2017 Morrison & Foerster Pro Bono Report

FRAUD IS NOT FREE SPEECH When anti-choice activists illegally videotaped medical meetings of abortion providers, the act threatened the rights of all women. HARASSMENT TARGETING THOSE WHO PROVIDE AND SUPPORT ABORTION SERVICES IS BECOMING MORE SOPHISTICATED AND BRAZEN In July 2015, an anti-choice organization posted heavily edited videos online that purported to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of fetal tissue for profit. The videos went viral, igniting a firestorm of controversy that has led to threats to strip government funding from this critical source of health services for women. The anti-abortion extremists, calling themselves the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), secretly videotaped conferences of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), a professional association of abortion providers in North America. NAF’s general counsel reached out to law firms for pro bono help to stop this campaign of intimidation. All had declined until she contacted Jennifer K. Brown, senior pro bono counsel in MoFo’s New York office. Jennifer put out the call, and San Francisco partner Derek Foran, a commercial litigator who had never worked on an abortion-related lawsuit, quickly raised his hand. As he told The New York Times , “I don’t like bullies. And these guys were not only trying to bully women, they were trying to bully poor women.” 11 | Morrison & Foerster Pro Bono Report