David Daleiden faces a possible 20 years in jail for exposing Planned Parenthood selling baby parts

The pro-life movement has been stunned this week by charges brought against David Daleiden, the 26-year old American pro-life activist who exposed the abortion industry’s trade in the body parts of aborted babies.

Daleiden caught Planned Parenthood officials discussing – callously and flippantly – how to make big money out of their business of dismembering the most vulnerable members of the human family.

A grand jury in Houston, Texas not only cleared Planned Parenthood of selling human organs, but amazingly charged Daleiden and his colleague Sandra Merritt with trying to purchase them. Daleiden and Merritt have also been charged with "tampering with a governmental record" for posing under false names to conduct the undercover investigation which exposed the abortion giant. Peter Breen, Daleiden’s lawyer has described the charges as "baseless".

Undercover journalism

Breen argued that Daleiden is guilty only of "using standard undercover journalism techniques ... David's purpose was to bring light to an illegal and disgusting practice of the abortion industry, and he's done so."

It is both prudent and just that searching questions be asked about the ethics of undercover investigations such as Daleiden’s and those of Lila Rose’s Live Action, for which Daleiden worked for several years. Even well-intentioned sentiments can stray into duplicity; savviness into entrapment; and role-playing into formal cooperation with evil. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Yet the guilt or innocence under Texan law of Daleiden and Merritt is by far the smaller issue than the selective justice being exercised against them.

Sickening hypocrisy

For decades the abortion industry has lied, manipulated and abused its way into becoming a multi-billion dollar global business, built on a mountain of torn corpses, broken hearts and decimated communities. Some of its erstwhile leaders have even admitted to this record – witness the testimonies of Dr Bernard Nathanson (RIP) and Abby Johnson, among others. It is the hypocrisy of dropping charges against Planned Parenthood but bringing them against Daleiden that is sickening.

As Peter Breen said: "How can anyone claim that David Daleiden tried to buy baby body parts for profit without agreeing that Planned Parenthood was willing to sell baby body parts for profit?"

In our own country, Aisling Hubert faces tens of thousands of pounds in legal bills for trying to stop sex-selective abortions. And in Canada, Mary Wagner is in detention on the charge of 'mischief', for witnessing outside abortion centres. History testifies how brave leaders who speak truth to power are persecuted by those whom they have angered. Socrates, Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King Jnr are among the most famous. Pro-lifers are in good company.