In 2015, Sandra Merritt and David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, released videos exposing an illegal trade in aborted baby body parts, after a 30-month undercover operation.

The videos showed Planned Parenthood executives haggling over prices of aborted baby body parts, with one Planned Parenthood doctor insisting she needed higher prices for baby body parts because she wanted to buy a Lamborghini!

Other videos exposed Planned Parenthood doctors in their own words, detailing how they illegally changed abortion procedures, threatening the mother’s life and health, all so they could “procure” better intact baby parts and organs in order to command higher prices.

Yet other videos detailed how some abortionists purposefully and illegally delivered fully intact LIVING babies, then dissected those precious children ALIVE because the organs procured before death are more valuable.

In short, Sandra exposed Planned Parenthood and the organ companies for illegal activities and for slicing living human children like they were little more than sides of beef.

What Sandra exposed is morally wrong and decidedly illegal. But Planned Parenthood has powerful friends, not the least of which are then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra, the man who replaced her, not to mention a judge who should have recused himself.

The original case was heard by San Francisco’s U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick III, who is the founder of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center that houses the Planned Parenthood of Northern California facility in its complex.

In 2017, the defense requested that Orrick recuse himself from the case, but he refused. Instead, Judge Orrick severely restricted the evidence, and at the end, gave instructions to the jury on how they should rule on critical issues. The jury decided in favor of the abortion giant on each count, including RICO, and awarded more than 2 million dollars in damages. The court subsequently awarded Planned Parenthood nearly 14 million in attorney’s fees and costs, slapping the brave grandmother turned undercover journalist with a total judgment of over 16 million.

In October 2022, a three-member panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld numerous errors of the trial court, including:

(1) The award to Planned Parenthood of millions of dollars in “damages” involving publication of Planned Parenthood’s own words, without any proof that the undercover videos were false or deceptive, in violation of the First Amendment.

(2) The use of Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to punish constitutionally protected undercover journalism intended to expose unethical and criminal wrongdoing, and never intended to be applied to protected speech.

(3) The award to Planned Parenthood of “damages” involving legally recorded conversations without allowing the jury to hear those conversations, and without requiring Planned Parenthood to prove that the conversations recorded in public places were “confidential.”

Liberty Counsel then filed a request for an en banc (full court) review and presented argument that the appeals court should reverse the lower court’s ruling, order a new trial, and strike the punitive damages award. The Ninth Circuit denied the request.

On behalf of Sandra, we are now asking the Supreme Court to undo the blatant injustice of this case. Every journalist and person who values free speech and a free press should be concerned with the implications of this case. We are fighting for the free speech rights of all people.

Liberty Counsel is only able to defend free speech and religious freedom with YOUR help. Our clients NEVER pay for our legal services, as few could afford to defend themselves against the near-endless resources of a government gone mad. This has been the most expensive case in our history, and we are not done yet.

Please consider funding Liberty Counsel’s important legal work defending life, religious freedom, and God’s design for marriage and family. Our work is truly saving lives while preserving liberty.

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Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel

P.S. Want to do more? Fax Congress to STOP THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION takeover of America! And sign the petition.

Source:

“Sandra Merritt Asks SCOTUS To Take Planned Parenthood Case.” Liberty Counsel, May 24, 2023. Lc.org/newsroom/details/052423-sandra-merritt-asks-scotus-to-take-planned-parenthood-case.