A federal judge in San Francisco has issued a temporary restraining order on the release of video recordings made by an anti-abortion group, where they secretly recorded videos during meetings with abortion providers.
District Judge William H. Orrick III granted on Friday a petition filed by the National Abortion Federation to stop the release of the videos secretly taped by the Center for Medical Progress from a meeting in San Francisco, as well as a conference in Baltimore, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The restraining order also bans the anti-abortion activists from releasing the names and addresses of the abortion providers, as well as dates and locations of forthcoming meetings from the federation.
Judge Orrick wrote in his decision issuing the order that the release of the videos and the information that comes with it would subject federation members to "harassment, intimidation, violence, invasion of privacy, and injury to reputation," The LA Times reported.
The National Abortion Federation alleged in their lawsuit that the Center for Medical Progress made a fake company in order to infiltrate some of the federation's annual meetings around the country in 2014 and 2015.
They also alleged that the group secretly recorded meetings with the federation's members with the intention of tarnishing the reputation of pro-abortion backers, according to The New York Times.
Planned Parenthood has been embroiled in controversy ever since the Center for Medical Progress released a video of a doctor in Colorado discussing the sale of aborted fetus body parts, the first of a series of supposed undercover sting videos that have infuriated anti-abortion groups and sparked numerous protests around the country.
