Planned Parenthood Sues “Complex Criminal Enterprise” Behind Deceptive Videos

Planned Parenthood filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday arguing that a group acted illegally when it secretly recorded videos alleging the women’s health organization profited from selling fetal tissue from abortions. In November, a gunman killed three people and wounded nine others at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.

“Now, they are filing a frivolous lawsuit in retaliation for CMP’s First Amendment investigative journalism that has done nothing more than tell the truth about Planned Parenthood’s lawless operations”. “To date, Planned Parenthood has offered no convincing explanation for the money that has poured into its affiliates from fetal tissue procurement companies like StemExpress, which performs the work of fetal tissue collection yet still pays abortion clinics per harvested part”.

Beth Parker, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California’s chief legal counsel, said Daleidan was “intent on creating a firestorm designed to discredit and destroy Planned Parenthood and end access to reproductive health care”.

The unedited video of Planned Parenthood shows staff explaining that they do sometimes donate, but do not sell, foetal tissue for medical research and only seek to cover costs of transportation and preservation of the tissue after an abortion.

“I look forward to deposing all the CEOs, Medical Directors, and their co-conspirators who participated in Planned Parenthood’s illegal baby body parts racket”, Daleiden said.

Planned Parenthood has vehemently denied the claim and argues the videos are heavily doctored.

While the videos did not prove any illegal activity on the part of Planned Parenthood, they shed an unflattering light on some Planned Parenthood officials, who were caught on hidden cameras speaking casually and, at times, lightly about abortion procedures and fetal body parts.

The organization says that CMP and its officers engaged in an elaborate three-year criminal conspiracy to mislead Planned Parenthood and public officials, breaking both federal and state laws (in Maryland, Florida, and California, where the suit was filed) in the process.

Sandra Susan Merritt, who created the alias Susan Tennenbaum, claimed to be the Founder and CEO of BioMax, and appeared in numerous videos.

A spokeswoman with Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri on Thursday said it was cleared after the state’s Board of Healing Arts investigated allegations of fetal tissue misuse. In the fall, Planned Parenthood announced that they would no longer be accepting reimbursement for donations but will pay for it. The videos, released last summer, led to several Congressional investigations and efforts to cease federal funding to PPFA, including most recently as part of a bill repealing that Affordable Care Act that President Barack Obama promptly vetoed.

The GOP’s renewed crusade against Planned Parenthood throughout 2015 has been based on the mendacious, flimsy content of the videos.