A federal judge has blocked the release of any recordings made at meetings of abortion providers by an anti-abortion group that previously revealed secretly recorded videos of a Planned Parenthood leader.
Judge William Orrick in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order Friday against the Center for Medical Progress hours after the order was requested by the National Abortion Federation.
The federation says the Center for Medical Progress infiltrated its meetings and recorded its members. The group says release of any audio or video would put providers in danger.
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In his three-page order, Orrick said the federation would likely suffer irreparable injury absent a temporary restraining order.
The Center for Medical Progress has previously released videos showing Planned Parenthood leaders discussing the use of aborted fetuses for research.
We have tried to contact CMP for permission to share the videos, but they have not returned our call.
David Daleiden, a leader of the Center for Medical Progress who is also named in the suit, said in a statement that Planned Parenthood and its allies were trying to silence the group and suppress investigative journalism.
"The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work and will contest all attempts from Planned Parenthood and their allies to silence our First Amendment rights," he said.
The lawsuit alleges the Center for Medical Progress created a fake company to get into the federation's annual meetings in 2014 and 2015 and then recorded its members with the goal of smearing those who support abortion rights.
In one of the videos, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood's senior director of medical services, describes techniques for obtaining fetal body parts for research over lunch to activists posing as potential buyers from a human biologics company.
Planned Parenthood says 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 payments cited by Planned Parenthood officials in the videos range from $30 to $100 per specimen, and the organization has subsequently confirmed that is the general range, although there is no fixed price list.
In one of the previously aired videos, a woman identified as a former StemExpress phlebotomist describes drawing blood and dissecting dead fetuses.
Associated Press National Writer David Crary in New York contributed to this report.