David Daleiden Fights Judge’s Order Stopping Release of More Videos Exposing Planned Parenthood

By Tom Ciesielka
Life News

Attorneys from the Thomas More Society joined their co-defense counsel in filing an appeal with the United States Supreme Court asking the Court to hear the case of David Daleiden, the 28-year old undercover journalist who exposed Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the commercial trafficking of aborted babies’ body parts and to overturn a court imposed gag order that barred Daleiden from releasing hundreds of hours of still more videos; videos whose contents were both politically embarrassing and incriminating for Planned Parenthood and other abortionists.

The National Abortion Federation had filed suit in July, 2015, to bar Daleiden from releasing his undercover videos taken at National Abortion Federation 2014 and 2015 annual conventions. Judge William Orrick granted an “emergency” gag order suppressing the videotapes, and later he entered a preliminary injunction extending the gag order indefinitely, through trial of the case – an injunction that the Ninth Circuit U.S. 

Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed, although one judge on the three-judge panel dissented from that part of the lower court’s order that forbade Daleiden from releasing the videos to law enforcement without first getting the federal court’s permission to do so after first consulting with National Abortion Federation.

Thomas More Society attorneys Tom Brejcha, Peter Breen, Matt Heffron, and Sarah Pitlyk helped to craft the appeal, along with co-defense counsel, and they have been representing Daleiden in both the National Abortion Federation civil suit, filed under the Federal Racketeering Law, another Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations suit filed by Planned Parenthood and various affiliates, and in criminal felony prosecutions filed both in Houston, Texas, (finally dismissed a year ago) and in San Francisco Criminal Court.

The opinion issued by the lower court, which entered the gag order, had conceded that: 

“There is no doubt that members of the public have a serious and passionate interest in the debate over abortion rights and the right to life, and thus in the contents of defendants’ recordings”. 

“I fully recognize that there is strong public interest on the issue of abortion on both sides of that debate, and that members of the public therefore have an interest in accessing the National Abortion Federation materials. I also recognize that this case impinges on defendants’ rights to speech and the public’s equally important interest in hearing that speech.” 

Nonetheless, U.S. District Judge Orrick issued a gag order, ruling that release of the videos would risk violent retaliation against abortion providers – despite a total lack of evidence that Daleiden ever advocated, let alone perpetrated violence. Indeed, David’s pro-life activism arises from his deep aversion to the infliction of physical violence against any human beings.

Life News continues