San Francisco, Calif., Mar 29, 2017 / 15:07 pm
The undercover journalists whose work appeared to implicate Planned Parenthood officials in the illegal sale of unborn baby body parts now face 15 felony charges in California, but one insists the allegations are phony.
David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress characterized the allegations as "bogus charges from Planned Parenthood's political cronies."
"The public knows the real criminals are Planned Parenthood and their business partners like StemExpress and DV Biologics – currently being prosecuted in California – who have harvested and sold aborted baby body parts for profit for years in direct violation of state and federal law," he said March 28.
California Attorney General Xavier Beccerra has charged that Daleiden and his co-investigator Sandra Merritt filmed 14 people without their consent in Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Francisco and El Dorado. The two are also charged with conspiracy to invade privacy.
Beccerra said his office "will not tolerate the criminal recording of confidential conversations."
"The right to privacy is a cornerstone of California's Constitution, and a right that is foundational in a free democratic society," he said Tuesday.
Data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan funding watchdog, appear to show that Beccerra has received several minor donations from Planned Parenthood, totaling some $6,000 in the last 20 years.
In the current case, court papers claim the undercover investigators' surreptitious recording of officials involved in Planned Parenthood and other sections of the abortion industry were illegal. An affidavit filed in San Francisco Superior Court justified the conspiracy charges on the grounds the investigators used pseudonyms, fake California drivers' licenses, and a front medical research company, Biomax Procurement Services, in order to secure a booth at the National Abortion Federation's 2014 conference in San Francisco.
Daleiden compared the California charges to Texas charges that had been filed against him and dismissed in June 2016, including a charge he had used a fake California driver's license to access a Texas Planned Parenthood building.
"They tried the same collusion with corrupt officials in Houston, Texas and failed: both the charges and the district attorney were thrown out," he said.
The Center for Medical Progress videos gave great momentum to efforts to end state and federal taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, which receives about half a billion dollars in federal funds annually, about 40 percent of its operating budget. While this money is forbidden by law from funding abortions, critics charge that these rules may not always be followed, and that any federal funding frees up other money for abortions.
In January 2017, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Select Investigative Panel investigating fetal tissue procurement released its report declaring that there are abuses and possible criminal violations in the area. The procurement of fetal tissue for profit is illegal.
Although a dozen states opened investigations into the organizations involved, they did not find legally admissible evidence of wrongdoing.
Backers of Planned Parenthood have charged that the videos were deceptively edited, a charge Daleiden has strongly contested, releasing the full videos to support his claim.
Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Mary Alice Carter said that the California charges show "the only people who broke the law are those behind the fraudulent tapes." Carter denied that Planned Parenthood has done anything wrong.
Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation charged that the videos resulted in a "flood of hate speech, threats and violence" to abortion providers.
Daleiden, however, defended his work.
"We look forward to showing the entire world what is on our yet-unreleased video tapes of Planned Parenthood's criminal baby body parts enterprise, in vindication of the First Amendment rights of all," he said Tuesday.
On March 29, the Center for Medical Progress released its latest video, which involved Dr. DeShawn Taylor, a past medical director of Planned Parenthood who served as an abortion provider at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles.
The video appeared to show Taylor saying her facility's treatment of babies who show "signs of life" after an abortion depended on "who's in the room."
The release of the investigation's first video took place in July 2015. It and subsequent videos have drawn a massive response from Planned Parenthood and its allies. A 2015 grant listing from the Open Societies Foundation, published after a foundations' computer system was hacked, found a planned $7-8 million campaign to respond to the videos. The Hewlett Foundation and the Democracy Alliance were named as other partners in the campaign.
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