Planned Parenthood appears to be weathering scrutiny by state legislatures that began in the wake of undercover “sting” videos by anti-abortion activists, as investigations in states across the country have repeatedly turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.

Some state officials undertook the investigations even though Planned Parenthood affiliates in their state don’t perform abortions. Others started investigations or defunded the organization even though fetal tissue donation was against the law in their jurisdiction.

In South Dakota, for example, officials issued a statement clearing the state’s two abortion providers of wrongdoing. “The department of health has not been provided any evidence, or observed any evidence that the sale of fetal tissue/organs is taking place in [South Dakota],” a spokesperson for the organization said.

Officials in Massachusetts found the same. And though an investigation in Georgia was started, the state’s five abortion providers were quickly cleared, since tissue donation is not legal in the state (products of conception, as they are known, must be buried or cremated). Indiana also cleared the healthcare organization of wrongdoing, since affiliates in that state also do not participate in tissue donation.

Republicans in many states started inquiries after anti-abortion activists surreptitiously filmed Planned Parenthood employees discussing fetal tissue donation programs, which activists said equated to selling “baby parts”.

The anti-abortion activists, operating as a group called the Center for Medical Progress, began releasing videos in July and have released about one video per week since. To date, most of the videos have followed a loose format: Planned Parenthood officials meet with representatives from a tissue procurement “company” (actually just a front group created by CMP’s leader, David Daleiden), and Planned Parenthood employees discuss the rates for transfer of fetal materials, usually in stark medical terms.

CMP has alleged this constitutes selling fetal tissue, even though sums discussed by Planned Parenthood are typically small, ranging from $30 to $100. Planned Parenthood employees, congressional and state Democrats and pro-choice advocates have described the videos as “heavily edited” and misleading. Medical professionals and bioethicists have said the videos have failed to produce evidence of wrongdoing, despite many hours of footage.

Health department officials in other states, such as Delaware, have flatly refused to investigate.

“There is no tissue donation program at Planned Parenthood to investigate,” the state’s health department leader Dr Karyl Rattay told legislators. Leaders in Minnesota, Idaho, Washington, New York and Virginia have also declined to investigate.

Even in states where Planned Parenthood is not licensed to perform abortions, such as in Louisiana, some governors have moved to defund the organization. Louisiana’s Republican governor Bobby Jindal, who is also campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, ended a Medicaid contract with the healthcare organization, despite federal warnings not to do so.

Arkansas, Utah and New Hampshire did the same. Alabama also ended a Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood, even though providers in that state do not have a tissue donation program.

Still other investigations continue. In Tennessee, state legislators are scheduled to hold a “fact-finding” session on Wednesday.

In Florida, Planned Parenthood filed a civil complaint to stop the health department there from taking administrative action against providers that the state claims were performing second trimester abortions when they were not licensed to do so.

The dispute turns on the state’s definition of “second trimester”, which it says ends at 12 weeks of gestation. Affiliates claim the definition used by the state for nine years has been the first trimester gestation ends at 13 weeks and six days.