It is another vindication day for Planned Parenthood.
But one with a deliciously righteous twist.
In very-Republican Texas, a grand jury convened to investigate Planned Parenthood after videos purported to show the agency sold fetal tissue, instead cleared Planned Parenthood and indicted the two abortion foes who made the videos.
This Oct. 22, 2015, photo shows a Planned Parenthood building in Houston. This was the same Lone Star State where Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, last year stood in front of a Texas Values sign and behind a lectern reading "Protect Religious Freedom!" to call for the Harris County prosecutor, also Republican, to investigate Planned Parenthood. And it's the same state where abortion foes have very nearly shut down all avenues to reproductive choice for millions of women.
But on Monday, Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson (another Republican) said in a statement that the grand jury found no wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood, but charged David R. Daleiden, the 27-year-old director of the Center for Medical Progress, with tampering with a governmental record, a felony. He also faces a misdemeanor charge related to the offer to purchase human organs. (Texas has laws prohibiting such offers.) Another center employee, Sandra S. Merritt, 62, also was charged with government record tampering. The indictment alleges that Daleiden and Merritt made and presented fake California driver's licenses, with the intent to defraud, for their April meeting at Planned Parenthood in Houston.
This is not, of course, the first time Planned Parenthood has emerged victorious from the despicable smear the misleadingly edited videos, released starting in July, attempted to cast. Similar findings have been supported in numerous congressional and state investigations.
But it is the first time an official investigating body has brought charges against those involved in the smear.
The release of the videos created a national furor and stoked the conservative drive to attack Planned Parenthood. Defund Planned Parenthood became the right-wing political jab du jour, despite continued public opinion that the group was among the most trusted nonprofits in the country. Planned Parenthood did apologize for the casual tone that one of its officials used to discuss a possible transfer of fetal tissue to what she believed was a legitimate medical company. But Planned Parenthood officials reiterated over and over that the fees that official discussed were to cover costs and were legal.
The Texas grand jury clearly agreed with Planned Parenthood, a program that helps millions of poor women obtain health care and birth control and, yes, abortions.
And no, the abortions are not funded by government. Nor does the group sell baby parts. They do provide - for cost - fetal tissue that is used for stem cell research.
Planned Parenthood's services pie is divided like this: 42 percent for STD testing and treatment, 34 for contraception, 11 percent for pregnant women's health care, 9 percent for cancer screening and prevention, 3 percent for abortion services.
But don't tell any of that to conservative Republicans. It doesn't fit their so-called religious (read here, puritan) agenda.
A year ago, the Guttmacher Institute reported that since the 2010 midterm elections swept abortion opponents into power in state capitals across the country, states have enacted 231 abortion restrictions. In the 2014 legislative year alone, lawmakers introduced 335 provisions aimed at restricting access further, and 26 of those most recently introduced provisions were enacted in 15 states. All this despite massive public outcry against some of those restrictions.
Texas, of course, is one of those states where this scenario has played out.
And while Monday's grand jury announcement has been delicious for Planned Parenthood supporters, it isn't stopping the Texas Republican anti-abortion fervor in its tracks. Press statements have been flying:
"Nothing about today's announcement in Harris County impacts the state's [Texas Attorney General's Office] ongoing investigation. The State of Texas will continue to protect life, and I will continue to support legislation prohibiting the sale or transfer of fetal tissue," said Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican.
Republican Ken Paxton, state attorney general, echoed the governor. "The fact remains that the videos exposed the horrific nature of abortion and the shameful disregard for human life of the abortion industry."
Lt. Gov. Patrick, who first sought the grand jury investigation, played down the significance of the indictments, saying the recent anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision was "a solid reminder of the over 50 million innocent lives that have been lost to abortions."
Thank goodness for a grand jury of our peers. It's just too bad they didn't also charge the videographers as accomplices to shooter Robert Dear in the November mass shooting deaths of three people at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic.