I want to first thank the whole HLI family
for your prayers! I arrived in Gdansk, Poland last night after
departing Bucharest. Before I get to some thoughts from this mission, I
wanted to discuss something that is in the news -- something that our
friends here who survived Communism recognize and find alarming coming
from the supposed cradle of freedom, the United States.
Many of you have heard that David Daleiden
and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress were charged by
the State of California this week with 15 felony counts. It has been
almost two years since their exposition of Planned Parenthood's
trafficking in the body parts of babies made headlines, and similar
bogus charges against the pair have already been dismissed elsewhere.
They are charged with recording "private" conversations that happened in
public places, though the real goal is to punish and intimidate anyone
who creates problems for the abortion industry. In this case, the
state Attorney General who brought the charges has himself received
campaign donations from Planned Parenthood, yet feels no need to recuse
himself from the case.
We expect that the charges ultimately will not stand, both because
they are baseless and because the same journalistic technique has
actually been held up in California courts as legitimate. Indeed, even
in California, the surreptitious recording of conversations in public
areas led to prosecutions against some for animal abuse. To the party
that runs the State of California, apparently pigs are more important
than preborn human beings. We pray, however, for the peace and
protection of David and Sandra, and we pray that this tactical
overreach of the demonic profiteers of abortion and their political
allies will backfire by bringing the story back into the news.
The people I've met here in post-Communist nations know exactly
what is happening in this case, because they've seen it many times.
That such blatant abuse of the courts even makes it this far in the
American legal system, however, is what is concerning to many here in
Eastern Europe. Using contrived charges in courts to punish and
intimidate enemies of the State and its minions is old news in this
part of the world. Yet, as then, it is a sign of desperation, and an
opportunity for courage for those accused and all who stand with them
against the slaughter of innocents.
On mission here I have heard a great deal about the heroes who opposed
Communism and the governments corrupted by it, including many who did
so at great personal cost, even death. In Hungary,
Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty remains a popular and a heroic figure -- a symbol both of strong faith and of patriotic resistance to Communist oppression.
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