BREAKING: Undercover pro-life journalist Daleiden fights Planned Parenthood with Federal defamation lawsuit

 

(Thomas More Society) – Undercover journalist David Daleiden is turning the tables on abortion giant Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) with a defamation lawsuit filed in New York federal district court on September 17, 2020.

Represented by the Thomas More Society, Daleiden is taking the abortion giant to task for telling the media that he and The Center for Medical Progress “manufacture[d]” and “created” a “false smear campaign” by releasing videos showing clear evidence of high-level Planned Parenthood officials candidly discussing the PPFA network’s participation in illegal harvesting and selling of aborted fetal body parts. PPFA’s statements are provably false and betray their own admissions about the veracity of the videos.

Daleiden has been a target of Planned Parenthood since the 2015 release of his investigative videos exposed the abortion company’s apparent involvement in illegal aborted baby body parts trafficking. Daleiden’s undercover research into abortion industry fetal tissue sales spurred Congressional investigations into Planned Parenthood and its business partners and instigated a national public outcry to “Defund Planned Parenthood.” Congressional probes and multi-pronged legal action resulted in the severing of services to Planned Parenthood by their one-time biowaste disposal company, Stericycle. Court testimony in lawsuits and hearings related to Daleiden’s investigation revealed shocking details about the lengths to which abortion providers are willing to go to make a profit off of the babies they abort.

In the wake of the negative publicity, Planned Parenthood has filed lawsuits and levied public accusations at Daleiden, including a steady stream of misleading claims and disingenuous narrative. Yet Planned Parenthood has scrupulously avoided putting the veracity of Daleiden’s videos on trial in a court of law, where it has even stipulated that the words used by Planned Parenthood officials in the videos indeed “were spoken by those persons.” But in the court of public opinion, Planned Parenthood has taken a different approach, calling the videos “manufactured” and “false.” These statements are clearly false and actionable in court.

According to Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, “Planned Parenthood is not content to make obscene financial profit by killing off America’s next generation and endangering pregnant women. Additionally, they feel that they must obliterate the reputation of anyone who dares to challenge them and suggest that what they are doing is not the great philanthropic work that they pretend it is. Planned Parenthood’s very existence is an anathema to America’s pursuit of the most basic of human rights and they know it. We have not been surprised over their campaign to smear the reputation of Mr. Daleiden, but they are not allowed to falsely besmirch his reputation for exposing the truth.”

“Instead of coming clean about its ruthless pursuit of profit from selling the remains of aborted children, Planned Parenthood tried to smear David Daleiden, the man who blew the whistle on its dirty secret,” said Peter Breen, Vice President and Senior Counsel for the Thomas More Society. “In its earlier lawsuit against David and the Center for Medical Progress, Planned Parenthood fought to avoid scrutiny of its illegal fetal tissue trafficking. This new lawsuit puts Planned Parenthood’s grisly business practices front and center, to prove the truth of the conclusions of David’s investigation, which were also confirmed and echoed by the United States Congress and other government officials.”

Daleiden’s lawsuit zeroes in on a false statement issued by Planned Parenthood Federation of America Senior Vice President of Communication and Culture Melanie Newman on September 18, 2019, in which she told Rewire News that Daleiden and The Center for Medical Progress “manufacture[d] a fake smear campaign against Planned Parenthood.”

The filing also names a November 15, 2019, tweet posted by Planned Parenthood Federation of America on their official Twitter feed that said Daleiden and others associated with The Center for Medical Progress “created a false smear campaign against Planned Parenthood.”

The lawsuit assures that the Daleiden undercover videos, as shown in court and admitted by Planned Parenthood itself, have truly and accurately recorded Planned Parenthood officials’ own shocking words spoken in real life.