JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Senate announced Thursday it is suspending contempt proceedings against a Planned Parenthood CEO after reaching an agreement to review some documents a legislative committee investigating the organization subpoenaed last year.
The fetal tissue disposal policies of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri will be made available along with other documents, including blank patient forms and written protocols for abortions. Republican and Democratic Senate leaders will designate people to review the documents during business hours in the office of the regional organization's attorney, but they will not be allowed to copy them, according to the agreement.
Some documents will be available for review as soon as noon Friday, while others will take longer to produce, the agreement said. All the documents must be provided by May 9.
Senators voted last week to summon to the chamber Mary Kogut, CEO and president of the regional Planned Parenthood, to justify why she had not complied with the Senate's subpoena and explain why she should not be held in contempt, a rare move that could carry jail time. They also summoned Dr. James Miller, who owns the suburban St. Louis Pathology Services Inc. that reviews fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood.
The summonses demanded Kogut and Miller appear before the entire chamber at 2 p.m. Monday. In response, Planned Parenthood's attorney said he wanted to subpoena witnesses as well, including former Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, who created the Senate panel that began investigating Planned Parenthood last summer.
Senators began investigating Missouri's Planned Parenthood clinics after undercover videos alleged the nation's largest abortion provider was illegally selling fetal tissue for profit. The organization has denied the allegations in the videos, which reference its St. Louis clinic, the state's only abortion provider. Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster found no evidence of wrongdoing in Missouri.
Chuck Hatfield, the attorney for the regional Planned Parenthood, characterized the documents covered under the agreement as mostly policies and protocols that would not include patient information, redacted or otherwise.
Whereas the subpoena demanded all documents with any reference to two doctors who appeared in the undercover videos, the agreement limits disclosure to only those documents in which the doctors are mentioned alongside fetal tissue, staff recruitment or commercial transactions outside the group's "customary fees."
And while the subpoena encompassed all documents on emergency medical dispatches to Planned Parenthood clinics, the agreement only calls for dispatch records compiled by public entities.
Sen. Kurt Schaefer, chairman of the panel that investigated Planned Parenthood, said lawmakers never wanted any personal information. Emphasizing that helped resolve the issue, he said, and the deadline helped.
"I think they didn't want to appear on Monday," he said.
In a statement, Kogut called the agreement "a victory for Planned Parenthood patients."
Planned Parenthood officials were always willing to share documents as long as they didn't violate patients' personally identifiable information, Hatfield said. Furthermore, lawmakers clearly didn't want to subpoena Dempsey, he said. Part of the agreement includes Hatfield withdrawing his request for subpoenas.
Hatfield said the Senate has committed to limiting the documents to a "small number" of senators.
Miller, the pathology services business owner, has invoked his constitutional right to not incriminate himself and will not appear Monday either, Schaefer said.
No one answered the phone at Miller's business Thursday.