On Tuesday, the <a href="https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/fetal-trafficking-under-oath/testimony/">Center for Medical Progress</a> (CMP) released an explosive video that appears to show Planned Parenthood executives admitting that they charged a fee to medical companies for aborted baby body parts directly, despite the taxpayer-funded organization claiming their only &#8220;fees&#8221; were for transportation and other legal services.
David Daleiden, project lead for CMP, alleged in a press release that the video (which can be viewed below) is more confirmation that Planned Parenthood lied to the public and Congress about aborted baby trafficking.
“The time has come for federal consequences for Planned Parenthood,” <a href="https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2020/05/planned-parenthood-testimony-on-selling-baby-parts-unsealed-new-videos-released/">Daleiden</a> said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood lied to the public and to Congress, but now there is no longer any reasonable doubt that Planned Parenthood sold fetal body parts, commodifying living children in the womb and treating pregnant women like a cash crop.&#8221;
&#8220;The U.S. Department of Justice must escalate the enforcement of laws against fetal trafficking to the highest level of priority,&#8221; he added.
The video, which is of court records and proceedings, shows emails and contracts, and features testimony from Planned Parenthood executives appearing to discuss the selling of baby body parts at certain corporation affiliates.
Pro-life organization <a href="https://www.liveaction.org/news/bombshell-planned-parenthood-admits-oath-aborted-parts/">LiveAction</a> argues that the video &#8220;disputes the argument that money received was nothing more than reimbursement for costs sustained by Planned Parenthood. Testimony revealed that payment was only made to Planned Parenthood if StemExpress was able to obtain &#8216;usable&#8217; body parts from one of its abortion centers — meaning Planned Parenthood deceived the public when it claimed it only collected reimbursements for employees’ time and costs.&#8221;
As noted by CMP, &#8220;42 U.S. Code 289g-2 broadly forbids the exchange of valuable consideration for fetal tissue.&#8221;
&#8220;While the law allows for reimbursements of specific costs when donating fetal organs, those reimbursements must meet specific guidelines;&#8221; LiveAction continued, &#8220;they must be fees associated with transportation, processing, and other such costs. Planned Parenthood did none of these things, yet they collected money when they provided StemExpress with marketable body parts.&#8221;
Additionally, while the abortion giant told The New York Times that they &#8220;rebuffed&#8221; a contract to sell aborted baby livers for $750 each and $1600 for liver/thymus pairs, emails and testimony from Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s Senior Director of Abortion Access Tram Nguyen appears to reveal that she was looking to &#8220;move forward&#8221; with a deal.
At just one affiliate, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the clinic reportedly took in $25,000 in just three months from deals for aborted baby body parts, invoices showed. Founder and CEO of Planned Parenthood partner Advanced Bioscience Resources, Linda Tracy, was repeatedly told by her lawyer on video not to disclose how much the company was taking in.
Planned Parenthood is currently not charged with any violations of U.S. code and has yet to fall under an investigation over the matter of selling or exchanging fetal tissue.
&#8220;PPMM does over 17,000 abortions a year, and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/unsealed-invoices-planned-parenthood-daleiden-25k">unsealed invoices</a> show PPMM making $25,000 in just 3 months from StemExpress,&#8221; CMP said. &#8220;When asked how much money an abortion clinic could make per year from selling fetal body parts, the founder and CEO of Planned Parenthood partner Advanced Bioscience Resources, Linda Tracy, was forbidden by her lawyer to answer.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-heres-why-planned-parenthood-booted-lenan-amanda-prestigiacomo">REPORT: Here’s Why Planned Parenthood Booted Leana Wen As President. It’s Unbelievable.</a>
WATCH:
<iframe title="Fetal Trafficking Under Oath - Planned Parenthood&#039;s Admissions About Baby Parts Sales" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PgUULMCzm8c?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Cecile Richards

WATCH: Unsealed Video Shows Planned Parenthood Execs Under Oath Discussing Baby Body Parts Sales

Abortion

Center for Medical Progress

Planned Parenthood

On Monday, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is also a <a href="https://firstliberty.org/team/josh-hammer/">constitutional attorney</a> by training, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEFIlHWRTr8">joined</a> &#8220;Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler&#8221; on One America News Network to discuss California&#8217;s recent <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20902884/california-deepfake-political-ban-election-2020">passing</a> of a law banning so-called &#8220;deep fake&#8221; videos when those videos are aired close to an election. As <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20902884/california-deepfake-political-ban-election-2020">explained</a> by The Verge, California&#8217;s law &#8220;makes it a crime to distribute [within 60 days of an election] audio or video that gives a false, damaging impression of a politician’s words or actions.&#8221; However, as The Verge continues to explain, &#8220;[p]otentially deceptive video or audio will also be allowed if it includes a disclaimer noting that it’s fake.&#8221;
The issue, as it appeared to Wheeler and Hammer, is the danger of politicians delegating power to judges to ban forms of audio or video that they, using their discretion, determine to be deceptive. Wheeler and Hammer both discussed the example of David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress, whose videos exposing systemic corruption at Planned Parenthood were decried for years by the Left as &#8220;deceptively edited&#8221; before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stated, in a footnote earlier this year, that the videos were not deceptively edited. As Hammer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fifth-circuit-panel-center-medical-progress-josh-hammer">reported</a> at the time for The Daily Wire, the Fifth Circuit opinion&#8217;s sixth footnote reads:
<blockquote>In fact, the record reflects that [the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General] had submitted a report from a forensic firm concluding that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited. And the plaintiffs did not identify any particular omission or addition in the video footage. Moreover, the district court also suggested that there was no evidence that any of [Planned Parenthood&#8217;s] research was federally funded, so the regulations relied on by OIG might be inapplicable. But the record actually establishes that the UTMB study was funded by the National Institute of Health.</blockquote>
With that context in mind, Wheeler began by asking Hammer whether California&#8217;s law could even withstand a First Amendment challenge. Hammer said that the issue is &#8220;probably right on the line&#8221; of unconstitutionality, and proceeded to explain why the law&#8217;s delegation of discretionary power to judges is problematic:
<blockquote>You know, it&#8217;s probably right on the line. I mean this is in California, so this would ultimately get appealed to the California Supreme Court and &#8230; if it&#8217;s a First Amendment challenge, [would] actually go to the Ninth Circuit because we need a federal court [for that]. These are liberal courts; traditionally, over the past 15-20 years, the Left has increasingly sided against free speech. So I could see the courts there upholding it.
But you know, here&#8217;s the thing, Liz. Anthony Kennedy — someone who I am NOT a fan of, I would be mortified to share on national television some of the things I&#8217;ve said in my private life about Anthony Kennedy — but if there&#8217;s one thing that Anthony Kennedy was wonderful on throughout his entire career, it was free speech. And he really said it best in the landmark case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf">Citizens United v. FEC</a> in 2010. Kennedy said, quote: &#8220;It is our law and our tradition that more speech, not less, is the governing rule.&#8221; And that&#8217;s kind of the classic American axiom — that is how we have always comported ourselves in the public square and the realm of politics. &#8230; The way the combat speech is with more speech. It is not to attempt to write vaguely worded statutes that &#8230; take power away from the elected political branch and ultimately are just empowering federal judges to interpret these broadly worded statutes. That&#8217;s what this is doing — it&#8217;s empowering judges to decry it as right and wrong. It&#8217;s an anti-democratic movement it is a totalitarian power grab and really, people of all political stripes should not stand for this.</blockquote>
WATCH:
<iframe title="CA Passes Law Banning &quot;Deep Fake&quot; Videos Close To Elections" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YEFIlHWRTr8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Josh Hammer OANN screen grab 10.07.19

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: California Bans ‘Deep Fake’ Videos Close To Elections

California

Constitution

First Amendment

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

Lawsuit

During the preliminary hearing this week in the criminal case against undercover journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, a &#8220;semi-retired&#8221; Planned Parenthood executive admitted that the abortion business had no ban on altering abortion procedures in order to better harvest baby body parts that would later be sold, allegedly for a profit.
According to reporting from Lianne Laurence at <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/abortion-director-at-daleiden-hearing-we-had-no-ban-on-changing-technique-to-harvest-better-baby-body-parts">LifeSiteNews</a>, &#8220;Doe 10,&#8221; the former medical director at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles until 2013, &#8220;admitted under questioning Wednesday by Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society and lawyer for Daleiden, that the Planned Parenthood affiliates she worked in had no rule against changing the abortion procedure &#8216;technique&#8217; in order to obtain better baby body parts.&#8221;
As noted by Laurence, &#8220;federal consent rules stipulate a doctor cannot change the method of a medical procedure without a patient&#8217;s consent.&#8221;
&#8220;&#8216;Doe 10&#8217; testified that Planned Parenthood abortionists &#8216;would never change the method&#8217; but admitted Planned Parenthood began making the distinction between &#8216;technique&#8217; and &#8216;method&#8217; after the [Center for Medical Progress] undercover videos were released,” the report noted.
&#8220;We had to grapple with fallout from videos,&#8221; the abortion executive, who is not allowed to be named, admitted to the court. &#8220;We had to be more specific.&#8221;
Mr. Breen, who is representing Daleiden, emphasized to the outlet that &#8220;Doe 10&#8221; was essentially playing semantics. &#8220;There is no distinction between &#8216;method&#8217; and &#8216;technique&#8217; in the law, and there is no distinction between method and technique in medical ethics,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;And so this artificial distinction that Planned Parenthood abortion doctors created so that they could get better fetal tissue is absolutely illegal and unethical and our witnesses, when we get to put on our case for the defense, they’re going to talk about that,&#8221; Breen noted.
The attorney claimed that changing the abortion procedure to better harvest aborted babies&#8217; body parts likely puts a woman at greater risk. &#8220;We&#8217;re getting testimony that switching the fetus position from the normal position of vertex to breech increases dilation so you can get better fetal tissue, well, what does increasing dilation also do, it causes harm or can cause harm to a woman’s cervix which then can cause her to be unable to carry a pregnancy down the road,&#8221; he explained.
Daleiden and Merritt, journalists for the Center for Medical Progress facing up to ten years behind bars, were charged with 15 felonies in March of 2017 for their shocking undercover videos about the abortion industry. &#8220;Doe 10&#8221; is featured in their work, which has been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42352/fifth-circuit-panel-center-medical-progress-josh-hammer">corroborated as undoctored by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit</a>, allegedly haggling over prices of fetal remains while sipping wine and joking about wanting a &#8220;Lamborghini.&#8221; She also spoke about adjusting abortion procedure technique to make it less &#8220;crunchy,&#8221; therefore keeping baby body parts better intact.
As noted by the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/planned-parenthood-was-just-forced-to-admit-in-court-to-harvesting-aborted-fetal-parts">Washington Examiner</a> earlier in the week, &#8220;Doe 7&#8221; &#8220;admitted&#8221; during the preliminary hearing &#8220;to procuring fetal tissue from the abortions she performed at Planned Parenthood,&#8221; as well as &#8220;being familiar&#8221; with the embattled StemExpress.
&#8220;She testified that she was aware of cases where money had been exchanged as part of such transactions,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;It is worth noting that StemExpress and Planned Parenthood Northern California are both under ongoing FBI and U.S. Department of Justice investigation for selling fetal organs and tissue illegally.&#8221;

David Daleiden

Planned Parenthood Exec Makes Major Admission About Baby Body Part Harvesting

Department of Justice

Let no one say he is concerned about attacks on the press if he is not worried about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47471/journalists-charged-15-felonies-undercover-videos-amanda-prestigiacomo">this</a> attack on the press. As The Daily Wire <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/47471/journalists-charged-15-felonies-undercover-videos-amanda-prestigiacomo">reported</a> this week, the case against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt is moving forward in California. Daleiden and Merritt are the heroic undercover journalists who infiltrated Planned Parenthood and exposed a vast conspiracy to traffick in the sale of human body parts. What they uncovered is absurdly unethical and obviously criminal, and the state of California wants to punish them &#8212; the journalists, not the criminals &#8212; for it.
It has been decided that the case can proceed, which means that Democratic California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Planned Parenthood supporter and grateful recipient of Planned Parenthood donations, will lead the prosecution against the people who embarrassed Planned Parenthood. Before Becerra, it was now-Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) who received money from the abortion giant and expressed support for the abortion giant, all while pursuing legal penalties against the abortion giant&#8217;s enemies. Nothing to see here, I suppose. Just explicit, in-your-face political corruption is all.
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eSokYkBBvj4" width="480"></iframe></div>
Also, an assault on journalism. Planned Parenthood complains that its &#8220;privacy&#8221; was violated because Daleiden deceived them and recorded them surreptitiously. But of course Daleiden recorded them surreptitiously &#8212; that&#8217;s the whole point of undercover journalism. If a secret is being kept from the public, and it is a secret that the public has a right to know (such as the secret that the organization we are funding to the tune of $500 million a year is also engaged in the most macabre form of human trafficking imaginable), then the only way to bring the truth to light is to get the secret-holders to spill the beans without realizing that they&#8217;re spilling the beans. That is the essence of all undercover journalism. If Daleiden and Merritt are successfully prosecuted for it, then the groundwork has been laid to criminalize all forms of undercover journalism.
Such a chilling campaign against the freedom of the press should attract the attention of the press itself. But, with a few exceptions, the press has no interest in speaking out against this. Partly because they might not recognize real journalism when they see it, but mostly because ideology comes first for our news media, and there is no ideological advantage in highlighting the plight of Daleiden and Merritt.
It will be argued that the Planned Parenthood videos were &#8220;deceptively edited&#8221; and thus not legitimate works of journalism. This is simply false. Abortion apologists shout &#8220;deceptively edited&#8221; as a reflex anytime this subject comes up, but there is absolutely no truth to the assertion. Indeed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit conducted its own investigation and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42352/fifth-circuit-panel-center-medical-progress-josh-hammer">concluded</a> that &#8220;the video was authentic and not deceptively edited.&#8221;
Even better, Planned Parenthood commissioned its own forensic analysis of the footage and also arrived, unhappily, at the <a href="http://ppfa.pr-optout.com/ViewAttachment.aspx?EID=mr9WXYw4u2IxYnni1dBRVk3HDyuhhkPMnFMCvK5fVC8%3d">conclusion</a> that there was no &#8220;widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.&#8221; Perhaps that is worth repeating in italics: Planned Parenthood&#8217;s own analysis disagrees with the claim that the videos were deceptively edited. 
If, then, the videos were not deceptively edited, it seems we are left with the unavoidable fact that Planned Parenthood officials really did what they appear to be doing on video. That is, haggling over the price of baby limbs and organs. And if that is the case, then the organization is guilty of rampant criminal conduct. And if the organization is guilty of rampant criminal conduct, and Daleiden discovered it and reported his findings accurately, then he is a journalist doing exactly what journalists are meant to do. If he is not allowed to do journalism, that would have disastrous implications for all real journalists everywhere. Though I suppose that is a small and ever-dwindling group.

WALSH: California Is Prosecuting Journalists For Doing Journalism, And The News Media Doesn’t Care

Leftism

Progressivism

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/040119zor_ed9f.pdf">declined to issue a writ of certiorari</a> to hear an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to dismiss a key abortion-related case. The writ to dismiss the underlying lawsuit was sought by David Daleiden&#8217;s group, the Center for Medical Progress.
The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/436745-supreme-court-rejects-request-from-anti-abortion-activists-to-throw">reports</a>:
<blockquote>
The Center for Medical Progress had requested the Supreme Court toss out Planned Parenthood&#8217;s claims that they committed federal conspiracy and wiretapping violations. Planned Parenthood also claims that the Center for Medical Progress violated California law by fraudulently gaining access to its facilities. &#8230;
The Center for Medical Progress, led by activist David Daleiden, had argued it was exercising its First Amendment rights in making the videos. The group also claimed that the Planned Parenthood lawsuit was in violation of California &#8220;anti-SLAPP&#8221; laws, which prevent strategic legal action aimed at silencing individuals or groups.
</blockquote>
The denial of a writ of certiorari confirms that Planned Parenthood&#8217;s suit against the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) in the Ninth Circuit will proceed in full. As CBS News <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-rejects-anti-abortion-groups-appeal-over-videos/">states</a>, &#8220;Planned Parenthood&#8217;s lawsuit alleges that CMP engaged in wire and mail fraud, committed illegal secret recording and trespassing. The pro-abortion rights group is accusing CMP of lying to the IRS and the state of California in order to illegally get tax-exempt status. It also says that CMP set up a fake health care firm and used fake IDs to register at a private medical conferences on reproductive health.&#8221;
Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress have attained something closely akin to quasi-celebrity status on the political Right ever since the initial release of their undercover pro-life videos exposing Planned Parenthood. As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42352/fifth-circuit-panel-center-medical-progress-josh-hammer">reported</a> in January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently confirmed in a footnote that the Center for Medical Progress did not &#8220;deceptively edit&#8221; its underlying videos. Footnote six of January&#8217;s Fifth Circuit <a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2019/Press/PP%20Opinion.pdf">opinion</a> in Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Family Planning and Preventative Health Services, Inc. v. Smith reads:
<blockquote>
In fact, the record reflects that [the Texas Health and Human Services Commission&#8217;s Office of Inspector General] had submitted a report from a forensic firm concluding that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited. And the plaintiffs did not identify any particular omission or addition in the video footage. Moreover, the district court also suggested that there was no evidence that any of PPGC&#8217;s research was federally funded, so the regulations relied on by OIG might be inapplicable. But the record actually establishes that the UTMB study was funded by the National Institute of Health.
</blockquote>
And as The Daily Wire noted at the time, in summarizing the key footnote:
<blockquote>
In other words, a federal appellate court has weighed in on the veracity of the infamous Center for Medical Progress videos, over which Center for Medical Progress Founder David Daleiden faced criminal charges in both California and Texas (the latter since dropped), and has concluded that the underlying video in question in this litigation was &#8220;not deceptively edited.&#8221; The ramifications of this finding in the wider abortion debate and, specifically, in the debates over defunding Planned Parenthood, will potentially be huge.
</blockquote>
Alas, those &#8220;ramifications&#8221; do not apparently now include a granted writ of certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss Planned Parenthood&#8217;s legal claims against the Center for Medical Progress.

In Win For Planned Parenthood, Supreme Court Declines To Dismiss Key Abortion Case

Supreme Court

Tonight, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit released an <a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2019/Press/PP%20Opinion.pdf">opinion</a> in Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Family Planning and Preventative Health Services, Inc. v. Smith, in which the Court reversed the district court&#8217;s preliminary injunction preventing Texas from terminating state Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. The panel&#8217;s decision represents a win for pro-lifers and general foes of Planned Parenthood.
The opinion features a graphic depiction of the tissue of an aborted unborn child. But perhaps even more notably, the opinion&#8217;s sixth footnote, pertaining to the underlying Center for Medical Progress&#8217;s <a href="http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage/">undercover video</a> footage that led Texas to terminate its funding, says the following:
<blockquote>
In fact, the record reflects that [the Texas Health and Human Services Commission&#8217;s Office of Inspector General] had submitted a report from a forensic firm concluding that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited. And the plaintiffs did not identify any particular omission or addition in the video footage. Moreover, the district court also suggested that there was no evidence that any of PPGC&#8217;s research was federally funded, so the regulations relied on by OIG might be inapplicable. But the record actually establishes that the UTMB study was funded by the National Institute of Health.
</blockquote>
In other words, a federal appellate court has weighed in on the veracity of the infamous Center for Medical Progress videos, over which Center for Medical Progress Founder David Daleiden faced criminal charges in both California and Texas (the latter since dropped), and has concluded that the underlying video in question in this litigation was &#8220;not deceptively edited.&#8221; The ramifications of this finding in the wider abortion debate and, specifically, in the debates over defunding Planned Parenthood, will potentially be huge. Indeed, pro-lifers on Twitter have already begun celebrating.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This is huge news tonight, and a big pro-life win worth celebrating. <a href="https://t.co/9lw368YCYW">https://t.co/9lw368YCYW</a>
&#8212; Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) <a href="https://twitter.com/xan_desanctis/status/1086057171157159936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
There are numerous other quote-worthy portions of the opinion. Here is the opinion&#8217;s brutal description of a certain portion of the underlying Center for Medical Progress video, in the context of a candid discussion over the federal ban on partial-birth abortion:
<blockquote>
Dr. Nguyen confirmed that the [Planned Parenthood] abortion facility can obtain intact liver and thymus. The doctor stated, sarcastically, that while federal law (prohibiting partial birth abortions) restricts a facility from intentionally retrieving an intact fetus, [Planned Parenthood] can make it happen by signing a form that they did not so &#8220;intend.&#8221; Nguyen also stated that obtaining intact specimens of liver, thymus, and neural tissue depends upon the amount of cervical dilation of the patient and the patient&#8217;s pain tolerance. The doctor noted risks associated with fetal tissue procurement that [Planned Parenthood] is willing to take because &#8220;it is for a good cause.&#8221; The doctor acknowledged that two particular [Planned Parenthood] doctors can alter the abortion procedure to meet a researcher&#8217;s request. Relying on these statements, others like them, and their expert testimony, [the Texas Health and Human Services Commission&#8217;s Office of Inspector General] sought to justify its termination decision.
</blockquote>
The whole opinion is well worth reading. Judge Edith H. Jones and Senior Judge E. Grady Jolly signed onto the opinion. Judge Catharina Haynes was on the panel but concurred only in the judgment.

Fifth Circuit Panel: Center For Medical Progress Abortion Videos Are NOT ‘Deceptively Edited’

Texas

The 15 felony charges California Attorney General Xavier Becerra leveled at two activist journalists behind a series of explosive Planned Parenthood undercover videos is such an egregious abuse of the law that even the Los Angeles Times felt compelled to call out the Democrat A.G. for his &#8220;<a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-planned-parenthood-charges-20170330-story.html">disturbing overrreach</a>.&#8221; 
On Tuesday, Becerra <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14885/tyranny-california-criminally-charges-undercover-ben-shapiro">charged</a> David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress with 15 felony counts for violating the state&#8217;s two-party consent law by recording interviews with Planned Parenthood officials without their consent. The videos set off a series of investigations into the abortion provider&#8217;s disturbing practices involving the harvesting of &#8220;fetal tissue&#8221; &#8211; in other words, aborted baby body parts &#8211; and led to <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/tissue-731858-fetal-research.html">charges</a> against a few companies in the industry. As Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro notes, the footage included &#8220;high-ranking Planned Parenthood members joking about selling baby body parts for market rates and picking through baby body parts in order to demonstrate which sorts of body parts were available for sale for medical research, as well as talking about the best methods of abortion for procuring those baby body parts.&#8221;
While The Los Angeles Times dismisses outright the significance of the videos, saying simply that they were &#8220;heavily edited&#8221; &#8211; despite CMP having released the complete, unedited footage of the most controversial interviews &#8211; the paper makes clear that Becerra&#8217;s &#8220;disturbingly aggressive&#8221; charges have crossed the line:
<blockquote>
There&#8217;s no question that anti-abortion activist David Daleiden surreptitiously recorded healthcare and biomedical services employees across the state of California with the intent of discrediting the healthcare provider, Planned Parenthood &#8211; something his heavily edited videos failed to do. There&#8217;s also no question that it&#8217;s against state law to record confidential conversations without the consent of all the parties involved.
But that doesn&#8217;t mean that California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra should have charged Daleiden and his co-conspirator, Susan Merritt, with 15 felony counts &#8211; one for each of the 14 people recorded, and a 15th for conspiracy. It&#8217;s disturbingly aggressive 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 popular that policy may be. Planned Parenthood and biomedical company StemExpress, which was also featured in the videos, have another remedy for the harm that was done to them: They can sue Daleiden and Merritt for damages. The state doesn&#8217;t need to threaten the pair with prison time. 
</blockquote>
The Times, like Shapiro, underscores that Dalieden and Merritt were acting as journalists attempting to expose the truth of a controversial issue, abortion and fetal tissue research. If the media wants to protect the freedom of the press, the media cannot turn its back on Dalieden and Merritt just because they do not agree with their values. Here&#8217;s The Times making that case: 
<blockquote>
In similar cases, we have denounced moves to criminalize such behavior, especially in the case of animal welfare investigators who have gone undercover at slaughterhouses and other agricultural businesses to secretly record horrific and illegal abuses of animals. That work, too, is aimed at revealing wrongdoing and changing public policy.
That&#8217;s why the state law forbidding recording of conversations should be applied narrowly, and to clear and egregious violations of privacy where the motive is personal gain.
</blockquote>
Kudos to the paper for being consistent on this issue. 
For more, read <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14885/tyranny-california-criminally-charges-undercover-ben-shapiro">Shapiro&#8217;s take on the legal flaws of Becerra&#8217;s 14 two-party consent charges</a>.
More from the Daily Wire on this case: 
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14913/attorney-general-who-charged-pro-life-activists-james-barrett">AG Who Charged Activists For Exposing Planned Parenthood Received Thousands In Donations From Planned Parenthood</a>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14908/kamala-harris-office-collaborated-planned-hank-berrien">Kamala Harris&#8217; Office Collaborated With Planned Parenthood To Target David Dalieden</a>
H/T <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2017/03/30/la-times-felony-charges-against-creators-of-planned-parenthood-videos-go-too-far/">John Sexton</a>

Even The LA Times Agrees: Felony Charges Against Activists Behind Planned Parenthood Videos A ‘Disturbing Overreach’

Ben Shapiro

Los Angeles Times

In the spring of 2016, Planned Parenthood collaborated with officials from then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris&#8217; office to draft legislation targeting David Daleiden, who videotaped Planned Parenthood (PP) officials discussing the sale of fetal body parts.
As reported by <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/27/kamala-harris-planned-parenthood-teamed-up-on-legi/">The Washington Times</a>, emails accessed via a Public Records Act request show Beth Parker, chief legal counsel for PP, sending multiple drafts of AB 1671 to Jill Habig, the then-special counsel to Harris. The email chain extended from March 8 until April 14.
Daleiden and his organization, The Center for Medical Progress, secretly videotaped the PP officials, which prompted AB 1671. The bill would amend the penal code to make secretly recording and disseminating communications with health care providers a crime. The bill is waiting for Gov. Jerry Brown&#8217;s signature; he has until the end of March.
On March 8, 2016, Parker wrote Habig: &#8220;Attached is the language for AB 1671, proposed amendments to Penal Code section 632. I look forward to your thoughts about this.&#8221; Eight days later, Parker sent a revised draft of the legislation, adding &#8220;Here&#8217;s the rewrite of the video tape bill. Let me know what you think.&#8221;
On April 5, Harris <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/04/05/california-authorities-raid-home-of-anti-planned-parenthood-videographer/?utm_term=.ad3353a7cb62">launched a raid</a> on Daleiden&#8217;s&#8217;s apartment; agents seized his laptop, hard drives and phone. All of the video Daleiden had filmed, &#8220;including some very damning footage that has yet to be released to the public,&#8221; according to Daleiden, was taken.
Ronald D. Rotunda, a professor of jurisprudence at Chapman University, slammed Harris, saying she is a &#8220;tool of Planned Parenthood,&#8221; adding that she was &#8220;working with Planned Parenthood to protect it from criminal prosecution &#8230; The state attorney general is supposed to represent the people of California, not a particular industry in California. What would people say if the attorney general would be working with the local slaughterhouses to help them cover up instances of cruelty to animals?&#8221;
Ana Sandoval, director of communications for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, acknowledged, &#8220;As sponsor of the legislation, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California played an integral part in drafting amendments as the bill moved through the legislative process.&#8221;
Steve Cooley, who represents Daleiden, ripped Harris, asserting, &#8220;It is common to work on legislation pending before the California state legislature &#8212; the attorney general&#8217;s office does occasionally weigh in. It is extraordinary to collaborate with a particular entity on what is clearly legislation of specific benefit to them.&#8221; He stated that there is a &#8220;pattern&#8221; of collaboration between PP and Harris&#8217; office, surmising that PP &#8220;played a major role in supplying probable cause&#8221; for the search warrant for the raid on Daleiden&#8217;s apartment. He concluded, &#8220;This is going after an individual, a single person who was operating as a citizen journalist. And all the activity and the timing of it all strongly suggests a real partnership between the attorney general and Planned Parenthood.&#8221;

Kamala Harris’ Office Collaborated With Planned Parenthood To Target David Daleiden

Kamala Harris

In a newly-released undercover video from the <a href="http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/">Center for Medical Progress </a>(CMP), abortionist and former Medical Director for Planned Parenthood of Arizona DeShawn Taylor suggests that born alive babies from abortion procedures are sometimes allowed to die rather than being sent to the hospital as the law requires.
Investigators for CMP collected footage from a reception at a Planned Parenthood conference, posing as as buyers from Stem Express, a biotech company. In their discussion surrounding late-term abortions and intact fetuses in order to harvest body parts, Dr. Taylor explains that babies who are born alive are supposed to be transported to the hospital by law. When pressed, she explains their actions with the living babies depend on &#8220;who&#8217;s in the room,&#8221; suggesting the babies are sometimes left to die. 
LifeNews <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2017/03/29/shocking-video-planned-parenthood-director-caught-admitting-babies-born-alive-after-abortion-are-killed/">reports</a>: 
<blockquote>
Taylor explains to the investigators, &#8220;In Arizona, if the fetus comes out with any signs of life, we&#8217;re supposed to transport it. To the hospital.&#8221; When one investigator then asks, &#8220;Is there any standard procedure for verifying signs of of life?&#8221;
Taylor replies, &#8220;Well, the thing is, I mean the key is, you need to pay attention to who&#8217;s in the room, right?&#8221;
Taylor then laughs as she repeats what the Arizona law requires, and says, &#8220;It&#8217;s a mess. It&#8217;s a mess.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Taylor, who provides abortions up to 24 weeks, says on camera that intact aborted babies are often troubling for her staff, since they come out &#8220;looking like a baby.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s not a matter of how I feel about it coming out intact, but I gotta worry about my staff and people&#8217;s feelings about it coming out looking like a baby,&#8221; she tells the undercover reporter. 
The abortionist also complains about how &#8220;creepy&#8221; it is when babies she&#8217;s killed are called &#8220;babies.&#8221; 
&#8220;We have the people who do our paperwork for the fetal death certificates, they email us calling them &#8216;babies&#8217;. Baby this, baby that, baby so-and-so, and I&#8217;m like, that&#8217;s creepy!&#8221;
Taylor also jokes about having to &#8220;hit the gym&#8221; because some of her dismemberment abortions require so much force: 
<blockquote>
Taylor acknowledges that the feticidal chemical digoxin cannot be used in an abortion where fetal body parts will be harvested for sale, but she remarks that in a standard dismemberment dilation and evacuation abortion, &#8220;My biceps appreciate when the dig[oxin] works,&#8221; to kill the fetus before the procedure. &#8220;I remember when I was a [Family Planning] Fellow and I was training, I was like, Oh, I have to hit the gym for this,&#8221; she says, describing the force she feels in her biceps when performing a dismemberment abortion with forceps.
</blockquote>
The year-old collection of undercover videos from CMP has been trouble for Planned Parenthood, exposing them for potential heinous and illegal acts. &#8220;The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2),&#8221; notes LifeNews. &#8220;In December, after over a year of comprehensive, nationwide investigation, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Energy &amp; Commerce Committee&#8217;s Select Investigative Panel referred Planned Parenthood Federation of America, several of the largest Planned Parenthood affiliates in the country, and three of their fetal parts business associates to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.&#8221;
But in a political move, the reporters exposing Planned Parenthood have been targeted. On Tuesday, CPM&#8217;s David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were charged with 15 felony counts for their undercover investigative journalism. Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14885/tyranny-california-criminally-charges-undercover-ben-shapiro">reports</a>:
<blockquote>
In 2015, Daleiden and Merritt released video showing high-ranking Planned Parenthood members joking about selling baby body parts for market rates and picking through baby body parts in order to demonstrate which sorts of body parts were available for sale for medical research, as well as talking about the best methods of abortion for procuring those baby body parts. The California Department of Justice, under the auspices of now-Senator Kamala Harris, raided Daleiden&#8217;s home for footage in April 2016; last year, the state of Texas pursued charges against Daleiden and Merritt, but those charges were thrown out.
So, here&#8217;s the question: where&#8217;s the media, rushing to the defense of these undercover journalists?
</blockquote>
Of course, there will be no swell of media elites coming to the defense of these reporters.
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="415" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aeINzcwb3qU" width="595"></iframe></div>

SHOCK VIDEO: Former Planned Parenthood Director Suggests Born Alive Babies Are Allowed To Die: Depends On ‘Who’s In The Room’

On Tuesday, the state of California <a href="https://apnews.com/c50e993d047142cf8ca0e8050daf6114/Felony-charges-for-2-who-secretly-filmed-Planned-Parenthood?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=AP">charged</a> David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress on 15 felony counts over their undercover reporting regarding Planned Parenthood. In 2015, Daleiden and Merritt released video showing high-ranking Planned Parenthood members joking about selling baby body parts for market rates and picking through baby body parts in order to demonstrate which sorts of body parts were available for sale for medical research, as well as talking about the best methods of abortion for procuring those baby body parts. The California Department of Justice, under the auspices of now-Senator Kamala Harris, raided Daleiden&#8217;s home for footage in April 2016; last year, the state of Texas pursued charges against Daleiden and Merritt, but those charges were thrown out.
So, here&#8217;s the question: where&#8217;s the media, rushing to the defense of these undercover journalists?
They&#8217;re silent. Or they&#8217;re celebrating, since they think that Daleiden and Merritt were evil conservatives out to target the saints at Planned Parenthood. They buy the lie that the tapes were deceptively edited so as to implicate Planned Parenthood in nefarious activity &#8211; but the tapes show precisely what the tapes show.
Here&#8217;s what you need to know.
California is a two-party consent state when it comes to taping private conversations. But those conversations have to be private. Fourteen of the 15 charges filed came under California Penal Code Section 632(a), which states in relevant part, &#8220;Every person who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication, by means of any electronic amplifying or recording device, eavesdrops upon or records the confidential communication &#8230; shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), or imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison, or by both that fine and imprisonment.&#8221; Note the language: confidential. These were not confidential communications.
First off, conversations in a public restaurant are clearly not confidential. And the Ninth Circuit found in 2002 that tapes made in private areas between a company and undercover journalists who are &#8220;strangers&#8221; to that company are not illegal &#8211; they ruled that a very similar undercover investigation by ABC News against <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1003103.html">Medical Laboratory Management Consultants</a> for Primetime Live was just fine: &#8220;Devaraj&#8217;s willingness to invite these strangers into the administrative offices for a meeting and then on a tour of the premises indicates that Devaraj did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of solitude or seclusion in the parts of Medical Lab that he showed the ABC representatives.&#8221;
Furthermore, the court found no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding the conversations between the ABC undercover reporters and medical technicians: &#8220;Devaraj did not reveal any information about his personal life or affairs, but only generally discussed Medical Lab&#8217;s business operations, the pap smear testing industry, and Gordon&#8217;s supposed plans to open her own laboratory.&#8221; In fact, the Ninth Circuit explicitly distinguished Arizona law from California law and then said that even under California law, there would be no reasonable expectation of privacy: &#8220;The expectation of limited privacy in a communication &#8211; namely the expectation that a communication shared with, or possibly overheard by, a limited group of persons will nonetheless remain relatively private and secluded from the public at large &#8211; is reasonable only to the extent that the communication conveys information private and personal to the declarant.&#8221; This is precisely the same logic that would apply here.
So, where&#8217;s the media in defense of Daleiden and Merritt? They&#8217;re absent, even as they defend their own undercover journalists. Today, <a href="https://apnews.com/7a6dfcb9ffa0461fa30a675d53696ce3?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=APSouthRegion">National Public Radio</a> asked for the reinstatement of a reporter who secretly recorded high school students and legislators chatting about LGBT issues. Yet NPR has said nothing about Daleiden and Merritt.
This undermines the press&#8217; repeated, vociferous claims that they will challenge anyone who stands against press freedoms. They pretend to be fighters against governmental overreach &#8211; they&#8217;ll fight Trumpian fascism every step of the way! &#8211; but the minute that somebody they don&#8217;t like, a conservative, faces serious government crackdowns, they shut up.
Daleiden and Merritt deserve their defense. Anything less is rank hypocrisy.

TYRANNY: California Criminally Charges Undercover Reporters Who Exposed Planned Parenthood’s Baby Body Part Sales. Where’s The Outrage?

Media

Just how depraved are those who work in the baby-killing AKA &#8220;abortion&#8221; industry?
This depraved: a video showed an owner of three abortion facilities in Detroit <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/abortion-clinic-owner-burning-aborted-babies-for-energy-is-a-great-idea-vid">chortling</a> that burning dead babies&#8217; bodies for energy is &#8220;a great idea&#8221; and &#8220;a really good solution&#8221; for society.
The video was shot by the Center for Medical Progress at the NAF&#8217;s 2014 annual convention in San Francisco, where a Canadian abortionist announced, &#8220;Just before I came I had to handle some media&#8221; requests dealing &#8220;with a big, sort of, explosion of the incineration of fetal [tissue] and stillbirths.&#8221; The British Columbia Health Ministry had <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/canadian-aborted-babies-incinerated-in-oregon-waste-to-energy-facility-to-p">revealed</a> that &#8220;human tissue, such as surgically removed cancerous tissue, amputated limbs, and fetal tissue,&#8221; had been sent to the Covanta Marion waste-to-energy facility in Oregon.
Responding to the Canadian abortionist, Renee Chelian, the owner of the Detroit facilities, enthused, &#8220;It seems like a really good solution &#8230; It&#8217;s a potential PR nightmare,&#8221; adding jocularly, &#8220;I mean, nobody wants to know where the kneecaps are going.&#8221;
Still later, she reiterated, &#8220;It&#8217;s a PR nightmare for us. It would be on the front page of the paper: &#8216;Fetuses are being used for energy.&#8217; I mean, I think it&#8217;s a great idea, but &#8211;&#8220;
The Canadian abortionist interrupted, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know about the rest of you, but certainly ours is going to Portland. The facility is a waste energy facility,&#8221; reassuring her listeners, &#8220;I&#8217;ve basically got the reporter spinning in so many details that she probably thinks, &#8216;It&#8217;s too complicated. Never mind!'&#8221;
<blockquote>
&#8220;I&#8217;ve basically got the reporter spinning in so many details that she probably thinks, &#8216;It&#8217;s too complicated. Never mind!'&#8221;
Canadian abortionist on misleading the press and hiding that fetuses were burned for energy
</blockquote>
General laughter ensued.
<a href="http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/">According</a> to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, over 52 million babies have been legally slaughtered in the United States since Roe V. Wade was decided in 1973.
Still laughing?

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Center for Medical Progress

WATCH: Unsealed Video Shows Planned Parenthood Execs Under Oath Discussing Baby Body Parts Sales

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: California Bans ‘Deep Fake’ Videos Close To Elections

Planned Parenthood Exec Makes Major Admission About Baby Body Part Harvesting

WALSH: California Is Prosecuting Journalists For Doing Journalism, And The News Media Doesn’t Care

In Win For Planned Parenthood, Supreme Court Declines To Dismiss Key Abortion Case

Fifth Circuit Panel: Center For Medical Progress Abortion Videos Are NOT ‘Deceptively Edited’

Even The LA Times Agrees: Felony Charges Against Activists Behind Planned Parenthood Videos A ‘Disturbing Overreach’

Kamala Harris’ Office Collaborated With Planned Parenthood To Target David Daleiden

SHOCK VIDEO: Former Planned Parenthood Director Suggests Born Alive Babies Are Allowed To Die: Depends On ‘Who’s In The Room’

TYRANNY: California Criminally Charges Undercover Reporters Who Exposed Planned Parenthood’s Baby Body Part Sales. Where’s The Outrage?

Abortion Clinic Owner: Burning Aborted Babies for Energy a ‘Great Idea’

Menu

Center for Medical Progress

WATCH: Unsealed Video Shows Planned Parenthood Execs Under Oath Discussing Baby Body Parts Sales

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: California Bans ‘Deep Fake’ Videos Close To Elections

Planned Parenthood Exec Makes Major Admission About Baby Body Part Harvesting

WALSH: California Is Prosecuting Journalists For Doing Journalism, And The News Media Doesn’t Care

In Win For Planned Parenthood, Supreme Court Declines To Dismiss Key Abortion Case

Fifth Circuit Panel: Center For Medical Progress Abortion Videos Are NOT ‘Deceptively Edited’

Even The LA Times Agrees: Felony Charges Against Activists Behind Planned Parenthood Videos A ‘Disturbing Overreach’

Kamala Harris’ Office Collaborated With Planned Parenthood To Target David Daleiden

SHOCK VIDEO: Former Planned Parenthood Director Suggests Born Alive Babies Are Allowed To Die: Depends On ‘Who’s In The Room’

TYRANNY: California Criminally Charges Undercover Reporters Who Exposed Planned Parenthood’s Baby Body Part Sales. Where’s The Outrage?

Abortion Clinic Owner: Burning Aborted Babies for Energy a ‘Great Idea’

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