Grand Jury Clears Planned Parenthood, Indicts Anti-Abortion Activists

“The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is hardly a liberal”, explained attorney Gerald Treece. The grand jury does not turn around and indict your witnesses – the people who brought you the case – without the prosecutor wanting this to happen.

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, the two individuals involved in making the secret recordings, were indicted on charges of tampering with a governmental record – they are accused of making fake California driver’s licenses – a second-degree felony. The Harris County prosecutor may very well have unleashed the first salvo against Daleiden and his group.

The Texas video was the fifth released by the Center for Medical Progress, which Daleiden founded.

“Woke up in SUCH a good mood this morning, remembering Daleiden’s indictment”, a student editor at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill tweeted Tuesday, along with emojis of fingernails being painted, a girl dancing and the hand signal for power. A statement from Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson said grand jurors cleared Planned Parenthood’s name, according to the report. “As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us”. “Operation Rescue has good reason to believe that evidence was never presented to that grand jury”, Sullenger explained. “I respect the grand jury’s decision on this hard case”, she said in Monday’s press release.

Last June 30, after secretly videotaping meetings with Planned Parenthood officials, Daleiden emailed Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s research director and other employees with a proposed agreement to purchase fetal tissue, according to Planned Parenthood attorney Josh Schaffer.

Ms. Richards testified in September before a House committee on hidden-camera videos released by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress linking Planned Parenthood to the sale of fetal tissue for medical research.

Our local, grassroots organization Pro-Choice South Bend was gratified to hear of the indictment of anti-choice criminals who promoted a falsely negative reputation of Planned Parenthood. The Center for Medical Progress identifies itself as a group of “citizen journalists”.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said state officials were continuing to investigate the Texas Planned Parenthood, however. Reacting to Monday’s announcement, Abbott wrote on Twitter: “Despite today’s decision in Harris Co. about Planned Parenthood, Texas will continue to protect life & investigate@PPact practices”.

“The fact remains that the videos exposed the horrific nature of abortion and the shameful disregard for human life of the abortion industry”, Paxton said. Congressional Republicans have also made repeated efforts to defund Planned Parenthood at the federal level. Anyone who does should face legal consequences.

Planned Parenthood spokesman Eric Ferrero said the non-profit is “glad” for the indictments.

But Planned Parenthood officials say the indictments out of Harris County are a vindication for the organization, which has vehemently denied allegations that it sells fetal tissue for profit.

In October, the state announced its plan to halt all state Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood due to the organization being “no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner”.

“Editing does not place incriminatory statements onto a video”. “CMP’s investigation forced Planned Parenthood, a tax-funded billion dollar corporation, to admit it was harvesting and selling aborted baby parts”.

Daleiden at the time downplayed the lawsuit as “frivolous” and a “last-ditch move of desperation”.

To date, federal and state-level investigations in 12 states have turned up zero evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood, eight states have refused to investigate citing a lack of evidence of any wrongdoing, and CMP’s fraudulent videos have been debunked repeatedly.

And then there’s Robert Dear, the gunman who killed three when he opened fire on a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood in November.