“Disposing of aborted fetuses from an abortion by sending them to a landfill is callous and completely inhumane”, DeWine said in a statement.
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This mode of disposal is a clear violation of Ohio Administrative Code 3701-47-05, which requires that a “fetus shall be disposed of in a humane manner”.
“Politicians in Ohio will stop at nothing to ban abortion in all cases in our state”, said Stephanie Knight, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio.
The investigation was initiated in July to explore whether Planned Parenthood affiliates in Bedford Heights, Cincinnati and Columbus were violating OH law by selling fetal tissue or abortion trafficking.
Planned Parenthood sued Ohio’s health director on Sunday in a dispute over how the organization’s affiliates handle the disposal of fetal tissue in the state.
On Friday, presidential candidate Carly Fiorina was being interviewed by CNN’s Chris Cuomo and things got testy when he brought up her past rhetoric about Planned Parenthood and the recent shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado that left three dead.
Republican Sen. Kurt Schaefer, who is running for Missouri attorney general in 2016, said he pushed for the subpoena to provide information to a committee he’s leading that is reviewing abortion practices in the state. The court filing says that DeWine “has arbitrarily singled out Plaintiffs and claims that their actions in following infectious waste rules nonetheless violates the fetal tissue rule”.
Officials from the Ohio Department of Health were not immediately available for comment.
Planned Parenthood denied the allegations, but also said that the question about how aborted baby parts ended up in landfills is something for their disposal service to answer.
“In Ohio, John Kasich and his administration have proven they will do anything to ban access to safe and legal abortion”, Kight added. “We’re inspected regularly to ensure that we’re handling fetal tissue properly and legally”.
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Attorney General Mike DeWine announced the probe in mid-July after anti-abortion activists began releasing undercover videos they said showed Planned Parenthood personnel negotiating the sale of fetal organs. The attorney general’s office failed to let Planned Parenthood address the allegations, attorneys for the organization said.
