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Judge Blocks Release of More Planned Parenthood Videos -Recorded by Pro-Life Group as Part of Investigation of Organ Sales +Videos
by Bob Unruh
A company that solicits business with abortion facilities with the opportunities to “advance biomedical research” and be “financially profitable” has won a temporary court order preventing undercover video of its officials from being released.
The temporary injunction from Los Angeles Superior Court was granted at the request of StemExpress, which has been identified as a company that procures “tissue” – essentially body parts of aborted infants, from Planned Parenthood, which is the focus of the undercover video series.
Those have been released by the Center for Medical Progress, which acted as an industry player and reportedly recorded conversations with StemExpress officials at a meeting in a public restaurant.
CMP immediately responded with a statement on the court order:
“StemExpress, a for-profit company partnered with over 30 abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood, to harvest and sell aborted baby parts and provide a ‘financial benefit’ to Planned Parenthood clinics, is attempting to use meritless litigation to cover-up this illegal baby parts trade, suppress free speech, and silence the citizen press reporting on issues of burning concern to the American public.”
The statement continued, “They are not succeeding – their initial petition was rejected by the court, and their second petition was eviscerated to a narrow and contingent order about an alleged recording pending CMP’s opportunity to respond. The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work and will contest all attempts from Planned Parenthood and their allies to silence our First Amendment rights and suppress investigative journalism.”
The order prevents the release of video of StemExpress officials at least until after a hearing next month.
The CMP already has released three of its undercover videos and has promised many more. One of those featured in the videos that already are out was former StemExpress employee Holly O’Donnell, who reported how workers at StemExpress tried to maximize the financial benefit of each fetus.
“The harder and more valuable the tissue, the more money you get,” she said. “So if you can somehow procure a brain or a heart, you’re going to get more money than just chorionic villi or umbilical cord. That’s basically what it is. So I guess that’s an incentive to try and get the hard stuff.”
The complaint against CMP claims that there have been “numerous illegal acts” against StemExpress.
It alleges unfair competition, breach of contract, interference with contractual relations, fraudulent inducement of a contract, receipt of stolen property and invasion of privacy. The complaint explains that after the meeting with undercover videographers in a public restaurant, StemExpress insisted that a confidentiality agreement would be imposed.
StemExpress said it “offers [the] largest variety of raw material in the industry, as well as fresh (non-frozen) and cryopreserved human primary cells” and that it works with 30 “procurement sites.”
WND reported on Thursday that Planned Parenthood shut its website down after experiencing a second cyberattack in one week.
“We deeply regret that in order to more fully protect our websites from these extremist attacks, our full online content will be temporarily unavailable to people looking for good, accurate health information,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood’s political division, in a statement reported by the Hill.
Planned Parenthood also has been accused of violating Colorado State law regarding abortions this week.
The claim that Planned Parenthood of the Rockies was breaking state law came from officials with the Alliance Defending Freedom.
They said they have filed a complaint with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies because, according to documentation from a recently settled civil lawsuit, two agents of Planned Parenthood “failed to comply with Colorado law by not reporting the sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl, performed an abortion on the girl without giving notice to her parents and returned her to the custody of the sexual predator who continued to sexually molest her.”
In addition, the ADF reported, still pending is a lawsuit that the Planned Parenthood affiliate got $14 million of taxpayer subsidies in Colorado despite a state constitutional amendment that prohibits the use of state taxpayer dollars either to “directly or indirectly” fund abortions.
“Failing to report the sexual abuse of a minor is horrifically tragic and illegal,” said ADF Legal Counsel Natalie Decker. “Planned Parenthood has repeatedly shown brazen and appalling disregard for the law, including laws designed to protect children from this kind of damaging physical and emotional abuse.”
According to court documents in the case, no Planned Parenthood employee asked about the nature of the girl’s relationship with the predator even though she is a minor. The offender, in that case a stepfather, since has been convicted and jailed.
“Colorado law mandates the reporting of known or suspected abuse of minors…. Had any of their employees made a call to authorities the day they saw this 13-year-old girl with her abuser, as Planned Parenthood is legally obligated to do, her abuse would have ended.”
Read more at WND:
http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/judge-halts-release-of-planned-parenthood-videos/
