No vote on charges against Planned Parenthood

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. Another worker was indicted on a charge of record tampering.

Now, as he turns 27, Daleiden has established himself as one of the most polarizing figures in America’s ever-heated abortion debate.

A Houston grand jury on Monday indicted two anti-abortion activists in connection with undercover videos shot in Texas that purported to show fetal organ sales inside a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The video appears to have been secretly recorded at a restaurant and office, with items like coffee cups occasionally obscuring the view. “There did not need to be an agreement, there did not need to be an actual transaction of fetal tissue, there did not need to be payment”.

Planned Parenthood officials lauded the indictments. The ensuing outrage fueled congressional inquiries and a cancellation of Planned Parenthood funding in a number of states. Medical ethics prohibit altering the timing, method or procedures used to terminate a pregnancy purely to obtain fetal tissue.

While there, he became research director for Live Action, an anti-abortion group that released covertly made videos targeting Planned Parenthood in 2011.

Dalieden, who heads the California-based nonprofit Center for Medical Progress, said he and Merritt used well-established investigative journalism techniques and should be shielded by the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and press. At this point, Daleiden was nearing the end of a 30-month caper, which saw him train a team of undercover activists to help him infiltrate Planned Parenthood by posing as representatives of a fake tissue-procurement company.

Planned Parenthood Federation president Cecile Richards (R) is embraced by Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) before her testimony at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Capitol Hill in Washington September 29, 2015.

The grand jury also indicted Daleiden on a misdemeanor charge related to organ purchasing.

“These people broke the law to spread malicious lies about Planned Parenthood in order to advance their extreme anti-abortion political agenda”, he said in a statement Monday. “Look at what they indicted them on”, said Ekow N. Yankah, a law professor at the Cardozo School of Law in NY.

Anderson oversaw a previous abortion-related grand jury investigation of Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen after Operation Rescue released evidence in the form of photos and witness testimony that abortions babies were being born alive during abortions and intentionally killed by twisting their necks. The Texas video submitted to the Houston grand jury was the fifth released by the Center for Medical Progress.

More importantly, while some of the videos seem to support CMP’s felony allegations, they don’t prove Planned Parenthood is profiting from the sale of aborted fetuses. The grand jury’s findings were not what those lawmakers were expecting.

Officials in Kansas, Florida, Ohio, Washington, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri and South Dakota concluded investigations into claims Planned Parenthood profited from fetal tissue donation. “I respect their decision on this hard case”, the Chronicle reported. Now, in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott says he will continue the investigation despite the grand jury’s indictment.

Josh Schaffer, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, told The New York Times this is likely the source of the misdemeanor charge.