HOUSTON, Texas — The Houston affiliate of Planned Parenthood has filed legal documents to join in the California lawsuit against the pro-life group who took the undercover expose videos of its staff and clinic, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP).
Center for Medical Progress filmed the videos that have been at the center of the expose of the abortion syndicate. The video series included damning videos of what was apparently both the practice of selling baby body parts, and altering the positions of these babies during the abortion process in order to be able to procure intact organs so they could be sold.
A Harris County, Texas (Houston) grand jury declined to indict Houston’s Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in January but indicted the two persons who were involved in the undercover videos.
As reported by Breitbart News, Planned Parenthood’s national organzation and its California affiliate filed a lawsuit against the CMP in January.
In the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood called Center for Medical Progress:
[A] complex criminal enterprise conceived and executed by anti-abortion extremists. The express aim of the enterprise – which stretched over years and involved fake companies, fake identifications, and large-scale illegal taping – was to demonize Planned Parenthood, harass and intimidate its dedicated staff, and interrupt its operations, all with the ultimate goal of interfering with women’s access to legal abortion.
At the time the lawsuit was filed, David Daleiden, one of the videographers responded, “Game On.”
On the day the lawsuit was filed, CMP fired back saying there were still four questions about Planned Parenthood’s barbaric and potentially illegal activities that have not been answered:
- How much money total did Planned Parenthood receive from StemExpress from 2010 to 2015?
- Why is Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services talking about manipulating fetuses to breech position to get better organs?
- Why did a Planned Parenthood Medical Director endorse a StemExpress advertisement for “financial profits” from fetal tissue donation if Planned Parenthood does not support profiting from fetal tissue?
- Since the President of the Medical Directors’ Council said “we didn’t really have to do anything” when letting Novogenix Laboratories, LLC harvest fetal tissue, why did Novogenix pay Planned Parenthood?
The executive vice president of the abortion mill said the CMP “colluded wth right-wing state legislators and members of Congress” to attack them. She also called Daleidon and his associate, Sandra Merritt, “some of the nation’s most extreme anti-abortion activists.”
The January 2016 lawsuit by Planned Parenthood lists the two aliases used by Daleidon and Merritt when acting as undercover buyers of baby body parts – “Robert Sarkis, and “Susan Tennenbaum.”
As reported by Breitbart Texas, Daleidon and Merritt were indicted in Harris County in January of this year. The pair were indicted by a grand jury for tampering with a government record.
The grand jury declined to take any action against the Houston-based Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.
Texas leaders responded to the indictments of the pro-life activists by vowing to continue their investigation into the practices at Texas abortion facilities.
The undercover video involving the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Houston was the fifth released by Daleiden. As reported by Breitbart News’ Austin Ruse, it shows the director of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Melissa Farrell, discussing the sale of whole intact aborted babies and discussing the altering of the abortion process in order to obtain whole intact babies.
In the video (which is included the Breitbart News article), Farrell talks about “specimens” ranging from 14 to 22 weeks in gestational age and says she has six “providers” who will abort babies that are older than sixteen weeks.
As reported by Ruse, the video shows Farrell talking about “diversification of the revenue stream.” Moreover, when she is complimented on her financial background and her ability to see the financial benefits in buying and selling fetal body parts, she does not correct the investigator who complimented her. She also does not deny that Planned Parenthood is in the business for financial gain.
As reported by Breitbart News after the video was released, the Houston Planned Parenthood director nods and agrees that her department “contributes so much to the bottom line” and says her research department is the largest of all other similar departments at the abortion provider combined.
Planned Parenthood and StemExpress, the primary purchaser of aborted baby organs, deny that the organs are sold for a profit. They claim any funds obtained cover reasonable expenses.
Breitbart Texas was at a press conference in early August 2015 when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson to investigate Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. His request came just a day after the release of the fifth video.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded to the failure of the grand jury to indict the Houston abortion affiliate by saying, “The Health and Human Service Commission’s Inspector General and the Attorney General’s office have an ongoing investigation into Planned Parenthood’s actions. Nothing about today’s announcement in Harris County impacts the state’s ongoing investigation.” Abbott continued, “The State of Texas will continue to protect life, and I will continue to support legislation prohibiting the sale or transfer of fetal tissue.”
Federal law provdes that it is illegal to sell the body parts of aborted babies for profit. The exception to that is where a patient consents and the body parts are used for medical research. Federal law allows reimbursement for basic costs associated with transporting, processing, and storing of this human tissue or organs for research.
Daleidon and Merritt are scheduled to appear in Harris County Criminal District Court on Monday, March 28.
In addition to the indictment for tampering with a government document in connection with the false driver license he used, Daleiden was also charged under the statute relating to the purchase or sale of human organs, as reported by Breitbart Texas.
Texas Penal Code section 48.02 provides that it is a Class A misdemeanor if a person “knowingly or intentionally offers to buy, offers to sell, acquires, receives, sells, or otherwise transfers any human organ for valuable consideration.” “Fetal tissue” is included within the definition of “human organ.”
Pro-life activists have decried the indictments of Daleidon and Merritt. As to the indictment of Daleiden for offering to acquire a human organ for valuable consideration, pro-lifers urge that Daleidon was obviously acting as an undercover investigative journalist and had no intent to actually purchase any human organ or fetal tissue.
Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as an associate judge and prosecutor in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2
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