Democrat prosecutors have been working with abortion activists in New York and California to silence pro-life advocates who work to save unborn babies from abortion.
The Federalist recently highlighted two examples, one being an on-going New York case against pro-life sidewalk counselors that began in 2017. The other, more widely-known to the pro-life movement, is California prosecutors’ attempts to silence David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress after they exposed Planned Parenthood’s aborted baby body parts trade.
“The two cases, although separated by flyover America, unite in their lesson: The truth about abortion must be silenced, and powerful people will try to ensure it is,” Federalist writer Margot Cleveland wrote.
In New York, 13 pro-life sidewalk counselors are accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and similar state and city laws that prohibit people from, among other things, intimidating or interfering with a person because they are “obtaining or providing reproductive health services,” according to the report.
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The case began in 2017 with former state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a pro-abortion Democrat who later resigned after he was accused of abusing for women. The prosecution continues with current state Attorney General Letitia James.
Initially, federal Judge Carol Bagley Amon ruled in favor of the pro-life advocates. Her ruling, Cleveland wrote, “exposed the deceit of the abortion apologists and the symbiotic relationship between the abortion facility” and the New York Attorney General.
For example, Schneiderman announced the case outside the Choices Women’s Medical Center in Jamaica, New York, where the pro-life advocates volunteer; and when he did, he told the press that America is “not a nation where you can choose your point of view.”
The state attorney general’s office also sent undercover investigators to interact with pro-lifers outside the abortion facility, “pretending to be patients and their companions, and wearing hidden cameras recording video and audio,” according to Amon’s opinion.
One of these undercover investigators also created a fake Facebook account where they befriended pro-life advocates, pretending to join them in their efforts, and then used it to learn details about their activities, the report states.
“Despite these investigative activities, the [attorney general] did not call any of its investigators as witnesses, and introduced few of the undercover videos as evidence,” Amon wrote.
The witnesses that the attorney general did call to testify “exaggerated descriptions of protester misconduct,” and their testimonies were not consistent, the judge found.
However, the attorney general’s office appealed, and a Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled against the pro-lifers earlier this year.
Then, oddly, on Friday, the exact same court granted a rare motion from the pro-life advocates to rehear the case, according to their lawyers with the Thomas More Society.
“From the very beginning of the case, it was apparent to us that the evidence just didn’t match Mr. Schneiderman’s accusations,” said Thomas More Society special counsel Martin Cannon. “In its 103-page ruling on the Attorney General’s motion for preliminary injunction, the district court ruled that the injunction should not be issued and that the pro-life sidewalk counselors could continue to gather outside an abortion clinic in Queens, New York and minister to women.”
The case is not over, but the court’s decision last week is an encouraging sign.
Pro-life advocates hope for a similar victory for Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress because they, too, are engaged in a years-long battle over bogus charges that began with former California Attorney General and current Vice President Kamala Harris.
It is clear that the Democratic Party and the billion-dollar abortion industry are deeply aligned. As Cleveland noted, these cases show that the two are working together to strip away not only the rights of unborn babies to live but also the rights of those who defend them to speak freely.
