“Prior restraints are ‘the most serious and least tolerable infringement of First Amendment Rights’”
Life News
The United States Supreme Court has blocked the release of more videos exposing Planned Parenthood selling the body parts of aborted babies.
Ever since the Center for Medical Progress released a series of videos showing the nation’s biggest abortion business and the abortion industry selling the body parts of aborted children, abortion advocates have sued to stop the release of additional footage exposing it further. Courts have considered multiple lawsuits where abortion activists have attempted to thwart the First Amendment free speech rights of Center for Medical Progress and its board members.
The Supreme Court considered a case involving one of the board members of the organization and refused to consider a lower Court ruling that was anti-free Speech in nature.
Troy Newman, president of the pro-life group Operation Rescue, and a former CMP board member, was sued by the National Abortion Federation for publicly releasing secret recordings of its meetings where the undercover footage was filmed exposing the abotion industry selling aborted baby parts. NAF doesn’t want additional footage release making public it snefarious dealings.
A lower court sided with NAF and the high court denied review without comment.
Previously, a three-member panel of the liberally activist Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that additional footage obtained through the CMP’s undercover investigations – even those recordings that contain evidence of criminal conduct committed by Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation officials – cannot be released to law enforcement personnel. A requested review by the full Ninth Circuit was denied.
Through his attorney, Jay Sekulow, and his legal team from the American Center for Law and Justice, Newman argued that the gag order prohibited the release of incriminating videos to law enforcement agencies around the nation who sought the evidence in their own investigations. At least twenty state attorney generals had joined in the appeal.
“While appealing the gag order before the entire Supreme Court would have been preferable, we continue to fight the two oppressive lawsuits brought by the NAF and Planned Parenthood, which aim to silence us and conceal the truth about their involvement in the grisly illegal sale of aborted baby tissues and organs for profit,” said Newman. “We pray that one day the full truth will come out, and those who have committed crimes will be held accountable in a court of law.”Judge William Orrick based his decision to seal the videos, which gagged CMP members — including Newman — on his erroneous belief that the undercover videos contained no evidence of wrong-doing on the part of the NAF or Planned Parenthood.
However, Orrick’s faulty determination was debunked by two Congressional investigations found probably cause to believe that crimes had been committed by Planned Parenthood and others, and criminal referrals were made to the Department of Justice.
The ruling is related to a federal lawsuit, National Abortion Federation v. CMP, et al, that was filed in 2015 after the CMP released several videos showing Planned Parenthood executives haggling over top dollar to illegally sell aborted baby organs and tissue. The NAF sought to block the further release of possibly incriminating videos.
The motion requesting Supreme Court review stated that the lower court wrongly upheld a “prior restraint” on CMP’s First Amendment speech, which had captured great public interest. The undercover videos were also the subject of investigations by House and Senate panels that later referred Planned Parenthood organizations to the U.S. Department of Justice and state Attorneys General for further criminal investigation and prosecution.
“Prior restraints are ‘the most serious and least tolerable infringement of First Amendment Rights,’” stated the motion to stay.Life News report continues here
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