After the release of a series of fraudulent  hidden camera  videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood engaged in illegal body part trafficking, Republican lawmakers pounced. In red state after red state, Republican governors demanded investigations into the allegations. (In fact, they had been waiting for this moment for some time. The pro-life activist group responsible for the videos had been coordinating with conservative politicians for months and the bedfellows   Republicans and activists   worked together to create anti-Planned Parenthood legislation timed with the release of the tapes.)Ultimately, not a single investigation found evidence of wrongdoing. Planned Parenthood clinics around the country were exonerated one by one. In a twist, the anti-abortion group that made the tapes, Center for Medical Progress, did get indicted for criminal charges stemming from using fake identification.But while it s certainly a victory for justice that Planned Parenthood came out squeaky clean and the anti-abortion group s leaders are facing prison time, it wasn t a total victory. Planned Parenthood devotes almost all of its budget to helping men and women have affordable access to healthcare. They don t have the money to waste on endless witch hunts. Given the lack of evidence of wrongdoing, it s pretty clear that Republicans were hoping to bankrupt them on trumped up charges, rather than actually catch them in a criminal act.Thankfully, the unsung heroes in this story are the lawyers who agreed to represent Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups. They didn t do it because they were going to get rich, in fact, they ll get nothing; they did it because it was the right thing to do.Highlighting that point is Derek Foran, a partner at a corporate law firm named Morrison & Foerster. In an interview with the New York Times, Foran walks us through his thought process when he was asked to represent the National Abortion Federation pro-bono.The organization, the National Abortion Federation, had trouble finding a law firm to represent it pro bono. Morrison & Foerster, which previously handled abortion-rights cases, received the request and emailed lawyers at the firm about the inquiry. Mr. Foran raised his hand and, soon after, secured a court order stopping the group from releasing information from the organization s meetings.Why would he stick his neck out for a group that had no way of paying him? His answer is both uplifting and brutally honest. I don t like bullies,  Mr. Foran, who was born and raised in Ireland, said in an interview this week.  And these guys were not only trying to bully women, they were trying to bully poor women. Foran isn t exaggerating. Planned Parenthood predominately helps the poorest women in the country. Aside from providing women access to their constitutional right to have an abortion, the clinics also do life-saving medical check-ups and tests. Shutting them down is a clear message from Republican lawmakers to American women: We do not care about you. It s bullying.Foran, representing NAF, decided to hit the  bullies  back to protect the vital work that Planned Parenthood was doing. They filed a lawsuit against Center for Medical Progress in San Francisco. Thankfully, his job was made a bit easier because Fox News   in its rush to praise the anti-abortion activists   was giving the fraudsters a ton of airtime   all of which was being used to build a case against them. I turned on Fox News and they were open right away about what they did,  Foran told reporters.Unlike the lawsuits and investigations directed at Planned Parenthood, Foran s goals were never malicious. He didn t intend to  destroy  any side of the issue based on a fanatical belief in his own ideological superiority. He was simply standing up for what was right. Our lawsuit is not about pro-choice versus pro-life,  he said.  What you can t do is defraud people, lie and go about manufacturing tales. These guys are accountable under the law just like everybody else. And that s the missing piece in many of the stories covering the Planned Parenthood videos. They are lies, carefully fabricated to achieve an agenda. No matter where you stand on the issue of abortion, this type of smear campaign is just wrong.Pro-life activists are, of course, despondent over their recent change in fortune. After scoring a victory with the release of those tapes, Planned Parenthood continues to thrive, and the videos and the group which produced them have been thoroughly discredited. The lawmakers who once thought they could defund and bankrupt women s clinics are losing every battle. Things have gone just about as badly as they possibly could have on nearly every front.Feature image from Flickr