Once again, a cynic might say that “no good deed goes unpunished.” Much of America was aghast at last year’s Planned Parenthood videos apparently showing the pro-pre-natal infanticide group coldly and cavalierly trafficking in babies’ body parts. And now indictments have been issued in the case — against the people who exposed the carnage. Reports the Washington Times:
A Texas grand jury has cleared a Planned Parenthood affiliate of accusations it sold fetal tissue for profit, and instead indicted two pro-life activists whose secret recordings ignited a national debate over the abortion provider’s activities, a state prosecutor said Monday.
The activists, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, were indicted on charges of tampering with a government record. Both posed as executives of a fake biomedical research company to tape Planned Parenthood doctors and clinic managers talking about harvesting fetal tissue, according to court documents.
Mr. Daleiden was also indicted under a law prohibiting the solicitation or sale of human organs, which suggests grand jurors thought he went too far in trying to snare Planned Parenthood.
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In a sad irony, the Times points out that the “indictments mark a stunning reversal for pro-life activists, who seized on the secret videos [one below] as evidence that Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider network, was breaking the law through the actions of some of its affiliates.” Pro-life Texas state officials, such as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, had called for the investigation of the organization in the first place.
Daleiden has been charged with a crime, despite only feigning interest in human-tissue trafficking as part of an undercover investigation; in contrast, Planned Parenthood (PP) has avoided charges even though a series of videos released last summer by Daleiden’s group, the Center for Medical Progress, showed PP “doctors acting as negotiators as they dicker over the price of a fetal liver, heart, or brain, and then talk about how they meticulously go to the trouble of not crushing the most valuable body parts,” as liberal columnist Ruben Navarrette put it at the time. He also wrote:
Who could forget Dr. Mary Gatter, council president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Directors, when, in Video #2 [below], she tells undercover investigators that it isn’t about the money — before she zeroes in on dollars and cents?
“Let me just figure out what others are getting, and if this is in the ballpark, then it’s fine,” Gatter said. “If it’s still low, then we can bump it up.”
Then, going for broke, she added: “I want a Lamborghini.”
Given this, it’s no surprise that the indictments have evoked incredulity. The top commenter at Gateway Pundit lamented that the “world is upside down” and that the charges were “like indicting Zapruder for the assassination of Kennedy.” And Representative Diane Black (R-Tenn.), who worked as a nurse for four decades and authored the House-approved Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015, called the charges “politically motivated.” Furthermore, writes WND.com:
Black said: “It is a sad day in America when those who harvest the body parts of aborted babies escape consequences for their actions, while the courageous truth-tellers who expose their misdeeds are handed down a politically motivated indictment instead.”
WND reported last week that records show Planned Parenthood’s Wisconsin affiliate “provided researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the hearts and brains of unborn babies up to 18 weeks old and within five minutes of being aborted.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom noted Friday that both the university and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin have “denied any such exchange.”
“Planned Parenthood has once again demonstrated its willingness to cover up its role in the gruesome baby parts trade,” said ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman.
And when uncovered, the gruesome facts speak for themselves. For example, the PP videos have even made the aforementioned liberal columnist, Ruben Navarrette, reconsider his position. Saying he thought he was pro-abortion — “until recently” — he wrote:
These days, each time, I express concern, outrage, disgust or horror over another video — which should come with warnings that they may produce nightmares — some supporter of the [PP] organization responds by attacking me and insisting that I was never really pro-choice to begin with.
Defenders of Planned Parenthood are trying to deflect criticism away from the organization and onto those who produced the videos. In the minds of true believers, those are the real culprits — guilty of releasing illegally obtained and “heavily edited” videos with the intent of destroying a valuable organization that provides essential health services to millions of women. The organization has hired an expensive Washington DC-based PR firm to do damage control, and the firm quickly tried to pressure television networks to stop airing the videos.
And the effort has apparently worked. PP’s brutality quickly faded from the headlines, the Democrats and Barack Obama managed to scuttle a congressional effort to deny the organization its $500 million yearly taxpayer subsidy, and now it’s escaping criminal charges as well.
Nonetheless, Lt. Gov. Patrick issued a statement saying that a state Senate probe he had ordered would continue “because the horrific nature of these videos demand scrutiny and investigation,” reported Chron.com, and “Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who also ordered their own investigations, released statements saying they would continue.” Meanwhile, LifeSiteNews has created a petition called “Drop all charges against David Daleiden, investigate Planned Parenthood.”
Of course, PP has steadfastly denied all charges against it. But as WND.com asked last September, echoing a simple question Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) had posed to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards during a congressional hearing, “If the controversial undercover videos exposing the apparent dismemberment and selling of baby parts by her organization were heavily edited, as she claimed, why did she apologize for the videos just two days after they surfaced?”
As far as legitimate explanations go, the congressman’s question went unanswered — and now the same can be said about Planned Parenthood’s misdeeds.
