By Dave Andrusko
U.S. District Judge William Orrick
By the time you read this post, it’s possible there will be a new developments following yesterday’s move by U.S. District Judge William Orrick. According to the Associated Press on Thursday, Judge Orrick ordered David Daleiden, who heads the Center for Medical Progress [CMP], “and his attorneys, Steve Cooley and Brentford J. Ferreira, to appear at a June 14 hearing to consider contempt sanctions.”
Why? The AP says because “links to videos that the judge had barred from release appeared on the website of [Daleiden’s] attorneys.” [More about the legal ins and outs and his attorneys’ new web portal later in this story.]
The undercover “preview” video that stirred Orrick’s ire showed top Planned Parenthood staffers (some of whom had appeared in the previous 13 CMP videos) who were attending meetings of the National Abortion Federation in 2014 and 2015.
As was the case with the prior CMP videos, the cavalier, flippant attitudes of participants towards the unborn babies whose body parts they were harvesting is both stomach-turning and soul-chilling.
What they said is awful enough in its own right. How they said it is almost worse. For example (and thanks to National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis for transcribing the quotes), we hear on the preview video
Dr. Lisa Harris, the medical director of Planned Parenthood of Michigan: “Given that we actually see the fetus the same way, and given that we might actually both agree that there’s violence in here. . . . Let’s just give them all the violence, it’s a person, it’s killing, let’s just give them all that.”
Dr. Ann Schutt-Aine, the director of abortion services for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. “If I’m doing a procedure, and I’m seeing that I’m in fear that it’s about to come to the umbilicus [navel], I might ask for a second set of forceps to hold the body at the cervix and pull off a leg or two, so it’s not PBA [partial-birth abortion].
Dr. Stacy De-Lin, the director of abortion services for Planned Parenthood of New York City: “But we certainly do intact D&Es.”
Dr. Uta Landy, the founder of the Consortium of Abortion Providers (CAPS), Planned Parenthood Federation of America): “An eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross!” [laughter from the crowd]
Talcott Camp, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Health Freedom Project: “I’m like — Oh my God! I get it! When the skull is broken, that’s really sharp! I get it! I understand why people are talking about getting that skull out, that calvarium. “
Dr. Susan Robinson, an abortion provider at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte: “The fetus is a tough little object, and taking it apart, I mean, taking it apart on Day One is very difficult. . . . You go in there, and you go, “Am I getting the uterus or the fetus? Oh, good, fetus. [Robinson makes a stabbing sound effect] What have I got? Nothing. Let’s try again.”
David Daleiden
Remember, these were comments made in workshops and/or in conversations with CMP investigators posing as fetal tissue and organ buyers. They were talking to each other and could be as brutally honest and disdainful as they wanted.
The legal issues at stake are tangled and long-standing. Daleiden and his associate Sandra Merritt have been under relentless attack every since the first CMP video aired in 2015. Both are facing 14 felony charges in California for “intentionally and without the consent of all parties” recording “confidential” communications. (Of course this is how investigative reporting is done, but no matter to pro-abortion California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.)
Back to Judge Orrick. The AP story reported, “Orrick [had] issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the release of videos made by the Center for Medical Progress at meetings of the National Abortion Federation, an association of abortion providers. He also blocked the release of any names of NAF members.”
Daleiden is being defended, as noted above, by former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, and former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Brentford J. Ferreira. They took down the video which they had posted on a new web portal created to feature their legal defense of Daleiden as well as the names of the 14 people whose privacy Daleiden was accused of violating. As Ed Morrissey noted, their defense of why they posted the names in the first place remains.
That’s the latest as of roughly noon on Friday.