” HERE)

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Sorry Miss USA, but Direct Combat Is Not a Beauty Pageant Stage

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Deshauna Barber is a first lieutenant in the Army Reserves and is getting a flurry of attention for her comment during the Miss USA pageant about women in combat roles. Her statements demonstrated little forethought on the issue, but, hey, why let the reality of direct ground combat against the likes of ISIS ruin a good “I am woman, hear me roar” moment? And hey, getting on the women-in-combat feminist bandwagon may have clinched her the Miss USA crown.

When asked about her thoughts on women in combat roles, the IT analyst from North Washington D.C. said, “As a commander of my unit, I am powerful. I am dedicated and it is important that we recognize that gender does not limit us in the United States Army.” And “I think it was an amazing job by our government to allow women to integrate to every branch of the military … We are just as tough as men.”

I confess that I don’t know what being an IT analyst in the weekend-warrior Army Reserves is like. I do know about IT in the Marines, and both being a Marine and supporting communications for deployed Marines is much harder, but it still ain’t direct ground combat. I’ve no doubt that Lt. Barber is powerful and dedicated, and a valuable — not to mention beautiful — addition to our Armed Forces. But she hasn’t trained and competed with male infantry. Her job in the Army reserves does not include orders to serve with men in the combat arms, and she knows nothing about it.

We have ample empirical data on the question of women in combat roles from recent testing, not to mention hundreds of years of experience learning what helps and what hinders victory in battle.

Barber will never bear the consequences of what she so mindlessly advocates. She’d be the one they shoot first as an easy target. And so beautiful, in her bikini and dangly earrings, or her be-makeuped soft-focus selfie in uniform. Not distracting at all. ISIS is not just laughing at us. They’re licking their chops at our self-imposed weakness. But we have our Charlie’s Angel delivering the Obama party line. She’s won the beauty pageant; just wait ‘til she starts her acting career.

Firebrand Gunnery Sergeant (Ret) Jessie Jane Duff, who served two decades in the Marines and advocates strongly that we should not diminish our combat readiness, had some choice tweets for the young LT:

In a recent interview Duff added this:

This was an ideal opportunity for her to stand up and stand for the enlisted women who will die in mass quantity in combat … She’s missing the entire data … Yes, we’re as mentally tough as men, but all data demonstrates that the women are performing at the bottom 25th percentile with men in infantry units. We’re setting them up for failure. Her speech, what she said was perfect if she had just closed with, “We should not lift a blanket policy without evaluating this closer because this isn’t about equality … this is about combat readiness and the mission is first.” That would have gotten just as much applause and people would have celebrated her for defending the women that have to go out there and perform with these men … Hand to hand combat? There is no equality in it. The men will decimate women in hand-to-hand combat.

This week we commemorate the 72nd anniversary of D-Day. Our reflections on young men storming the beaches of Normandy should remind us of the importance of defining precisely what is involved in “direct ground combat.” It’s great that Barber feels powerful, but the truth is that physically she’s a twig, and ISIS, or Iran or North Korea would make mince-meat out of her in five seconds.

She may be as tough as other keyboard commando Army Reservists, but she has no credibility on killing our enemies at point-blank range. She is no authority in comparison to three years and over 50 documents’ worth of scientific testing data submitted by the Marine Corps to the Pentagon, which showed that integrated units underperform on 69% of tasks and women get injured more than twice as much as men. Dedication has little relevance against these realities, which would severely degrade the lethality and survivability of our most elite fighting units.

In our upside-down “now,” where the Left is trying to hammer at us that one’s biological sex is meaningless, Nature simply will not comply, especially in the most violent activity known to mankind. As we’re fighting the most barbaric enemy we’ve ever faced, we need the manliest, most powerful, aggressive, testosterone-laden American alpha males that our taxpayer dollars can buy in order to destroy our enemies and come home quickly and in one piece. Miss USA is a beautiful stick who’d have no chance killing ISIS fighters in hand-to-hand combat.

Deshauna Barber makes a great poster, and now we all know what she looks like underneath her uniform. It’s Combat Barbie Miss USA. But direct ground combat is not a beauty pageant stage. Barber is the media’s latest darling for being a satisfactorily diverse and pretty package delivering the government-approved party line. Meanwhile technology has not alleviated the need for brute strength and speed that women simply don’t provide, and they bring with them serious additional risks that men simply don’t.

Meanwhile, the Senate is voting on whether to subject America’s young daughters to mandatory registration for the draft as combat replacements. The girl next door will not have stunt doubles to fill in for the bloody parts, and for her it won’t be about “a few women who want to.” (For more from the author of “Sorry Miss USA, but Direct Combat Is Not a Beauty Pageant Stage” please click HERE)

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Abortion ‘Spas’: The Left’s Latest Attempt to Glamorize Murdering the Unborn

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A multi-state abortion provider boasting a high-end, “spa-like” experience is attempting to de-stigmatize the procedure through a crowd-funded ad campaign in Atlanta.

Carafem has designed its abortion clinic to look like a spa and offers the women who go there to abort their unborn babies “hot tea” and “comfy robes.” They gained national attention last year for an advertising campaign that some suggested “glamorized” abortion.

Carafem opened its first facility in the greater Washington metro area in spring 2015, boasting comfy chairs and hot tea for women seeking abortions.

“It was important for us to try to present an upgraded, almost spa-like feel,” Melissa S. Grant, vice president of health services for the clinic told the Washington Post.

The organization subsequently announced its capital city arrival with brash, hot pink ads saying “Abortion? Yeah, we do that,” on the D.C. metro system. Now, it hopes to bring the same advertising experience to the Peach State.

For its new location, which open in Atlanta this summer, the abortion provider plans to roll out a “Doors Open Atlanta” campaign, proffering abortion, birth control, and other services to women in the same “bold and unapologetic” hot pink motif, according to a Monday press release.

In addition, Carafem is looking for some extra scratch via Crowdsourcing in order to pay for the ads, LifeNews reports.

The abortion business said its ads have been censored three times; but now it wants to raise enough money to try again. Carafem recently launched a fundraising campaign to pay for ads in Atlanta. The ads are hot pink with emoji images and the word “abortion” printed in bold letters.

“As we just opened our doors in Atlanta and need to get the word out, we thought why not try and shake things up by advertising our services in a major conservative newspaper for a year,” the business wrote.

The message Carafem wants its advertising to convey is that abortion is safe, clean, even caring, all the while letting women know where to get abortions in a way that “normalizes and destigmatizes” the procedure.

“We don’t want to talk in hushed tones. We use the A-word.” Carafem President Christopher Purdy said. “It’s fresh, it’s modern, it’s clean, it’s caring. That’s the brand we’re trying to create.”

Pro-Life groups are up in-arms.

The president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said “Even people who support abortion rights don’t necessarily see it as something to celebrate. They want to think about [abortion] as a necessary evil.” National Right to Life president, Carol Tobias, added, “Abortion is not pleasant and trying to put pretty wrappings around the procedure isn’t going to make any difference.”

Whether an abortion takes place at a run-down Gosnell-like facility or at a “high-end salon,” abortion always, 100% of the time, kills an unborn child and hurts the family involved.

(For more from the author of “Abortion ‘Spas’: The Left’s Latest Attempt to Glamorize Murdering the Unborn” please click HERE)

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StemExpress Sold Baby Body Parts for 4 to 6 Times Cost, House Probe Alleges

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Republicans on a special House panel investigating the market for fetal tissue released new documents that they said show the procurement company StemExpress marked up the price for body parts, organs, and other tissue from aborted babies 400 to 600 percent when selling the samples to researchers.

One example of such markups of four to six times cost is seven brains sold by StemExpress to Yale University School of Medicine for $715 each, according to the documents.

The documents also appear to show that three abortion clinics, including two Planned Parenthood affiliates, illegally granted StemExpress access to personally identifiable information protected under federal privacy law.

And, the documents suggest, the clinics used invalid patient consent forms to obtain permission to harvest body parts from aborted babies.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., chairman of the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, sent two letters Wednesday to the Department of Health and Human Services requesting a “swift and full investigation” into “systemic” violations.

“There’s a business contract between StemExpress and the abortion clinics under which both sides make a profit from the baby body parts inside the young woman’s womb,” Blackburn said in a prepared statement, adding:

The contract changes the way both entities view the young woman: Her baby is now a profit center. This betrayal of a young woman’s trust should disgust us all. It takes financial advantage, obtains consent through coercion, and deceives the woman, all in violation of federal privacy laws.

StemExpress told The Daily Signal that Blackburn is making “continued unfounded accusations.”

Specifically, Blackburn says documents obtained through the panel’s investigation show StemExpress and several abortion clinics violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and federal regulations governing research involving human subjects.

HIPPA is a federal law that gives patients the right to determine where and when their private medical information is disclosed. This includes personally identifiable information such as name, age, and Social Security number, along with any present, future, or past health data.

In her letters, addressed to two officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, Blackburn said several abortion clinics provided StemExpress—which is not covered by HIPPA—with personally identifiable information so that StemExpress could fulfill orders from researchers for tissue from aborted babies.

HIPPA covers abortion clinics such as Planned Parenthood, Blackburn notes.

‘Unfounded Accusations’

In a statement to The Daily Signal, a spokesman for StemExpress said the tissue procurement company is “confident there has been no violation of law and appropriate consents were made for every fetal tissue donation,” adding:

We welcome the opportunity to answer any questions from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or any other agency related to Representative Blackburn’s continued unfounded accusations. StemExpress will continue to support lifesaving research.

The three abortion clinics named in the investigation are all in California: Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in San Jose, Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific in Concord (currently known as Planned Parenthood of Northern California), and Family Planning Specialists Medical Group in Oakland.

The Daily Signal sought comment from the organizations, which did not respond to phone calls before publication of this article.

Blackburn’s letters, first reported by Fox News, ask the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate potential violations of HIPAA and federal regulations pertaining to the fetal tissue market. The letters are addressed to Jocelyn Samuels, director of the Office of Civil Rights, and Jerry Menikoff, director of the Office for Human Research Protections.

In her letters, Blackburn said the Department of Health and Human Services maintains the right to impose civil money penalties on covered entities, such as Planned Parenthood, that fail to comply with the privacy rule.

In addition, Blackburn wrote, “both a covered entity that discloses, and any person who knowingly obtains, [protected health information] in violation of [HIPAA] can face criminal fines or imprisonment.”

Brain Bonuses

Evidence of the House panel’s allegations included StemExpress documents that feature compensation rates for tissue and blood procurement. Effective Jan. 1, 2013, StemExpress paid procurement technicians $10 per hour, plus what the company calls a tissue or blood bonus ranging anywhere from $10 to $75 per specimen.

“StemExpress paid the abortion clinic for each fetal tissue and each blood sample and then marked up the tissue four to six hundred percent for sale to the researcher,” Blackburn wrote.

In one case, in January 2012, StemExpress billed $5,175 to Yale University School of Medicine for seven brains priced at $715 each. The total included two charges of $85 for Fedex priority overnight shipping.

The $715 price per brain, Blackburn’s letter implies, would include the markup of 400 to 600 percent.

According to the StemExpress compensation policy, procurement technicians get a $35 bonus for procuring anywhere from one to 10 fetal brains in addition to their $10 hourly rate.

While transportation costs were included in the documents released by Blackburn’s panel, investigators are seeking to obtain accounting records from StemExpress to further clarify the price discrepancy between the procurement technician’s compensation rates and the total amount billed to research institutions such as Yale.

The Daily Signal sought comment from Yale via email, but has not received a response.

What Is Legal

The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 prohibits any person or organization from profiting from the sale of fetal tissue. However, it is legal to provide payment and accept payment to cover reasonable costs for “transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.”

Lawmakers and pro-life activists raised questions about whether abortion clinics and middleman procurement companies such as StemExpress profit from transactions involving organs, body parts, and other tissue from aborted babies after the Center for Medical Progress released a series of undercover videos last year.

The hidden-camera videos, produced by the center’s David Daleiden, showed officials at Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing the buying and selling of baby body parts and other tissue, raising questions about whether abortion clinics and middlemen companies are profiting off these transactions.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America consistently has denied any wrongdoing and was cleared in multiple state investigations so far. In October, after facing questions about its tissue donation practices, Planned Parenthood announced it no longer would accept any reimbursement. (For more from the author of “StemExpress Sold Baby Body Parts for 4 to 6 Times Cost, House Probe Alleges” please click HERE)

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