A Harris County grand jury on Monday indicted the videographers behind undercover recordings of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston and cleared the women's health provider of any wrongdoing.
The indictments — part of the county prosecutor's investigation into allegations that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue — include charges against anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony that carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison. The grand jury handed down a second charge for Daleiden for “Prohibition of the Purchase and Sale of Human Organs," according to the Harris County District Attorney's office. That charge is a class A misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to a year in jail.
The grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston of breaking any laws.
For more background, also from the Texas Tribune:
- Indictment Sheds Light on Planned Parenthood Sting.
The Texas Penal Code indicates that the mere offer to buy or sell human organs, including fetal tissue, is a violation.
While the sale of fetal tissue is illegal, abortion clinics may donate fetal tissue with a patient’s consent for use in medical research. Federal law allows clinics to be reimbursed for costs “associated with the transportation, implantation, processing preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue” for research purposes — an amount that typically ranges from $25 to $50.
Offering to pay health providers an amount higher than those administrative costs is also a violation of the law.
The charge against Daleiden is a class A misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to a year in jail.
The misdemeanor charge is one result of the Harris County District Attorney’s criminal investigation into allegations that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue. That investigation — launched at the urging of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — focused on undercover recordings of staff at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston discussing the administrative costs of harvesting fetal organs at various stages of gestation.
