Texas grand jury indicts two anti-abortion activists behind Planned Parenthood videos
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Your support makes all the difference.A Texas grand jury has indicted two anti-abortion activists who filmed Planned Parenthood executives.
The undercover videographers David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were indicted on felony charges of tampering with a governmental record, the Harris County District Attorneys Office announced on Monday. The pair face 20 years in prison for the alleged offences.
Mr Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, received an additional misdemeanor charge for prohibition of the purchase and sale of human organs.
Planned Parenthood spokesperson Rochelle Tafolla said that her organization considers the indictments as just.
“This is absolutely great news because it is a demonstration of what Planned Parenthood has said from the very beginning, we follow every law and regulation and these anti-abortion activists broke multiple laws to try and spread lies,” Tafolla told the Houston Chronicle.
Governor Greg Abbot and Attorney General Ken Paxton were originally called upon to investigate the women's health centre after the Center of Medical Progress released the undercover footage. Then followed allegations that Planned Parenthood was profiting off of the sale of fetal tissue — the allegations have gone unproven.
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson did not provide specifics on what government documents were tampered with.
“We were called upon to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast,” Attorney Anderson told the Associated Press. “As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us.”
The videos are still under investigation by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.