Judge to hear arguments over anti-abortion group recordings

A federal judge is set to hear arguments Friday over whether to continue blocking an anti-abortion group from releasing recordings that it secretly gathered at annual meetings of the National Abortion Federation, an abortion providers' association.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco has scheduled a hearing to determine whether to grant the National Abortion Federation's request for a preliminary injunction against the Center for Medical Progress.

The center has released several secretly recorded videos that it says show Planned Parenthood employees selling fetal tissue for profit, which is illegal. Planned Parenthood has said it abides by a law that allows providers to be reimbursed for the costs of processing tissue donated by women who have had abortions.

The National Abortion Federation filed a lawsuit against the center in July, saying members of the center infiltrated its meetings and recorded its members. The federation says the release of any audio or video would put members in danger and violate agreements the center entered into not to make such recordings of any meetings or discussions at the federation's conferences and not to disclose information learned at its conferences to any third party without first obtaining the federation's consent.

The center says its work is the equivalent of investigative journalism and protected by the First Amendment. Blocking the recordings would deprive the public of information about criminal activity, it says.

Orrick previously issued a temporary restraining order blocking the release of any such recordings and later extended that order pending the outcome of the preliminary injunction hearing.

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