On Tuesday, the last remaining charge against David Daleiden, of the Center for Medical Progress, and investigator Sandra Merritt, in Texas, was dropped. Posing as representatives of an actually-fictional company they called Biomax, the pair met with Planned Parenthood officials. The court has dropped all charges against these two who falsified documents in order to catch on camera Planned Parenthood’s alleged illegal activities.
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While the released videos stimulated widespread public outcry and calls for the federal government to investigate the methods of Planned Parenthood, Texas made a decision to charge the pair of undercover videographers criminally in January, 2016. When a gunman walked into a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic and started shooting because he didn’t want them to be selling aborted fetuses.
Peter Breen, a Thomas More Society attorney who represented Daleiden, told Life Site News that the “meritless and retaliatory prosecution should never have been brought”. It was all based on those video.
Which side do you think is telling the truth: the anti-abortion activists or Planned Parenthood? The California Department of Justice went so far as to raid Daleiden’s home earlier this year and seize his laptop and hard drives, which contained information obtained during his 30-month investigation into Planned Parenthood.
Separate misdemeanor charges of attempting to purchase human organs were dismissed June 14. Had they been convicted, they would have faced up to 20 years in prison. Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson said in a statement her office was limited in what it can investigate under Texas law due to procedural matters with the grand jury process. Daleiden and CMP continue to face federal racketeering lawsuits filed by the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and Planned Parenthood under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. “In light of this and after careful research and review, this office dismissed the indictments”, Anderson said, without offering additional information, Yahoo News reports. The judge dropped the latter charge a few weeks ago. “This is not the same as finding that Daleiden is innocent of the criminal charges”, the statement reads.
“Today’s dismissal in Houston is a huge win for the First Amendment rights of undercover journalists”.
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A Harris County grand jury’s investigation led to indictments against Daleiden and Merritt, but Planned Parenthood has not been charged with a crime. Almost all the care offered at Planned Parenthood health centers is preventive services and screenings, including contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections, pap smears and breast exams. “A year after the release of the undercover videos, the ongoing nationwide investigation of Planned Parenthood by the House Select Investigative Panel makes clear that Planned Parenthood is the guilty party in the harvesting and trafficking of baby body parts for profit”, Daleiden stated. The stories cover Planned Parenthood programs such as family planning and cancer screenings as well as the abortion services that have made the group a lightning rod for movement conservatives.
