It’s not just pro-lifers who are stunned and alarmed by the fact that two undercover journalists – David Daleiden – director of Center for Medical Progress (CMP) and Sandra Merritt, a CMP employee – found themselves indicted by a Texas grand jury for violations of the law allegedly committed in the course of exposing an abortion clinic’s selling of aborted baby parts.
Two pro-choice Cornell University law professors, Sherry Colb and Michael Dorf, published their concerns at CNN’s website where they penned an op-ed over what they called “a stunning act of legal jujitsu,” over the indictment.
Colb and Dorf take aim at the fact these charges could have a “chilling effect on undercover journalism” as well as raise “questions about laws targeting free speech.” They added:
[I]t appears the charges arise entirely out of their efforts to deceive Planned Parenthood officials in order to gain access.
To date, Daleiden and Merritt have been charged with the tampering of government records and using false IDs, and a misdemeanor charge for attempting to purchase fetal body parts.
Colb and Dorf continued:
[T]he misdemeanor charge of attempting to buy fetal remains seemingly overlooks the fact that Daleiden and Merritt were only posing as buyers to expose what they believed was illegal conduct by others…Undercover exposés play a vital role in informing the American public of important facts that would otherwise remain hidden.
Colb and Dorf also compared Daleiden and Merritt’s undercover journalism to that of animal rights activists – a political group which finds sympathy among those on the Left – who go undercover to “gain access to farms, slaughterhouses and laboratories by disguising their true intent may face criminal charges.”
If the Supreme Court is unwilling to protect them against general criminal laws, Colb and Dorf argued, “the job of protecting free speech would appear to fall to legislators and state court judges,” and doing so could hinder activists and investigative journalists from doing their job, thereby denying them freedom of speech.
