Well, yeah, when you misrepresent who you are, secretly record people in violation of state law, and defame, there are sometimes consequences.
'The lawsuit filed on Thursday, which “outlines a very complex conspiracy that ran for nearly three years” is against the Center for Medical Progress, its leader David Daleiden and his alleged co-conspirators.
Planned Parenthood, which provides cancer screenings, birth control, STD testing and treatment, sexual health education and abortions, claim that the Center for Medical Progress violated the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act, as well as “engaging in wire fraud, mail fraud, invasion of privacy, illegal secret recording, and trespassing”.
According to Amy Bomse, a partner at the Arnold & Porter law firm, members of the CMP pretended to work for Biomax, a fictitious tissue procurement company, to gain access to Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation meetings. Then they “secretly and illegally recorded” conversations, in violation of California, Maryland and Florida state laws. They also violated federal laws against “secret taping with an unlawful purpose”.
[…] Planned Parenthood has asked for restitution of actual damages, compensatory and punitive damages and triple damages for violations under the civil Rico claim. They have also asked for reimbursement of attorneys’ fees.'
It will be interesting to see how this goes — the recording issue seems the most clear-cut, the "unlawful" bit a bit more dodgy (at least based on what's discussed in this short article), but certainly there are significant expenses that PPFA has incurred due to the CMP's defamatory actions. Given that this was hardly a knee-jerk response, I suspect their legal team thinks there's more than enough of a solid basis for what will doubtless prove to be costly litigation.
There's also a risk here in terms of recycling all the initial charges and CMP claims. I've no doubt that PPFA believes that, in a legal setting, the shenanigans pulled and false claims made about the videos can be properly reframed. That may not be successful in something this emotion-laden, but I suspect it will still be better than just letting the CMP get away with it. And if it makes for some base-building noise during a presidential election year, that's not a bad thing, either.
Planned Parenthood sues anti-abortion activists who released series of videos
Lawsuit filed against Center for Medical Progress, which has released a series of videos since July attacking the reproductive health organization
