5 Religious Liberty and Right to Life Issues to Watch in 2018

By Brandon Showalter, Opinion writer and social commentator Monday, January 01, 2018

David Daleiden Continues With Lawsuit Against Him in California; Biotech Tech Companies Settling Out of Court

Developments continue to emerge regarding the man behind the 2015 exposé of fetal body parts transactions between Planned Parenthood and biotech companies.

Although the federal government is now investigating the abortion giant and the biotech firms in question, David Daleiden is facing charges at the state level. The attorney general of California has filed a lawsuit against him and his colleague, Sandra Merritt, alleging criminal wrongdoing. Yet the judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals who is presiding over the case, Judge William Orrick III, has extrajudicial connections to the abortion group and Daleiden's attorneys recently filed a motion to disqualify him, arguing that he cannot be trusted to hear the case impartially.

Whether Judge Orrick will be removed from the case remains to be seen but the momentum does appear to be shifting away from Planned Parenthood and the biotechnology companies that did business with them in procuring fetal body parts for research purposes.

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In a Dec. 14 editorial in The Hill, Daleiden recounted how an Orange County district attorney recently settled with two Southern California sister companies, DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics, in which they were ordered to close down operations, banned from ever doing business in the state, and forced to admit liability for violating state and federal laws.

"For over two years, Planned Parenthood has breathlessly asserted to anyone who would listen that their programs to allegedly sell aborted fetal organs and tissues were completely above reproach, arguing that they only receive legal reimbursements and follow all patient consent rules," he wrote.

"But the guilty plea by the DaVinci companies, which worked with a major Planned Parenthood abortion center in southern California, blows Planned Parenthood's dubious assertions of innocence completely out of the water."