The US Supreme Court on Monday denied a request from the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress (CMP) to throw out a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood for breaking the law by secretly recording its employees.

The original suit, brought by Planned Parenthood in January 2016, was in response to the release of a series of heavily edited videos produced in 2015 by the CMP, which secretly taped Planned Parenthood officials discussing about the reimbursement of fetal tissue. With each video release, the CMP simultaneously released complete footage of the conversations, to allow every viewer to examine the full context. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled for Planned Parenthood.

On appeal, the CMP argued that the Planned Parenthood lawsuits interfered with the organization’s right to free speech under the First Amendment and that it violated the anti-SLAPP statutes of California and more than 30 states that meant to protect citizen journalists. It also argued that their video was to “inform the public about unethical and inhumane medical practice, including the selling of aborted fetal tissue for research.”

The CMP requested the Court to accept this anti-SLAPP case to clarify the operation of Erie and Hanna throughout the federal system and to afford free-speech defendants the protections provided by their state legislatures consistently. The CMP also accused that First Amendment protection in the Ninth Circuit appears to apply differently depending on one’s political associations and beliefs, and does not apply at all if the political belief is anti-abortion.

The order on Monday, issued without comment, leaves intact the Ninth Circuit’s decision rejecting that argument.