This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Gov. Gary Herbert's decision to pull federal funding from the Utah chapter of Planned Parenthood was based on a lie. That we already knew.
Now we find out that that lie was, at least according to a Texas grand jury, orchestrated by people who committed crimes in the process of fabricating their evidence.
That news should, of course, be the political cover Herbert needs to reverse his decision, end an expensive and embarrassing lawsuit, and restore the state contracts that paid Planned Parenthood some $200,000 a year in federal funds to provide useful health services — not abortions — to the people of this state.
An indictment, of course, is not a conviction. But a state grand jury in Houston has ruled that the creation of some of those phony videos involved people gaining access to health care facilities using false names — and forged driver licenses — and that doing so was a crime.
That is reason enough to discount all of the claims made by the agents of the inaccurately named Center for Medical Progress. It is certainly a firmer case than that made by the CMP itself, which engaged in numerous deceptive practices to slander an organization that empowers people to guard their own sexual and reproductive health.
Herbert's move to base such an important public policy — and public health — decision on such flimsy reasoning was disgraceful. Coming as it did right before the annual convention of the state Republican Party, it smacked of know-nothing opportunism that should be beneath him.
The grand jury ruling is all the more striking for the fact that local prosecutors didn't go into the process looking to book CMP lies. They were checking out the allegations made by CMP, the same allegations Herbert cited in his decision to fire Planned Parenthood, that clinics were engaged in the illegal practice of profiting from the sale of organs harvested from aborted fetuses.
It found that no crimes were committed by Planned Parenthood, but that CMP had engaged in illegal actions, and returned indictments to that effect. This in Texas, no friend to Planned Parenthood and a leader in efforts to effectively ban abortion.
Officials in 11 other states looked into similar allegations against Planned Parenthood and pronounced them false. A congressional probe, which caused Utah's Rep. Jason Chaffetz to look the fool on nearly every media outlet there is, found nothing and quietly gave up.
Utah, which investigated exactly nothing, should give Planned Parenthood its job back. An apology would be nice, but is probably too much to expect.