When David Daleiden (shown) learned that our nation’s leading abortion provider was harvesting and marketing the body parts of freshly aborted infants, he decided to take action designed to put an end to the grisly practice. Working with collaborator Sandra Merritt, the two anti-abortion stalwarts formed several dummy companies enabling them to pose as potential buyers of the hearts, livers, lungs, etc. of the freshly slain babies. Using a television camera hidden in his clothing, David was able to meet with Planned Parenthood officials, have them openly discuss their grisly but monetarily profitable scheme, and demonstrate precisely the ghoulish money-making practice they were pursuing.
To accomplish his important exposé, David started by creating and registering the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) as a tax-exempt charity. He later re-registered it as a journalistic firm. He then established an entity known as Biomax Procurement Services whose fake credentials enabled him to meet with Planned Parenthood personnel and discuss the buying and selling of infant body parts. It was during these meetings that the PP officials happily discussed their marketing procedures. All the while, David was secretly recording the admissions of these officials who eagerly provided details for transactions David proposed but never intended to complete.
In July 2015, the National Abortion Federation sued David and CMP accusing the 26-year old anti abortion crusader of violating the privacy of its members and endangering their safety via reprisals from abortion opponents. Soon, David was facing similar charges in Houston, for creating a fake driver¹s license and for offering a seller of infant body parts $1,600 to acquire some remains from newly aborted babies. A local court in Houston dismissed the first charge. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that David¹s videos containing admissions of guilt on the part of people willing to sell such parts from aborted infants were authentic and that federal court dismissed the second charge. The Fifth Circuit judges also concluded that the state of Texas could strip Planned Parenthood of its government-supplied federal funding. In Texas, what David Daleiden had shown was enough to stop the harassment of the man who had solid proof of the incredibly criminal activity being practiced by PP officials.
In California however, the entire matter, and Daleiden himself, received completely opposite treatment. There, several courts have done everything possible to have David declared the criminal in the truly reprehensible practice of marketing infant body parts. In 2017, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed 15 felony charges against David and his associate, Sandra Merritt. Agents of the California Department of Justice had already entered David¹s California home and seized his computers, related electronic equipment, and the made-up documents he had created enabling him to pose as a legitimate potential purchaser of the organs of recently aborted babies.
Along the way in this campaign to damage David and allow the abortionists to continue their reprehensible practices, Planned Parenthood had hired a video production company hoping that its experts could conclude that David’s videos were bogus products of clever editing and, therefore, unworthy of consideration. After its examination was completed, the firm failed to reach such a conclusion. Then David¹s legal defense team hired a different video company to examine what David had accumulated. Its experts examined the videos David had accumulated, declared them completely authentic, and concluded that there was no evidence of fraud attempting to provide a false account of what had been recorded.
California authorities nevertheless continued their campaign against the two whistle blowers. Judge Christopher Hite ruled that Daleiden and Merritt had to be tried on nine felony counts involving eavesdropping and invasion of privacy. That trial, of course, should have had Planned Parenthood and its officials as defendants. But it produced a guilty verdict for Daleiden, Merritt, and several others who had aided the pair in their quest to obtain proof that PP officials openly and boastfully were e engaged in a financially rewarding practice whereby tiny body parts were being sold for profit.
Where justice prevailed in Texas, it was ignored in California. In August 2019, federal judge William Orrick ordered Daleiden and his attorneys to pay the National Abortion Federation $195,359 to compensate for legal fees and for hiring security personnel to protect the abortionists from possible physical attack by pro-lifers. Then, in further rulings, David was found guilty of fraud, breach of contract, unlawful recording of conversations, civil conspiracy, and violation of a federal anti-racketeering law. He was told he must pay Planned Parenthood $870,000 for the damage he had caused to America¹s chief practitioner of abortion, the very organization that is the nation¹s primary dealer in the harvesting and selling for profit the body parts of innocent infants.
David Daleiden¹s attorneys are working on appeals of these rulings. Americans who believe in justice for newly born infants, and understand that stopping the inhuman practices engaged in by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, need to know how evil is being protected by a legal system gone astray.
Photo of David Daleiden: AP Images
John F. McManus is president emeritus of The John Birch Society.
