A pro-life vindication

After a decade of unprecedented political persecution, California dropped its charges against pro-life journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt.

David Daleiden released a statement saying:

After 9 years of unprecedented political prosecution, putting an end to the lawfare launched by Kamala Harris is a huge victory for my investigative reporting and for the public’s right to know the truth about Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby body parts. Now we must all get to work to protect families and infants from the criminal abortion-industrial complex.

Liberty Counsel (who defended Sandra Merritt in the case) also said:

Sandra Merritt did nothing wrong. She did the right thing by exposing the depravity of the abortion industry. This plea agreement ends an unjust criminal case by dropping these baseless criminal charges without any prison time, fines or other penalties. Sandra deserves to be applauded and acclaimed for revealing these horrors and then enduring this selective and vindictive prosecution as a result. Murdering human babies to harvest their body parts for profit is evil and there is no excuse for Sandra’s political persecution. This is an extraordinary result for Sandra and the State of California deserves to walk away virtually empty handed.

In 2013, David Daleiden founded The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a pro-life organization that monitors and reports on medical ethics. In 2015, after a series of undercover journalism efforts at the National Abortion Federation’s events by Daleiden and CMP staffer Sandra Merritt, CMP released recordings of the abortion industry’s illegal practices, including recordings of Planned Parenthood executives revealing they sell the remains of aborted babies.

The recordings made medical science company StemExpress cease its relationship with Planned Parenthood. Colorado State University and health departments of several states also did the same. The House of Representatives launched an investigation against Planned Parenthood. Republicans in the Senate introduced a bill that was just seven votes away from defunding Planned Parenthood.

The undercover recordings also had a major impact on the 2016 presidential election. It made abortion an even bigger issue for Republican voters. With that in mind, Donald Trump made abortion a major focus of his campaign. The significance of that cannot be understated. NPR recently admitted that “Trump's anti-abortion views helped him in 2016.” Abortion was perhaps a bigger topic in that election than any other presidential election in American history. David Daleiden’s and Sandra Merritt’s undercover journalism played a significant role.

Without their recordings, the issue of abortion would have been a lesser issue in the 2016 election, which could have prevented Donald Trump from becoming president and subsequently nominating the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. 

Despite evidence of Planned Parenthood’s illegal activity, Kamala Harris—the attorney general of California at the time—defended the group and spearheaded an investigation against The Center for Medical Progress. That led to 15 felony charges against Daleiden and Merritt. If they had been found guilty, they could have been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.

The charges against Daleiden and Merritt were the first time in American history that journalists had been charged for going undercover to expose criminal activity. Instead of defending journalism, the media justified the charges and sided with Planned Parenthood and the Democrats—claiming the undercover recordings were selectively edited.

Daleiden and Merritt were the first of many pro-life activists who would suffer political persecution from Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. Under the Biden-Harris administration, 23 pro-life activists were sentenced to prison under the FACE Act. 

On the eve of the March for Life rally in Washington a few weeks ago, Donald Trump pardoned the 23 activists. “Many of them are elderly people,” he said. “They should not have been prosecuted. This is a great honor to sign this.”

Days later, the state of California suddenly dropped its charges against Daleiden and Merritt. The timing suggests California may have dropped the charges because of the pardons.

After California dropped the charges, Daleiden said, “I'm no expert, but I definitely think that the election has something to do with it.”

The result affirms that President Donald Trump needs fearless pro-life leaders, and the pro-life movement owes gratitude to President Donald Trump.