(LifeSiteNews) — Attorneys for David Daleiden and his co-defendants have appealed the multimillion dollar judgment levied against them after they exposed Planned Parenthood’s illegal baby body parts trafficking.
“Defendants did nothing that 20/20, Dateline or animal rights activists haven’t done, and nothing so different from what undercover journalists have been doing since the slavery debate,” Heather Hacker of Hacker Stephens, who represented Daleiden’s journalist group, Center for Medical Progress (CMP), told a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday.
“If the district court’s conclusions are affirmed, there is no way to limit the inevitable fallout the ruling would have on free speech and journalism in this circuit,” Hacker continued.
In 2015, CMP released videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s apparently illegal trade in aborted baby body parts after a 30-month undercover operation. The groundbreaking videos showed top-level Planned Parenthood executives haggling over prices of aborted baby body parts and discussing how to change abortion procedures to obtain more intact organs.
The videos sparked public outrage, congressional and senate hearings, and an ongoing Department of Justice criminal investigation into Planned Parenthood, provoking the abortion giant to sue CMP and its pro-life team.
In November 2019, a San Francisco jury found CMP, David Daleiden, and pro-life associates Sandra Merritt, Albin Rhomberg, and Operation Rescue president Troy Newman jointly liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to Planned Parenthood, tripled to $1.4 million under a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charge. Combined with compensatory damages, the award totaled more than $2 million.
The Surgi-Center, a Washington, D.C. abortion clinic infamous for offering late, second trimester abortions, and its owner, abortionist Cesare Santangelo, are at the center of a scandal involving possible violations of federal laws against partial-birth abortion and infanticide.
In an exclusive video interview with LifeSiteNews, Lauren Handy, the director of activism at Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), told LifeSiteNew's Editor-in-Chief, John-Henry Westen that, with the help of a whistleblower, her organization rescued and properly buried the remains of about one hundred aborted babies from Santangelo's Surgi-Center.
But, five of the deceased babies were so large and so developed that they suspected the Surgi-Center of engaging in the illegal practices of partial-birth abortion or infanticide (i.e., killing the child after birth) à la Kermit Gosnell.
The shocked pro-lifers then gave the aborted babies to the police and brought the matter to the attention of the D.C. Medical Examiner's office. But, the Medical Examiner's office has refused to take any action, saying they will not perform autopsies on the babies.
Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition to the Department of Justice, asking them to launch an investigation into alleged violations of federal law by Santangelo and the D.C. Surgi-Center, under either the Partial Birth Abortion Act (2003) or the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (2002). *Anyone - no matter where you reside - can sign this petition!
Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there.
Handy and eight of her fellow pro-life rescuers in PAAU are, themselves, now facing jail-time after being arrested by the FBI for conducting a traditional pro-life sit-in in October, 2020, at the very same abortion center from which the late-term deceased babies (mentioned above) were rescued.
Please note that the two events - the pro-life rescue in 2020 and the gruesome discovery of the five near-to-full-term babies in the Surgi-Center's "bio-medical waste" earlier this year - are almost one-and-a-half years apart.
Thus, Handy believes that their recent arrest is no coincidence...and, moreover, that the FBI is being used to create a smokescreen by arresting her and the other pro-lifers.
At the same time, the D.C. Medical Examiner's office does not seem interested in discovering the truth about the deaths of the five aborted babies and possible illegal partial-birth abortions or infanticide happening at the D.C. Surgi-Center.
Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition to the Department of Justice, asking them to launch an investigation into alleged violations of federal law by Santangelo and the D.C. Surgi-Center, under either the Partial Birth Abortion Act (2003) or the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (2002).
The DOJ press release claims that the pro-lifers: "engaged in a conspiracy to create a blockade at the reproductive health care clinic to prevent the clinic from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services."
But, commenting on the arrest, Lauren Handy stated: "Media reports have stated that we ‘invaded’ the abortion center and ‘disrupted’ women from exercising their ‘reproductive rights’. No, that is not what we did."
"We entered the clinic and sought to love the women who were already there for their abortion procedures," Handy said. "We tried to offer them help so they would choose life. We non-violently defended the unborn who were about to be exterminated – the innocent, the most vulnerable, killed in horrific acts of violence and treated as so much trash."
Tireless pro-life activist Dr. Monica Miller, the director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and leader of Red Rose Rescue, told LifeSiteNews that "this is the first time any of them are facing federal charges. That the rescuers were hunted down by FBI agents is unprecedented in the history of pro-life activism."
All of this...possibly...for discovering five near-or-at-term aborted babies at Cesare Santangelo's D.C. Surgi-Center, and for seeking to give justice and dignity to the murdered babies.
The truth now needs to come out!
Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition to the Department of Justice, asking them to launch an investigation into alleged violations of federal law by Santangelo and the D.C. Surgi-Center, under either the Partial Birth Abortion Act (2003) or the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (2002).
Thank you for SIGNING and SHARING this urgent petition!
To contribute to the legal defense of Lauren Handy and the other eight members of PAAU, please CLICK on the following link to find out more about their LifeFunder campaign (also operated by LifeSiteNews): https://www.lifefunder.com/victims
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Pro-life hero raided by FBI speaks about the aborted babies she was trying to honor' - https://rumble.com/vzsslx-exclusive-pro-life-hero-raided-by-fbi-speaks-about-the-aborted-babies-she-w.html
'Pro-lifers arrested in FBI raids, face 11 years in prison for blocking access to late-term abortion mill' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pro-lifers-raided-charged-and-face-11-years-in-jail-for-blocking-access-to-infamous-dc-abortion-mill/
'BREAKING: Video surfaces of FBI raid, arrest of nonviolent pro-life activists' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-video-surfaces-of-biden-fbi-raid-arrest-of-nonviolent-pro-life-activists/
'Court Docs reveal previously unknown patient death due to negligence at late-term abortion facility' - https://www.operationrescue.org/archives/court-docs-reveal-previously-unknown-patient-death-due-to-negligence-at-late-term-abortion-facility/
**Photo Credit: YouTube screenshot of pro-lifers protesting outside the Surgi-Center abortion facility, in Washington, D.C.
In December 2020, an additional $13.6 million in attorney fees were awarded to Planned Parenthood.
Last year, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Project Veritas, Live Action, Americans United for Life, Judicial Watch, and the attorneys general of 20 states filed amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs in support of the appeal of the $16 million judgment.
During Thursday’s hearing, Hacker pointed out that the district court had found the pro-life denfendants liable for “infiltration” and “security” damages. She argued that Planned Parenthood’s perceived need for security was due to the repercussions of constitutionally-protected free speech, and not the pro-lifers themselves, since they “never acted in a threatening manner.”
“Rather, Planned Parenthood believed there was a threat from third parties who were reacting to the publication of the video,” Hacker contended.
Katherine Short, who represented Albin Rhomberg, named in Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit as one of the CMP three founding board members, also pointed out during the hearing that “nothing was damaged by defendants’ infiltrations into three hotel-based conferences.”
In addition, she argued, Planned Parenthood had not substantiated its claim that there was a resulting loss of trust of its attendees resulting in “dollars and cents ‘injury to business and property’ as required by RICO…”
Reuters noted that “Chief Judge Mary Murguia, Circuit Judge Ronald Gould and visiting District Judge Nancy Freudenthal of Wyoming did not clearly indicate how they would rule.”
Investigative footage documenting Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby body parts can be found on the Center for Medical Progress website.