A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday rejected Planned Parenthood’s claim that undercover journalists with the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) aimed to incite “threats” and “violence” with the publication of videos that show Planned Parenthood employees allegedly making deals to sell the body parts of aborted children. According to a press release from CMP, Judge William Orrick III, who is considered a friend to the abortion corporation, issued a tentative ruling stating that he would be scaling down Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against CMP, adding that he is “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.”
While the lawsuit will still go forward with a start date of September 30, 2019, this ruling slashes Planned Parenthood’s claim from over $20 million to less than $100,000, because it failed to provide testimony or the evidence to back up its claims.
The nation’s largest abortion business accused CMP citizen journalists, including David Daleiden, of working to promote violence against the abortion corporation. The ruling indicates that the judge believes the journalists were simply attempting to publish news.
Planned Parenthood lawyer Amy Bombse, of Rogers Joseph O’Donnell, claimed that the videos “broke the sense of security that all of our staff have in going to work every day and attending conferences;” however, the judge found that just because journalists exposed the actions of Planned Parenthood employees doesn’t mean they intended for those individuals to be threatened by other people. The corporation wanted CMP to pay for the cost of enhanced window enclosures at clinics among other expenses that the judge deemed unrelated to the videos.
READ: Judge with Planned Parenthood ties orders undercover pro-life journalist to pay $195k fine
“Most importantly,” notes CMP, “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.”
Judge Orrick has faced scrutiny for presiding over this case — Planned Parenthood Federation of America et al vs. The Center for Medical Progress et al — because he has a deep-rooted history with Planned Parenthood, including founding, promoting, and donating to a Planned Parenthood facility in San Francisco which is run by the plaintiff in this case. Yet, he is still being allowed to preside over the case. Courthouse News claims, “Orrick reviewed hundreds of hours of videos in a separate case and found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The judge concluded that Daleiden’s group misleadingly edited videos to make it appear as though abortion providers were breaking the law.” However, a Coalfire Systems forensic analysis of the videos proved otherwise, finding that the multiple videos “are authentic and show no evidence of manipulation or editing,” the opposite of what the Planned Parenthood-supporting judge concluded.
While Planned Parenthood has not yet been prosecuted for any of the claims of illegal aborted baby body part sales, the undercover videos show employees haggling over prices for organs and tissue from aborted babies. One video in particular shows Planned Parenthood Medical Director Mary Gatter saying, “I want a Lamborghini” while discussing pricing of the body parts. Eight criminal referrals have been made to the Department of Justice, and Congress members are currently awaiting news of the status of the investigations.
“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,” said Daleiden in response to the decision. “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.”
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