DeWine: Fetal tissue probe records not public

From The Telegraph-Forum Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's investigators compiled more than 66,000 pages of records on how Planned Parenthood disposed of aborted fetuses in a landfill.

But you can't look at any of them, thanks to a 1953 law that keeps investigations into nonprofit agencies private.

DeWine recently announced that Planned Parenthood's abortion clinics in Mount Auburn and Columbus used a third-party business, Accu Medical Waste Services, to dispose of fetal tissue by heating it in an autoclave to kill bacteria, then disposing of the remains in a Kentucky landfill. It was less clear how the third Planned Parenthood abortion clinic near Cleveland disposes of aborted fetuses.

The details were part of a several-month investigation into whether Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue in Ohio. The probe was prompted by videos, which Planned Parenthood officials say were heavily edited, that purport to show abortion providers selling fetal tissue. DeWine's investigation found no proof that tissue was sold in Ohio.

On Monday, Gannett Ohio and The Enquirer asked for copies of that 66,000-plus page investigation, which includes financial records and interviews with Planned Parenthood officials. Outraged lawmakers are using the findings as one basis for new legislation to require that fetal remains be buried or cremated.

But the records aren't public because of a little-used law from 1953 that prohibits DeWine from releasing any investigation compiled by his charitable law section, which looks into nonprofit organizations like Planned Parenthood.

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