For years, Planned Parenthood has fought against late-term abortion bans. And now we know why. The earlier babies are aborted, the less profitable their parts are. That’s just one of the nauseating revelations from the undercover video that has the President’s closest allies in crisis mode. Three days and two million YouTube hits later, Planned Parenthood is in full-blown crisis mode after a three-hour recording implicated Cecile Richards’s group in a ring of baby organ harvesting. Now the organization, which has always touted every service but abortion, is being forced to talk about a savage side business that treats aborted babies as if they were junkyard cars being scavenged for parts.

It’s a difficult reality to swallow, even for the group’s cheerleaders. Texas Monthly’s Erica Grieder, a long-time advocate of Planned Parenthood, says both sides of the debate should be horrified by what they’ve seen. “From a pro-life perspective … the discussion in the video is morally appalling, obviously. But I don’t think many pro-choice people would disagree.”

For the sake of debate, let’s say that Planned Parenthood is telling the truth about this being a legal tissue donation program, Grieder writes. “Even so,” she points out, “what Planned Parenthood is doing here violates the stated ethical principles of Planned Parenthood. When paramedics arrive at a car crash, they don’t treat injuries differently based on whether the injured person is an organ donor, as far as I know. Similarly, a physician providing an abortion should be focused on the care that they are providing to the actual patient in the room, not managing the surgical procedure with a view to minimizing ‘crushing’ that might inconvenience a researcher at some future date.”

In the most sickening detail, Planned Parenthood’s top medical director talks about manipulating the abortion procedure to yield the most marketable baby parts — often at risk to women. New York University’s Arthur Caplan, hardly a conservative, was appalled that anyone would knowingly change medical protocol to scavenge baby parts. “That’s big trouble ethically… Your sole concern has to be the mother and her health… Any deviation from normal procedures is unacceptable. If a provider is considering how to get the tissue that’s in the best shape,” he told USA Today and CNN, “that’s a huge conflict of interest.” Still think Planned Parenthood “is America’s most trusted provider of reproductive health care?”

Senate Democrats do. Three of the chamber’s liberals tried to circle the wagons around Planned Parenthood, only to admit that they haven’t even watched the video in question. Let me guess: they have to condemn it to find out what’s in it? “This was a sting operation,” argued Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). That’s true — it stung alright. And it will continue to, now that the House and Senate are launching formal investigations of this taxpayer-funded baby parts trafficking ring. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) left no doubt that Congress would respond. “If you’ve seen this video, I don’t have to tell you how sickening it is. So rest assured that we’re going to get to the bottom of this, [and] protect the values that we hold dear.”

Like most conservatives, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), and Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley are horrified at the government’s partnership with a group that — if not criminally liable, is certainly criminally blasé about the systematic slaughter and sale of human beings. Almost immediately, GOP leaders announced the launch of investigations into Planned Parenthood’s actions, including letters demanding hundreds of documents, notes, contracts, memos, records, correspondence, and policy guidance from Cecile Richards.

Senators Grassley and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took the case straight to the Attorney General, insisting that the Justice Department provide them “with a description of any and all actions taken by the Department to ensure compliance with the [federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban].” Other states are moving with urgency to address the threat within their own borders. [Yesterday], leaders in Georgia, Ohio, and Indiana are ordering probes of their own — joining Louisiana and Texas in the nationwide response to the video.

Until formal charges are brought, taxpayers — who have been unwilling partners in this organ mill — deserve one small courtesy: a moratorium on any and all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Sign this petition asking your congressman to put the emergency brakes on any taxpayer dollars involving Richards’s group until we know the full extent of their role in pain-capable abortions, baby organ harvesting, and partial-birth abortions.

Keeping Iran at Arms’ Strength

Apparently, the United States does negotiate with terrorists — just not for the release of our citizens. It was almost impossible to make the Iranian nuclear agreement worse, but President Obama managed to when he refused to make the return of four Americans part of the deal. Apparently, the White House was too busy ensuring that Iran got everything it wanted to trouble the regime with a simple request to release the U.S citizens they are holding. (This, despite the fact that Iran dangled the early freedom of a non-American Christian in our faces earlier this week.) Although Secretary John Kerry offered a post-deal soundbite of concern, the administration’s actions show anything but.

Meanwhile, “historic mistake” is an understatement when it comes to the details of the deal. If and when the U.S. lifts sanctions, money will pour into Iran — almost certainly funding more terrorism. “Not only will [Hezbollah and Hamas] be emboldened,” Ben Shapiro wrote in his great analysis on Breitbart, “… they will be empowered.”

What’s worse, Iran will still have access to its nuclear facilities, since monitoring — especially of military sites — will be sporadic. Under those circumstances, anyone who thinks President Hassan Rouhani won’t continue his nuclear program is fooling themselves. Let’s not forget: this is a country that built the “largest active military in the Middle East” during sanctions. Imagine what Iran is capable of without them. And even if Rouhani does break his word on the agreement, the sanctions aren’t automatically reinstated. A new “dispute resolution” process kicks in instead.

So what exactly does America get out of the deal? Not the assurance of world peace or even more security. Not even minor concessions like Rouhani’s denouncement of state-sponsored terrorism, the right of Israel to exist, or the release of U.S. hostages. As recently as last month, President Obama claimed that the release of Americans like Pastor Saeed Abedini is “something that we continue to push hard on irrespective of the nuclear deal.” But that’s exactly the problem. Irrespective of the nuclear deal, America has no leverage.

So you can’t blame people like CBS’s Major Garrett for asking the President why he’s “content” to leave the Americans “unaccounted for” as it relates to these men. Considering the President’s outburst, Garrett clearly hit a nerve. “I’ve got to give you credit, Major, for how you craft those questions,” the President said. “The notion that I am content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails — Major, that’s nonsense, and you should know better.”

But is it nonsense? The facts are these: President Obama had no problem exchanging five of the world’s most dangerous terrorists for an Army sergeant whose desertion cost America six innocent lives. Yet when four U.S. citizens are thrown in Iranian jails and tortured for no reason, he does nothing. What does that convey to our country — and more importantly, our country’s enemies — if not indifference?

For Lee, First Amendment a First Priority

What happens when Godzilla sees a house? He tramples it! At a lecture [yesterday] at FRC, that’s how U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) likened the federal government’s efforts on behalf of churches and religious liberty in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last month to redefine marriage. Sen. Lee, a constitutional scholar and champion of America’s “first freedom” made the point that five lawyers on the highest bench radically altered the nature of marriage in our country. They did so “not on the basis of the clear text of the Constitution,” a vote of the people or the action of their elected representatives, but “on the basis of their own policy preferences.”

Sen. Lee is garnering support for his First Amendment Defense Act (FADA, S. 1598), which would prevent the government from punishing individuals or religious institutions for holding to the historic belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. FADA, authored in the House by FRC’s friend Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), currently has 34 sponsors in the Senate and 124 in the House (H.R. 2802). FADA says that the federal government may not take any retaliatory or adverse action against an individual or entity for holding to natural marriage, including the loss of tax exempt status, academic accreditation, and the loss of a government contract. “Please join me in this noble cause to protect religious freedom,” Sen. Lee asked. FRC is doing just that, which is why we urge you to contact your elected representatives in Washington to cosponsor FADA and advance it through the legislative process. Earlier this year, Senator Lee authored a book entitled, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America’s Founding Document. I recommend it as a great primer on how to understand our country’s charter text and how our government should be operating.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.