It’s been a long time coming, but there is finally an update on the case of David Daleiden, the undercover investigator who produced a series of videos exposing Planned Parenthood staff and executives in the gruesome practice of exchanging tissue and body parts of aborted babies for massive cash donations.
In other words, they were selling aborted baby parts, and making a killing off of it—literally.
When Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) first went public with the fruits of their investigation, they were wholeheartedly denounced and attacked by the left. Of course, these are people who applaud and support whistleblowing and investigative journalism, just not when it targets one of their social justice sacred cows.
To refresh your memory, The Thomas More Society reports on the initial lawsuit against Daleiden:
Following Daleiden’s release of whistleblowing videos depicting Planned Parenthood’s and Stem Express’s (and others’) roles in illegal harvesting and selling fetal body parts for profit, as well as violating laws against partial birth abortion, killing of born alive infants, and altering abortion procedures so as to enhance possibilities for securing “intact fetal cadavers,” the National Abortion Federation sued Daleiden and his affiliated entities, as well as Operation Rescue head Troy Newman (represented by separate counsel), under the federal Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), a 1970 federal law which was designed to combat organized crime, as well as under another twelve California state law claims.
From the very beginning, Daleiden and his associates have maintained that they followed all applicable laws in recording the shocking videos and that the resulting lawsuit was nothing more than retribution for shining light on Planned Parenthood’s sordid practices.
As of yesterday, however, a federal judge in San Francisco has issued a tentative ruling vindicating Daleiden and CMP and sharply cropping Planned Parenthood’s retaliatory lawsuit.
In his tentative ruling, which he instructed all plaintiffs and defendants to treat as final, Judge William Orrick III rejected Planned Parenthood’s patently false accusation that CMP citizen journalists, including Daleiden, attempted to incite “threats” and “violence” with the videos.
Judge Orrick also wrote that he was “inclined to exclude from the case all damages that stem from third parties’ reactions to the release of the video recordings as impermissible damages barred by the First Amendment absent a defamation claim,” referring to the more than $20 million in damages Planned Parenthood initially sought.
Instead, Judge Orrick left in place only “damages for investigating intrusions” onto Planned Parenthood’s property, and “improvements to access-security measures for conferences and facilities,” as well as nominal and statutory damages, amounting to less than $100,000.
In a statement to Life News, Daleiden rejoices:
Now that all the facts, evidence, and testimony are in, even Planned Parenthood’s favorite judge refuses to buy into the abortion giant’s fake news and lies about the honest motives and protected speech of pro-life citizen journalists. Planned Parenthood is a government-sponsored crime syndicate selling baby body parts like widgets on an assembly line and should only appear in federal court as a criminal defendant.
[The] ruling affirms that citizen journalists exercising their First Amendment rights to speak and publish cannot be held liable for any bad actions taken by others in the free marketplace of ideas, absent a clear showing of defamation or intent to incite imminent lawless action. Planned Parenthood could provide no evidence or testimony in the case to back up either accusation, and so a lawsuit that was once an avalanche of charges has been reduced to essentially a trespassing dispute.
To receive even a remotely favorable ruling from Judge Orrick is nothing short of a miracle, Life News states, noting that he “previously faced scrutiny presiding over the case because of his history founding, promoting, and donating to a Planned Parenthood clinic in San Francisco run by Plaintiff Planned Parenthood Northern California.”
Praise God for his almighty hand at work in this case! Please continue to pray for Daleiden and the associates of CMP—their battle to expose the evils of Planned Parenthood isn’t over until every last one of their doors is boarded up!
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