ACLJ Files Notice of Appeal To Overturn Flawed Verdict Against Pro-Life Advocates Who Exposed Planned Parenthood

Caution: The following article contains graphic information that sensitive readers may find disturbing.

Planned Parenthood was exposed in court, the United States Senate, and the House of Representatives for its disgusting practices. And yet, in a bizarre twist of justice, a California jury awarded the abortion juggernaut millions in damages from pro-life defendants.

The ACLJ just took the crucial first steps to overturn this distorted verdict, filing our Notice of Appeal.

We previously told you how Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against an investigative journalism group because it dared to reveal Planned Parenthood’s perverse practices to the world. These pro-life journalists released disturbing undercover videos they had recorded, including one in which Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical research described the sickening manner in which its abortionists altered abortion procedures in order to keep internal organs intact to be sold later for medical experimentation.

We represent one of the defendants in the case, a former board member of the investigative group.

As we’ve reported previously, these videos showed that Planned Parenthood executives engaged in the following discussions:

• Discussing the harvesting of brains, livers, kidneys, and legs from tiny preborn children.
• Offering to alter abortion techniques – a possible violation of law – to ensure tissue is undamaged and suitable for research.
• Bragging about the revenue earned by the sale of organs and tissue taken from aborted infants.

The videos were so alarming, they actually led to congressional investigations and congressional referrals for criminal prosecutions over the sale of aborted babies’ body parts.

It’s really not surprising that Planned Parenthood sued to try to bury this condemning evidence forever and silence these pro-life journalists.

Throughout the course of the trial, shocking revelation after shocking revelation kept coming forward through the evidence. As we reported, one Planned Parenthood representative discussed in detail the act of intentionally “crushing” babies in order to harvest and sell intact organs. And of course, we told you how one of Planned Parenthood’s medical directors warned she didn’t want to be “lowballed” and also said she wanted a luxury sports car as compensation for selling fetal tissue from abortions. In court, she claimed her statement was only a joke.

With every appalling admission, it seemed it couldn’t get any worse, and yet it did. But despite all that, the judge repeatedly instructed the jury they should focus solely on the investigative techniques and methods used by the defendants, not the actions of Planned Parenthood. As a result, the San Francisco jury ultimately found the defendants – including our client – liable to Planned Parenthood on multiple claims, including trespass and RICO violations. And the jury entered a multimillion-dollar verdict against the defendants.

This was a total miscarriage of justice. We cannot simply accept this flawed verdict. The ACLJ is fighting back. We just took the critical first steps toward overturning the flawed verdict against our client and the other pro-life defendants by filing our Notice of Appeal. 

Planned Parenthood’s vile practices would seem unfathomable, except that Planned Parenthood has shown time and time again that it worships at the altar of abortion. It has zero compunction about taking innocent life in the name of profit - particularly from the underserved and the defenseless.

While it has recently plastered “Black Lives Matter” across its website and social media pages, as we’ve informed you, Planned Parenthood was founded on racist eugenics. It targets minority and underprivileged communities when it chooses the locations of its abortion clinics. Their lives only matter in the eyes of the abortion giant as customers and the dollar signs they can generate.

In fact, according to reports, “79 percent of abortion-offering Planned Parenthood facilities are within walking distance of black or Hispanic neighborhoods.” As a result, Planned Parenthood has performed an “estimated 20 million African-American abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973” which “is more than America’s entire black population in 1960.”

And just this year, its affiliates managed to apply for and receive $80 million in COVID-19 relief money, taking those funds from desperate Americans in need. At least one study shows the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown has hurt black and Hispanic workers more than white communities, workers who desperately need the relief aid that Planned Parenthood greedily snatched up for its own well-stocked coffers. Consider that the next time they post their concern for racial injustice.

Planned Parenthood takes whatever it wants from whomever it wants. It has to be stopped NOW. That is why we are not giving up. We are taking them back to court to right this miscarriage of justice. Planned Parenthood does not deserve a nickel from these pro-life advocates, just as it doesn’t deserve one more tax dollar from Americans.

As we prepare to go back to court to face Planned Parenthood, we need YOU. Sign our URGENT petition.