Election-year initiatives seized the spotlight at the recent Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Yet issues of human life and bioethics were also raised by David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress.

The controversial citizen journalist addressed over 2,000 people convened by Family Research Council Action. Notable speakers included Vice President Mike Pence, HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson and other conservative figures.

Daleiden has come under fire for his investigation of the nation’s largest abortion provider. “Planned Parenthood has [participated] in the harvesting and sale of aborted baby body parts,” said Daleiden in an interview.

“Kids are being carted out like widgets on an assembly line by the abortion industry,” he said. “They are sold to taxpayer-funded researchers for experimentation. This story deserves to be front page headline news.”

In response, Planned Parenthood has taken legal action against Daleiden in federal and state courts.

Undercover Journalism Under Fire

Daleiden has made headlines worldwide — often about charges made to discredit his work. His views of a legal and media establishment stacked against him are not without basis.

“There’s a gag order over the remaining footage,” Daleiden explained. “The lawsuits Planned Parenthood and their allies have brought are in front of a federal judge in San Francisco right now, Judge William Orrick.”

Last year, the Center for Medical Progress made its case against Orrick. Orrick had a 23-year history with the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center in San Francisco, dating back to 1986. The center entered into a “key partnership” with Planned Parenthood in 2001. Orrick was secretary of the board at this time.

“Somehow he’s the judge making these decisions,” said Daleiden. “He has a gag order over [the] most damning and incriminating footage that we ever recorded. We’re moving to have that entire case thrown out.”

The Center for Medical Progress has also faced 15 felony charges filed by the California Attorney General. California law requires consent from both parties being recorded. However, no other undercover journalist has ever been charged. Daleiden views it as a case of viewpoint discrimination.

“It’s Planned Parenthood colluding with their political allies,” he said. “[They] have weaponized the tools of California law enforcement to attack their political opponents.” When briefly jailed in 2017, Daleiden soon tweeted his response.

It was not I who was handcuffed, manhandled, and kept in a holding cell Wed afternoon last week–it was the 1st Amendment. @PPact @AGBecerra pic.twitter.com/UWfpr1yztO

— David Daleiden (@daviddaleiden) April 13, 2017

$100 Million Spent Annually on Fetal Tissue Research

In his speech, Daleiden also pointed out hypocrisy he has seen in the Trump administration.

“The FDA is, as of this summer, signing a new contract with ABR to purchase ‘fresh’ aborted baby body parts for top-dollar in taxpayer money,” Daleiden lamented. He referred to Advanced Bioscience Resources, a supplier of “fresh fetal human tissue” per the contract.

“It’s unconscionable that the U.S. government would be sending the message with taxpayer dollars that these children are worth more dead than alive,” he added. On Capitol Hill, 85 House members in the Pro-Life Caucus sent a letter calling this practice “abhorrent.”

On September 24, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the cancellation of its $15,900 contract with the firm. However, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is set to spend nearly $100 million over the next year on fetal tissue research.

Recently, the Charlotte Lozier Institute has reissued its call for NIH director Dr. Francis Collins to be replaced. Lozier Institute is the nonprofit research arm of Susan B. Anthony List.

“Pro-life Americans are horrified and outraged by revelations that the pro-life Trump Administration contracted with a notorious baby parts trafficker,” stated Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List. “Canceling a single contract and conducting a review is a small step forward. But overall [it] is completely inadequate. NIH funds these grisly experiments to the tune of nearly $100 million.”

SBA List has mobilized pro-life volunteers for candidates in six key states during the midterm elections. The group has relied on an estimated 1,000 canvassers and tens of millions in ad campaign spending.

‘Exactly Like Us in Every Way’

Daleiden has come a long way since 2015. That summer, his group released the Human Capital Project. Videos showed Planned Parenthood executives and physicians discussing the sale of fetal parts and negotiating prices for those fetal tissues.

“It’s an issue so particularly horrific but also clarifying for the overall abortion debate in our country,” said Daleiden. “It deserved to have a very in-depth, methodical, comprehensive, undercover exposé done on it.”

Brent Boles, an OB-GYN physician in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, reviewed each of the videos in detail. He confirmed their veracity from his own experience, as did independent digital forensics.

“These videos horrify me too, yet I am not shocked,” he wrote upon review. “Women have shared with me how Planned Parenthood violated them, and the pain of losing their babies.”

The critics have not intimidated Daleiden. His center is prepared to release 12 more videos, once the gag order is lifted. Ending the trafficking of fetal body parts remains their goal, he says.

“This is the most horrific human rights abuse in our country’s history,” said Daleiden. “[These] tiny human babies are exactly like us in every way. This issue goes to our core values of human dignity and equality under the law.”

 

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