FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Senate passed a bill barring sales of fetal tissue — something already outlawed by the federal government — while Republicans in the Democratic-controlled House tried unsuccessfully Wednesday to force a vote on another abortion related bill previously passed by the Senate.

Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, would make it a Class C felony to sell tissue or body parts derived from an aborted fetus. Wise said the bill was in response to surreptitious videos at Planned Parenthood Clinics which have created a national uproar but have also since been largely discredited.

The videos were made by David Daleiden who claimed to represent an organization named Center for Medical Progress and purported to show Planned Parenthood officials negotiating for the sale of fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood claims the videos were edited to inaccurately reflect what occurred.

A Texas district attorney convened a grand jury to investigate but then this week the grand jury surprisingly cleared Planned Parenthood but indicted Daleiden, 27, and Sandra Merritt, 62, on charges of tampering with a government document with the intent to defraud.

Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, said Wednesday the bill should pass even if the videos aren’t accurate. Sen. Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, spoke in favor of the bill recalling his days as an intern and the determined efforts of a prematurely born baby to survive.

But Sen. Perry Clark, D-Louisville, called the video nothing but “lies and fraud,” saying they were doctored and noting that such sales are already illegal. That, Clark said, makes Wise’s bill is “a redundancy on top of a redundancy.”

But the bill passed easily, 36-2, with Clark and Democrat Denise Harper-Angle of Louisville voting no.

At almost the same time at the other end of the capitol, House Minority Leader Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown, made a motion to suspend House rules and convene the House into a committee of the whole to consider passing Senate Bill 4 which would require women seeking an abortion to first conduct a face-to-face consultation with a doctor in the same physical place.

That bill, sponsored by Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, previously passed the Senate and seeks to close what supporters say is a loophole in Kentucky’s “informed consent” law whereby some abortion providers have conducted the consultations by phone or video-conference.

The bill has passed the Senate before but died in the House in previous sessions. But now, with Republicans trying to wrest the majority from Democrats and with four special elections for vacant seats scheduled for March 8, Hoover has forced two of the three required readings of the bill. Republicans and nervous Democrats alike know the measure has popular support in Kentucky, and this year may produce a different result.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, ruled Hoover’s motion to suspend the rules in order but also ruled that the measure had to have 51 votes to pass and it received only 49.

Stumbo has said the bill will be assigned to Democratic Rep. Tom Burch’s Health and Welfare Committee where it has died in the past.

But given Stumbo’s rulings on Hoover’s earlier motions to give the bill a reading, it seems likely the bill will receive a floor vote this year. And most legislators say it will easily pass if it reaches the floor.

For now, however, the bill remains in the Rules Committee awaiting assignment to committee.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.