OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) - A federal judge indicated Thursday she won't order Planned Parenthood to turn over information about the costs of its fetal tissue donation program that anti-abortion activists say would show it profits from aborted fetal tissue.
The issue is just one component in a bitter lawsuit that accuses the activists of smearing Planned Parenthood as a "Little Shop of Horrors" in their attempt to hamper abortion access.
In the Oakland hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu said she would review a 2016 Congressional report and raw footage anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt secretly shot inside abortion conferences purporting to show its doctors haggling over the price of fetal tissue to evaluate their request for the information.
Daleiden and his co-defendants say they have evidence that four California Planned Parenthood affiliates profited from fetal tissue donations by taking in more money than they spent facilitating the donations. The affiliates denied that the payments exceeded their reimbursement costs.
After the affiliates denied the allegation, the activists challenged them to identify the facts, documents and witnesses supporting their response.
But Ryu cautioned Thursday that the information may not be relevant enough to warrant discovery.
"If it turns out that this is a rabbit hole, that this is not particularly relevant, or even if it's marginally relevant to something that is not going to be a big issue in the case, then there may be no further discovery or limited discovery,” she said.
Planned Parenthood sued in 2016, claiming Daleiden and Merritt endangered the safety of its doctors and patients and cost it millions of dollars in increased security costs after they posted doctored videos online making it seem as if Planned Parenthood sells aborted fetal tissue.
The videos led to a near-shutdown of the women's health organization in 2015, after GOP lawmakers threatened to pull its funding.
Daleiden and Merritt separately moved to dismiss the suit and strike state claims of fraud, trespass, invasion of privacy, nonconsensual taping and contract. The pair insists the First Amendment protects their activities as “investigative journalists” – which included using fake driver’s licenses to gain access to the conferences. They said Planned Parenthood failed to adequately plead its claims or marshal enough evidence to support them.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco tossed all four motions. In May, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed his rulings.
On Thursday, Ryu appeared to side with Planned Parenthood, repeatedly stating that the defendants are entitled only to "things that are relevant and proportional."
In an interview outside the courtroom, Daleiden disputed that the information he seeks is irrelevant.
"You heard the plaintiffs say multiple times at the podium today that a core part of this case is that they think I smeared them," he said. "If it is the case of Planned Parenthood that I smeared them, then I think that I'm entitled as a defendant to prove nothing I said was a smear, that it was all true."