No Smoking Gun at Planned Parenthood?

Bob Cesca reports for Salon:

Last week, Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey became the latest in what’s sure to be a long list of state attorneys general to conclude the same thing. Specifically, Healy concluded,

“Over the past week, my office has conducted a thorough review and found that Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts’ health care centers are fully compliant with state and federal laws regarding the disposition of fetal tissue. Although donation of fetal tissue is permissible under state and federal law, PPLM does not have a tissue donation program. There is no evidence that PPLM is involved in any way in the buying or selling of tissue. As such, our review is complete.”

Sure, Massachusetts is a leftward-leaning state, but Indiana is very much not. Back on July 16, Gov. Mike Pence, R-Ind., launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood following the release of what was obviously a doctored and misleading video. The probe focused on facilities in Indianapolis, Bloomington and Merrillville, and this past week the Indiana Department of Health reported it was “unable to find any non-compliance with state regulations. Therefore, no deficiencies were cited.”

I’m all for defunding Planned Parenthood, although that probably has more to do with my philosophical stance against public funding for much of anything other than police, courts, and military. But while it’s easy to argue with Salon, it’s more difficult to argue with investigations which turn up nothing.

Then again, those videos do seem both unaltered and unambiguous.

There must be more to this story, but it’s impossible yet to say what it is.