A grand jury indictment of the activists who went undercover to expose Planned Parenthood practices is an example of “government hypocrisy,” the president of Focus on the Family writes in a column for ChristianityToday.com.
Jim Daly said that the indictment of activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, of the Center for Medical Progress, is “upside-down.”
“Why aren’t the alleged sellers being held to account?” Daly writes.
Daleiden and Merritt went undercover to find out how Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue. The videos from the pair were released last summer.
A Texas grand jury has charged the pair with tampering with a government document and Daleiden has also been charged with attempting to buy fetal tissue.
“We also must ask why, as citizen journalists, Daleiden and Merritt are not protected by the same laws that have shielded countless of their fellow reporters down through the years,” Daly writes. “Undercover journalism is nothing new. To the contrary, it has been used time and time again to expose criminal activity, and it is widely accepted as a journalistic practice.”
Daly says there is no difference between investigative journalism and the type of work that Daleiden and Merritt did.
“Still, we must not back down from striving to bring criminal and inhumane activity into the light—particularly as it relates to those who have no voice,” he said. “And we must offer our support and prayers to Daleiden and his colleague, who are being penalized after they had the courage to take a stand for the tiniest and most defenseless in our midst."
Publication date: February 5, 2016
