Undercover videos in baby parts case goes to Supreme Court; Thomas More Society asks high court to lift gag order: Next FOT

Last Thursday attorneys from the Thomas More Society joined their co-defense counsel in filing an appeal with the United States Supreme Court asking the Court to hear the case of David Daleiden, the undercover journalist who exposed Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the commercial trafficking of aborted babies’ body parts and to overturn a court imposed gag order that barred Daleiden from releasing hundreds of hours of still more videos – videos whose contents were both politically embarrassing and incriminating for Planned Parenthood and other abortionists.


Tom Brejcha, president
Thomas More Society

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) had filed suit back in July, 2015, to bar Daleiden from releasing his undercover videos taken at National Abortion Federation 2014 and 2015 annual conventions. Judge William Orrick granted an “emergency” gag order suppressing the videotapes, and later he entered a preliminary injunction extending the gag order indefinitely, through trial of the case – an injunction that the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed, although one Judge on the three-Judge panel dissented from that part of the lower court’s order that forbade Daleiden from releasing the videos to law enforcement without first getting the federal court’s permission to do so after first consulting with NAF.

Thomas More Society attorneys Tom Brejcha, Peter Breen, Matt Heffron, and Sarah Pitlyk (all former FOT guests) helped to craft the appeal, along with co-defense counsel, and they have been representing Daleiden in both the NAF civil suit, filed under the Federal Racketeering Law (RICO), another RICO suit filed by Planned Parenthood and various affiliates, and in criminal felony prosecutions filed both in Houston, TX (finally dismissed a year ago) and in San Francisco Criminal Court.

Joining us to discuss the Supreme Court filing Tuesday will be Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society.

He explained, “We are appealing to the highest court in quest of justice. This lawsuit was brought against Mr. Daleiden by NAF, the abortion industry’s trade group, because he dared to expose the truth about their members’ profiting from an illegal trade in the remains of human beings. But what is ultimately at stake here is whether those who ‘blow the whistle’ on illegal or inhumane misbehavior in any industry may be silenced and even punished for telling the truth to the public at large and to those charged with enforcing criminal and regulatory bans on nefarious practices.  Whether America will remain an open or closed society hangs in the balance.  We trust that the Justices will stand by our traditional disapproval of “prior restraints on free speech,” hear Daleiden’s appeal, vindicate his First Amendment rights, and reverse the lower courts’ egregious mistakes.”

Join us Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming on IowaCatholicRadio.com for a lively discussion of this and other matters affecting people of faith. The program will be re-broadcast Tuesday at 10 p.m. and podcasts of earlier programs can be found by following this link.

Additionally, you can read the Thomas More Society’s petition to the Supreme Court  here.

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