In 2015, pro-life activist David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress released a series of undercover videos showing high-paid executives from Planned Parenthood attempting to sell body parts from aborted babies. Their actions were appalling and indefensible. So, naturally, Planned Parenthood, pro-abortion activists, and media outlets did everything possible to discredit Daleiden. They claimed the videos were “edited,” even after Daleiden released the full, unedited versions. Daleiden was sued for allegedly using a fake ID and recording conversations without consent.
What was never denied, mainly because they couldn’t be denied, were the facts. Planned Parenthood executives clearly stated they would sell the remains of babies killed at their clinics. One even joked that she hoped to purchase a Lamborghini with the profits.
In the years since those first recordings, abortion activists, including within state governments, have stalked Daleiden with legal accusations. The state of Texas cleared Planned Parenthood of all accusations of wrongdoing but indicted Daleiden for allegedly using a fake driver’s license and, incredibly, for allegedly trying to buy fetal body parts. Those charges have since been dropped.
Planned Parenthood also sued Daleiden for recording conversations with its executives. A circuit court ordered him to pay nearly two million dollars in damages. Then, in 2016, investigators raided Daleiden’s house in California, where he still faces a pending criminal trial for the undercover recordings. Planned Parenthood, which has repeatedly confirmed under oath that what its executives were recorded saying was accurate, has never been held criminally responsible for what they admitted. In other words, those who committed the crimes go free, while the guy who caught them gets in trouble.
And yet, despite the legal threats, a decade of being personally maligned in the media, and even the threat of jail time, Daleiden courageously continues to expose Planned Parenthood’s unethical, illegal and grisly trafficking of body parts. Just a few weeks ago, Daleiden released the results of a new investigation into Planned Parenthood’s dealings with the University of California San Diego. According to the report, the university purchases body parts of aborted babies from Planned Parenthood. Part of the exchange is that Planned Parenthood is granted the intellectual property rights of any patents the university is awarded for the research it conducts on these small bodies.
This trafficking scandal was exposed by direct correspondence between Planned Parenthood and UC San Diego, which Daleiden legally obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. In a signed contract, Planned Parenthood requested “valuable consideration” from UC San Diego in exchange for their offer of fetal body parts. In other words, they ask for a quid pro quo, in this case, patents and intellectual property rights. Exchanging human body parts for “valuable consideration” is illegal.
What is fascinating, if not horrific, is how, in this correspondence, Planned Parenthood and UC San Diego try, unsuccessfully, to thread some kind of needle between “research” and the commodification of the preborn. Neither party admits that the “goods” being exchanged are human bodies, and yet the documents include an itemized list of what is for sale: a lung, a brain, a bone. This is human trafficking.
Like so many others, Daleiden has worked tirelessly in the hope that abortion will, one day, be swept into the dustbin of history, and that people will mourn that the horror was ever tolerated. When that day comes, his name will belong on the list of the brave men and women who made it happen.
His contribution is unique. Evil flourishes when hidden. Some of history’s greatest evils came to an end when they were exposed. For example, the mother of Emmett Till, a black teenager brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955, demanded an open casket for her son’s funeral. President Abraham Lincoln reportedly credited a single woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for starting the Civil War by exposing the treatment of slaves in her novel. When, with God’s help, the abortion industry collapses, credit should go to similar truth-tellers, like David Daleiden, who refused to stay quiet.
Please pray for him and the many others who work tirelessly to end this evil. Join them by speaking out and supporting the work being done on behalf of the most vulnerable among us.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Image credit: ©Getty Images/Michael B. Thomas/Stringer
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.