By Patrick T. Brown | Associate Editor

The ongoing reaction to the videos appearing to show Planned Parenthood employees selling the remains of aborted baby parts led the Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders to pass a resolution calling on the state of New Jersey to investigate the controversial provider of women’s health and abortion services.

Freeholder Gail Phoebus, from Andover Township, asked the board to consider a resolution that would call on the state “to investigate Planned Parenthood over the possibility of alleged illegal body parts of unborn babies.”

The resolution was passed unanimously by the five-member board, making Sussex the first county in the Garden State to encourage a full investigation. Planned Parenthood recently announced a change in its policy regarding fetal tissue, saying it would no longer accept reimbursement for aborted remains.

The records of the Board of Freeholders listed 22 citizens as having spoken at the meeting, including the CEO of the local Planned Parenthood affiliate, highlighting the strong emotions around the issue. Their comments were roughly split between supporting and opposing the measure.

According to media reports, Triste Brooks, director of Planned Parenthood in Newtown, in Sussex County, claimed that no Planned Parenthood clinic in the Garden State performs any tissue donation.

Over the summer, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had encouraged an investigation into the policies and practices of the provider of reproductive health services.

“Given what we have seen on these videos and the history, there absolutely should be. There’s enough to investigate,” Christie said in a July appearance on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor. “Let’s get the facts,” he said.

The U.S. Congress has already opened an investigation into Planned Parenthood, and observers say there is a chance of state legislature committee hearings into the videos in the fall.

While numbers broken out on the state or regional level are not made available, Planned Parenthood’s 2014 Annual Report listed over 325,000 abortions performed at their facilities nationwide.

According to a 2014 fact sheet prepared by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization founded as an offshoot of Planned Parenthood, roughly 47,000 women annually receive abortions in New Jersey, whether at Planned Parenthood clinics or other abortion services providers.

New Jersey does not have any of the major types of abortion restrictions, such as waiting periods, mandated parental involvement or limitations on publicly funded abortions that are found in other states.