Michael Collins

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The House voted Thursday to provide additional funding for a special House panel investigating the medical and business practices of abortion providers over howls of protest from Democrats who argued the panel should be shut down for good.

Republicans sought an additional $800,000 to offset the costs associated with the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, which is led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.

The panel has spent the past year looking into how abortion providers handle fetal tissue. The additional funding doubles the panel’s previously approved budget and puts it on track to spend more than $1.5 million by the end of the year.

Republicans said the additional funding is needed for the 14-member panel to complete its work. But Democrats said the panel continues to waste taxpayer dollars by chasing down baseless allegations against abortion providers and medical researchers while putting the lives of women and doctors at risk.

“Instead of funding it, let’s be done with this once and for all,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, the panel’s top Democrat, who charged the investigation was “built on a pack of lies perpetuated by anti-abortion extremists.”

Despite the Democrats’ objections, the House agreed 234 to 181 to approve the additional funding on a mostly party-line vote.

“Evidence we have uncovered reveals that the unethical and potentially unlawful practices of some bad actors may be putting important research at risk,” Blackburn said. “Considering all that our panel has identified, despite having barely a year to conduct this investigation, it is now up to us to build on this work, to hold our government accountable, and to stop these affronts to human dignity.”

The investigative panel was formed last year after a firestorm over undercover videos that accused Planned Parenthood of breaking federal laws by selling the tissues and organs of aborted fetuses.

Republicans say abortion clinics broke the law by selling fetal organs

Planned Parenthood and its supporters said the videos were deceptively edited, and a number of state investigations cleared the organization of any wrongdoing.

Yet Republicans on the investigative panel say they have uncovered evidence that some abortion providers and their middlemen have violated federal law by selling tissues and organs from aborted fetuses.

In an 88-page report released in July, the panel’s GOP majority said some providers were so eager to profit from selling fetal tissue that they have altered abortion procedures to put financial benefit above the health of women. The report also claimed some late-term abortion clinics have harvested and sold the organs of infants who have been born alive.

During Thursday’s debate, Republicans noted the panel has made a number of criminal referrals for possible charges even as its work continues.

“Bogus referrals do not make a conviction,” said Schakowsky, who derided the panel and its investigation as "a disgrace to the House."

The panel’s final report is due by the end of the year.