David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress stormed onto the pro-life scene in 2015. Their undercover videos of illegal baby part sales by Planned Parenthood launched multiple state and federal investigations and renewed fervor for defunding America’s largest abortion company.
Three years later, Planned Parenthood still has its money under a GOP Congress and White House. Daleiden is still fighting for his freedom in court as the National Abortion Federation sues him. Yet Daleiden – who appeared on The CatholicVote Radio Hour in January – told CatholicVote in an interview this week that not only is “Roe v. Wade…effectively obsolete,” but he would do his investigation again “in a heartbeat.”
The below interview, conducted by e-mail shortly after Values Voters Summit 2018, has been lightly edited for length.
CatholicVote: In July, NAF dropped seven out of 11 charges against you. What was their reasoning and the impact of their decision?
David Daleiden: It’s clearly a retreat on the part of Planned Parenthood’s abortion industry proxy group. They charged into federal court three years ago alleging I had orchestrated a complex RICO-fraud scheme against them – apparently Planned Parenthood and NAF think they are victims of “fraud” because we didn’t actually buy baby body parts from them, see if you can figure that one out – but this summer they dropped over half the lawsuit, including the RICO claims and video recording claims. They dropped all of their federal claims, so they have no reason to be in federal court anymore.
This is just a contract dispute among Californians.
How many videos has CMP not released at this time? What do those videos show?
We have enough footage for about 12 more incriminating video releases about Planned Parenthood’s network of abortion crime. This footage will be the final confirmation that Planned Parenthood and their business partners are guilty.
You’ve faced jail, lawsuits, and more since releasing the videos over three years ago. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood continues to be funded by Congress – including under GOP control. Have the work you put into your videos, legal defenses, etc. been worth it? What can you tell our readers about the impact your videos have had on America’s abortion debate, and would you do them again in light of what you’ve gone through?
I would do it all again in a heartbeat. CMP’s undercover videos of Planned Parenthood’s criminal sale of aborted baby body parts have changed the way we talk about abortion policy and unborn children in our country. It’s been said many times now that Planned Parenthood’s stale out-of-sight, out-of-mind mantra about their barbaric abortion practice is forever gone. Two in-depth Congressional investigations issued criminal referrals for some of the biggest Planned Parenthood affiliates in the country and their business partners, and the country is waiting to see how the U.S. Department of Justice will follow through on those criminal referrals. The Orange County District Attorney in southern California already secured the first successful prosecution of a node of Planned Parenthood’s baby parts network and credited CMP’s undercover reporting with prompting it.
The GOP-controlled Congress recently passed a budget bill which completely funds Planned Parenthood. Please share your reaction to the GOP’s continued funding of Planned Parenthood.
The pro-life Trump Administration has begun to defund Planned Parenthood of its massive Title X grants by directing HHS to enforce existing law that says taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion providers. We’re one vote away in the Senate from stripping all taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood and reassigning that money to life-affirming, full-spectrum mainstream health care providers. I think the defunding has begun and will continue if citizens demand representatives who reflect their pro-life values.
This question is about Judge Kavanaugh’s SCOTUS nomination. Advocates on all sides of the abortion debate have said he could be the vote which would overturn Roe v. Wade. Please explain to our readers your thoughts on whether the Court is likely to overturn Roe if he is on the Court, and how pro-lifers can prepare for a post-Roe world to win in the states.
I think Roe v. Wade is already effectively obsolete. Roe said the standard for reviewing abortion laws was “strict scrutiny”, Casey replaced it with “undue burden”, Gonzales took an agnostic approach toward Casey and said “rational basis” was part of it, and now the Hellerstedt decision written by Justice Breyer basically says the only standard for reviewing abortion laws is some kind of mechanical, cost-benefit analysis. If a State is willing to assert its interest in protecting its citizens born and unborn from industrial-scale abortion factories like Planned Parenthood butchering hundreds of healthy fetuses per week, one would think a lot of judges would see that as a benefit that outweighs the costs under the Justice Breyer analysis.
In any event, the post-Roe world seems to be rapidly approaching. I think that will require us to focus on some of the remaining strongholds of Big Abortion like California, Washington, and New York, which have been neglected for a long time. We should study how Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry have been able to ingrain themselves so deeply into those states, and I think that will help us develop comprehensive public policy, law enforcement, community resources, and social services responses to uproot industrial-scale child-killing even where the industry has gone unchallenged.
Finally – you denounced the Food & Drug Administration’s decision to accept aborted baby parts for research. What does the FDA’s reversal on that decision say about the pro-life priorities of the Trump administration, if anything?
It’s unconscionable that the FDA, the NIH, and any part of HHS is experimenting on abortion victims or their body parts, let alone purchasing them from criminally profiteering traffickers like Advanced Bioscience Resources – while they are under federal investigation! It’s still a mystery how this happened under a pro-life administration.
HHS took a step in the right direction by terminating the contract with ABR. That is the result of having a pro-life administration that is willing to listen. Of course, it’s not enough when there are likely hundreds of similar contracts and baby parts deals being executed with taxpayer money at HHS, so this has to be only a first small step in a much bigger chain of events for the pro-life Trump administration. Any pro-abortion holdovers at HHS have to understand that the era of taxpayer-funded exploitation of our unborn brothers and sisters is over.