California Case Against Planned Parenthood Selling Baby Parts
Twenty-four hours one of the preliminary hearing for pro-life activist David Daleiden kicked off Tuesday forenoon at the San Francisco Superior Courtroom with testimony from an abortion technician, a 3rd-trimester abortionist, and a vice president of the National Abortion Federation, who testified she doesn't know what a homo tissue procurement company is or does.
NAF Vice President of External Affairs Melissa Fowler also testified she recognized StemExpress—a human being tissue procurement lab exposed in Daleiden's undercover videos that is now under federal investigation—as a repeat vendor of her for-profit organization. NAF is a tertiary-party abortion trade group.
The nine-day hearing is the first time Planned Parenthood leaders and affiliates have publicly gathered and testified in court since Daleiden'due south Middle for Medical Progress published eleven underground videos featuring Planned Parenthood leaders discussing—and in some videos displaying—the harvesting and selling of aborted fetal organs and tissues.
Daleiden and his colleague Sandra Merritt face xiv criminal felony counts of eavesdropping and i count of conspiracy. The instance marks the first time charges of eavesdropping have ever been made in California. During this hearing the approximate volition determine if at that place is probable cause Daleiden and Merritt committed a crime, and if so, will schedule a appointment for trial. Separately, the hearing for the civil example against Daleiden and Merritt will exist held Sept. xxx.
What Happened on Solar day One
Nearly of day one was devoted to examining Fowler, the prosecuting attorney general's principal witness. In it, the AG focused nigh entirely on the security and application procedure for NAF merchandise shows. Daleiden attended merchandise shows in disguise and secretly recorded conversations with Planned Parenthood employees.
Fowler admitted no responsibility for NAF security or merchandise show management, just refused to acknowledge video recording was never mentioned in the Rules and Regulations presented to exhibitors at the time of application. She also testified that pro-life activists are violent.
Fowler testified she met with the chaser general's office in April to discuss questions the prosecutor would ask in the preliminary hearing, and that she was being paid every bit an employee of NAF to attend and testify, including travel expenses.
Afterwards Fowler, Doe 7 took the stand, a non-md who performed surgical abortions for Planned Parenthood Northern California. She testified she regularly provided fetal tissue from the abortions she did and heard of money exchanges with StemExpress. When presented video evidence of her conversation with Daleiden, Doe 7 testified that numerous 3rd parties could eavesdrop the chat, an important point of fence in the charge of eavesdropping.
In the final minutes of Tuesday'due south hearing, Doe 3, a third-trimester abortionist, took the stand, at which time the AG's role played a nearly 20-minute, never-before-released undercover video of a conversation betwixt her and Daleiden, described by some in the courtroom as "shocking."
Presidential Candidate Defends Human Organ Trafficking
"Planned Parenthood abortion providers appeared under oath in court today and admitted supplying the torso parts of children in the womb to for-profit brokers like StemExpress," Daleiden said Tuesday. "Meanwhile, the vice president of the National Abortion Federation denied whatever noesis of the gruesome trafficking of fetal body parts, despite hosting StemExpress as a major vendor at the merchandise shows. The first day of testimony confirmed what we have been saying all along: this is a biased attack on Commencement Subpoena civil rights and a political prosecution to shield Planned Parenthood from accountability for their crimes against women and children."
Daleiden says U.S. senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who was California's chaser general when he was charged, used her law enforcement and political power to destroy him. He says Harris's office ordered a raid on his apartment, during which eleven agents tore through his belongings and took expensive camera and video equipment. Daleiden on Monday in a tweet called the charges "artificial" and an "attack on free speech to punish dissenting thought."
Daleiden as well notes that although it'southward been 4 years since his undercover videos revealed what the abortion industry does with the human remains it generates, the federal authorities has not canceled contracts and grants for work that uses body parts obtained from deceased human children.
"It's unconscionable for the Health and Human being Services department of a pro-life administration to be every month basically setting these abortion quotas, having a number of orders of fresh fetal torso parts, these are their own words in their own contracts, that they're ordering and expecting to receive from abortion clinics every calendar month for taxpayer-funded experimentation," Daleiden said in January. "They spend over $100 million each yr in taxpayer money [on this], and that number has increased in the past two years, it hasn't gone downwards."
Whistleblowing Needed, Simply Besides May Non Be Protected
Daleiden compares his cloak-and-dagger piece of work to the Projection Dakota Flyer, a sting operation by Fish and Wildlife Services that unveiled a black market place for eagle feathers and body parts leading to a Department of Justice investigation of 15 defendants.
"You would call back harvesting, trafficking, and selling human body parts was just every bit much of a business concern equally the harvesting, trafficking, and selling of bald eagle body parts," Daleiden said in January.
Legal minds warn against pro-lifers believing Daleiden will exist cleared of charges considering he was acting as a citizen journalist.
"Generally speaking, journalists have to follow the law in investigating their stories," wrote Eugene Volokh, a Academy of California at Los Angeles constabulary professor, in a Wall Street Journal web log discussion on the example. "If the police bans using false documents or offer to buy fetal tissue or recording conversations without all parties' consent, journalists are bound past that no less than anyone else."
In the same discussion, Harvard constitutional scholar Noah Feldman warns, "Daleiden's apprentice activism may or may not have crossed ethical lines. But if he crossed legal lines, he can legitimately be prosecuted."
The Los Angeles Times published an editorial on March 30, 2017 criticizing Harris's successor Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who took over the case: "It'south disturbingly ambitious for Becerra to apply this criminal statute to people who were trying to influence a contested issue of public policy, regardless of how sound or pop that policy may be," read the March 30 editorial.
Timeline
- July 14, 2015: Kickoff hole-and-corner video shows Planned Parenthood medico bargaining over baby parts.
- August 21, 2015:A circuit judge reverses a previous court guild that prohibited CMP from releasing videos featuring any StemExpress employees recorded May 22, 2015.
- July 24-October 28, 2015: Second through 11th clandestine videos released.
- September 15, 2015: Daleiden'southward legal team files a Mandamus petition to the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to overturn a district courtroom ruling that would force them to defend against meritless claims brought by the National Abortion Federation. Nevertheless, the Ninth Circuit ruled confronting the Mandamus.Therefore, the defence must produce discovery—an extremely time-consuming and expensive process to defend confronting NAF's claims.
- October 2015:Despite existence challenged, a federal courtroom rules CMP can send all released and unreleased hugger-mugger videos to Congress.
- January 14, 2016: Planned Parenthood files a second "RICO" lawsuit against Daleiden.
- January 25, 2016: Daleiden and his swain undercover investigator Susan Merritt are indicted past a Texas grand jury for declared criminal activities. Thomas More Society is working to defend Daleiden.
- March 28, 2017: The attorney full general of California charges Daleiden and Merritt with xv felony charges under California constabulary. Fourteen of the charges are based on claims the pair recorded alleged "confidential communications" betwixt strangers at public conferences and at public restaurants. The 15th charge alleges Daleiden and Merritt conspired together to commit the offense of recording confidential communications.
- January 2018: FBI and DOJ open investigation of some of the largest Planned Parenthood affiliates, including StemExpress, equally a result of the undercover videos.
- April 6, 2018: The Supreme Court upholds a gag lodge preventing Daleiden from publishing more investigative videos he recorded while hush-hush, sending the case back to trial court, where information technology had been stayed since Daleiden appealed the gag society ii years ago, allowing the National Abortion Federation a sigh of relief: "Nosotros are grateful."
- Apr 19, 2019: California Supreme Court problems a stay, delaying the preliminary hearing in felony trial for Daleiden in which his attorneys would present a defence force including unseen undercover videos of ballgame providers.
- June 8-11, 2019: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules to let stand up the $195,000 fine ordered by a federal judge to cover the legal fees and costs of the National Abortion Federation to cover legal fees and costs for added security due to the videos' release; Daleiden starts a GoFundMe folio.
- July xix, 2019: Federal judge rules to trim downwards damages alleged in Planned Parenthood'due south lawsuit from about $20 million to less than $100,000.
- September 3, 2019: Preliminary hearing begins.
Source: https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/05/court-hearing-planned-parenthood-employee-admits-trafficking-baby-body-parts/
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