Planned Parenthood boss at combative Congressional hearing: Fetal tissue claims are 'outrageous' and 'categorically untrue'

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, under fire over secretly recorded videos that purport to show her organization selling tissue from aborted fetuses, used her testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday to dispute charges that the women's health organization profits from selling fetal tissue. "Planned Parenthood policies not only comply with, but indeed go beyond the requirements of law," she said, adding that Republican accusations were "outrageous" as well as "offensive and categorically untrue."

Richards also offered an accusation of her own — that the "deceptively edited" videos, which appear to show Planned Parenthood doctors selling fetal tissue, were a "smear campaign…based on efforts by our opponents to entrap our doctors and clinicians into breaking the law — and once again our opponents failed."

Republicans hit back by saying Planned Parenthood didn't need government funding. "As far as I can tell, this is an organization that doesn't need federal subsidies," Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said. Ever since the videos started being released in July, conservatives have demanded that the federal government defund Planned Parenthood — a fight that has led to threats of a possible government shutdown. Planned Parenthood receives a third of its annual revenue from federal programs, which amounts to about $450 million.

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