S.F. judge upholds state privacy law cited in prosecution of antiabortion activists

A San Francisco judge has upheld California’s law against recording private conversations without the speakers’ consent, rejecting a challenge by two antiabortion activists who posed as fetal researchers to enter national meetings of abortion providers and secretly record their discussions.

David Daleiden, leader of an antiabortion group called Center for Medical Progress, and Sandra Merritt, an employee, have both been charged with eight felony violations of the state law. Prosecutors say they identified themselves as researchers for Biomax Procurement Services, a nonexistent company, to gain access to conventions of the National Abortion Federation in San Francisco in 2014 and in Baltimore in 2015, as well as meetings of Planned Parenthood around that time.

After they posted videos of the meetings, which Planned Parenthood said had been heavily edited, the abortion groups said their members were subjected to harassment and death threats. Some states cited the videos when they cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. Daleiden and Merritt said they were acting as investigative journalists to expose fetal trafficking. Their trial is scheduled for March.