WASHINGTON (BP)–Planned Parenthood has been caught again seeking to circumvent the law — this time at a Memphis, Tenn., affiliate.
Live Action, a California-based organization led by college students, secretly video taped a Planned Parenthood counselor attempting to cover up alleged child sexual abuse. It marked the sixth clinic in which Live Action has filmed with a hidden camera such a cover-up effort. Such practices by Planned Parenthood employees also were recorded at affiliates in Arizona, California and Indiana.
Lila Rose, a 20-year-old UCLA student and Live Action’s president, posed as a pregnant 14-year-old at the Memphis clinic, telling the counselor the father of her child was a 31-year-old. The counselor told Rose she would not tell anyone the age of the boyfriend and advised her to lie about his age. She counseled Rose on obtaining a judicial bypass of the state’s parental consent law for an abortion. Tennessee law requires health-care workers to report suspected cases of sexual abuse of minors to authorities.
“Planned Parenthood’s abortion-first mentality makes it operate as an advocate for terrible crimes against children,” Rose said in a written statement when the video was released April 20. “What more do authorities need to see before holding this organization accountable for its institutionalized indifference to statutory rape and sexual abuse of children?”
The latest video is another part of a multi-state, hidden-camera investigation by Live Action at Planned Parenthood clinics that began last summer.
In a different undercover investigation by Live Action in 2008, Planned Parenthood workers in seven states were caught on audio tape agreeing to receive donations designated for abortions of African American babies.
A search of Planned Parenthood websites found no news releases responding to the investigations by Lila Rose and the Live Action organization of collegians.
However, “Live Action” is the name of a Planned Parenthood camp to impart pro-choice teachings to young people.
On the website of Planned Parenthood’s Memphis affiliate, for example, it states:
“Planned Parenthood’s Live Action Camp is an intense, one-day program designed to help you educate and mobilize students in support of reproductive health and rights. It’s the best way for you to learn what it takes to be an activist on your campus and in your community, plus it’s free to attend!
“This camp provides effective activism techniques that will help your group organize public events, educate peers, support local Planned Parenthood health centers, and mobilize other students to speak out for reproductive rights and access to reproductive health services.”
Planned Parenthood Federation of America is the country’s No. 1 abortion provider. Its affiliates performed more than 305,000 abortions in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available. Its revenue reached $1.04 billion for the 2007-08 financial year, with $349.6 million of that in government grants and contracts.
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Compiled by Baptist Press Washington bureau chief Tom Strode and Baptist Press editor Art Toalston.
