SCOTUS rejects appeal of pro-lifers fined $2 million for exposing Planned Parenthood’s organ harvest

( LifeSite )

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will not consider the appeals of pro-life activists facing millions of dollars in fines for releasing undercover videos of abortion industry insiders discussing the harvesting and sale of organs from aborted babies.

The news, concerning appeals by the pro-life investigative group Center for Medical Progress, attorney Steve Cooley, and pro-life activists Troy Newman, Sandra Merritt, and Albin Rhomberg, came in an order list released Monday, without elaboration as to the Court’s reasoning or how many individual justices would have heard the cases.

Starting in 2015, CMP began releasing a series of secretly-recorded conversations with officials from Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, which set off a firestorm of controversy and a string of revelations about the abortion industry breaking multiple federal laws against profiting off human tissue, altering abortion procedures for the sake of procuring better tissue samples, and potentially even committing partial-birth abortions or infanticide; as well as video examples of abortion workers displaying callousness toward the humanity of the children their work killed.

Neither the Obama nor Trump administrations ever took action against the abortion organizations over the revelations, but the pro-lifers who exposed their activities were hit with various lawsuits and felony charges on claims of trespassing, misidentifying themselves with fake drivers licenses, and recording people without their consent. Last year, CMP appealed a San Francisco jury’s $2 million judgment against them, arguing that the federal Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act had been misapplied.

“This case concerns whether, and to what extent, the press may raise the First Amendment as a defense against generally applicable tort laws when undercover journalists gather and publish truthful news of significant public importance,” said Liberty Counsel, which is representing Merritt. “Accordingly, the First Amendment not only protects the publication of news; it also protects the newsgathering process, including undercover investigations, because ‘without some protection for seeking out the news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated.’”

“This injustice is years in the making. Planned Parenthood has gamed the system to cover up their crimes and punish those of us who came forward to expose the heinous nature of what really happens behind the closed doors of America’s Abortion Cartel,” responded Newman, the president of Operation Rescue. “However, in the end, Planned Parenthood has lost, because no matter what is levied against me, I will never stop speaking the truth to the American people about the barbarity of abortion and corruption that exists within the abortion industry, the current government, and the legal system that aids, abets, and protects the vicious shedding of innocent blood.”

“In the end, the real losers are the women and babies who have been criminally exploited by the Abortion Cartel, the First Amendment that is meant to provide protections to journalistic free speech, and the American people who have been lied to and prevented from hearing a narrative that is critical of the pro-abortion ideology and actions supported by corrupt forces within our government,” he added.

Last year, Planned Parenthood received $670.4 million in federal taxpayer dollars.