I have been undercover and seen firsthand the horrific and sometimes criminal activities that take place inside Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry. I’ve seen abortion workers admit to covering up child sex trafficking, sex-selective abortions, a willingness to commit infanticide, and more.

The public has every right to see the underbelly of this inhuman industry, and journalists have every right to investigate. Our First Amendment guarantees it.

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, who, like me, went undercover to show the public the truth about what goes on inside Planned Parenthood abortion clinics across the nation, have done Americans a great service. They caught Planned Parenthood executives and their business partners on video discussing the harvesting and sale of aborted baby body parts.

Daleiden and Merritt recorded high-level Planned Parenthood officials admitting to using partial-birth abortions to obtain more “usable” baby body parts for research. These same officials had no qualms about haggling over the broken bodies of children who, through no fault of their own, were scheduled for death. These heart-breaking details illustrate the grisly human rights abuses that Planned Parenthood commits daily — first killing their victims and then arranging the sale of their bodies. Daleiden and Merritt deserve to be thanked, not prosecuted.

Unfortunately, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, at the behest of Planned Parenthood, has charged Daleiden and Merritt with 14 bogus, politically motivated felony charges all stemming from the California videotaping law against recording “confidential” communications. The only guilty parties in this scenario are Planned Parenthood and the businesses that cooperated with their baby parts scheme.

It is tragic to see California's attorney general abuse the justice system just because the truth uncovered by these heroic investigators threatened a powerful and politically connected corporation. The abuse of power is all the more obvious when considering the details of the case. Although California’s video-recording law prohibits recording "confidential" communications, the law explicitly permits the recording of “confidential” conversations if the purpose is to gather evidence of a crime. The videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress provide ample evidence of that, and some of Planned Parenthood’s business partners have already been shut down for their parts in the aborted baby body parts trafficking scheme that was uncovered.

But even if the Center for Medical Progress videos hadn’t uncovered evidence of a crime, then all the videos recorded by Daleiden and Merritt in California occurred in places of public accommodation, for example, crowded restaurants and open hotel spaces, which aren’t covered under the recording law.

Investigative journalists in California regularly go undercover in such settings. They record and publish their findings. Whether they’re local news reporters at CBS Los Angeles going undercover at a chiropractor’s office or Fox Los Angeles undercover at local pot dispensaries, these journalists are never prosecuted. Rather, they are praised. In fact, this case against Daleiden and Merritt is the only time in the 50-year history of the California recording law that anyone has ever been criminally charged for undercover video reporting.

The only notable difference in the case against Daleiden and Merritt is that they exposed a politically powerful and cash-flush abortion corporation. This prosecution sends a chilling message to journalists everywhere — that if the findings of their undercover investigations are inconvenient or damaging to the politically powerful, they too could face criminal charges.

Lila Rose founded and serves as president of Live Action.