PP Lobbies Against Sex Abuse Reporting In Illinois

Not two months after it fired an employee for telling an undercover pimp that Planned Parenthood can provide abortions and contraceptives to underage age prostitutes, the abortion group is lobbying against legislation in Illinois that would expand the list of personnel at abortion clinics who must report the rape of a minor.

Planned Parenthood and the usual leftist suspects are waging war against HB 2093, now under consideration in the Illinois legilature, because just about everyone at a PP clinic would be required by law to report the sexual abuse of minors if they find out about it. The includes volunteers, interns and just about anyone else who knows.

The bill provides thusly:

Any physician, physician’s assistant, registered nurse, licensed practical nurse, medical technician, certified nursing assistant, social worker, licensed professional counselor, office personnel, or volunteer of any office, clinic, or any other physical location that provides abortions, abortion counseling, abortion referrals, contraceptives, contraceptive counseling, sex education, or gynecological care and services having reasonable cause to believe a child known to them in their professional or official capacity may be an abused child or a neglected child shall immediately report or abused child or a neglected child shall immediately report or abused child or a neglected child shall immediately report or cause a report to be made to the Department.

Unsurprisingly, the new reporting mandates sent the abortion lobby into a blind rage. Nothing, they insist, must come between a girl and her abortionist, even a detective investigating statuory rape.

At two of its websites, the nation’s largest abortion factory urges readers to lobby against the bill.

Says PP’s Illinois Action Blog, “Illinois already imposes important and rigorous reporting requirements on all licensed health care providers, educators, etc. Singling out reproductive health providers is not necessary to ensure the safety of Illinois minors.”

At the another PP website, the message is the same: Fight to stop the legislature from adding another layer of protection against the sexual exploitation of underage girls.

HB 2093 requires office staff and volunteers of organizations that provide reproductive health care or sex education to be mandated reporters of child abuse. All doctors, nurses and teachers are already mandated reporters. Therefore, these organizations are already legally required to make reports. This bill creates redundant regulations that have the potential to overload the Department of Children and Family Services.

Unsurprisingly, the Illinois American Civil Liberites Union agrees with PP, and so does the Illinois branch of the National Association of Social Workers.

“Taken together,” said Colleen K. Connell, Executive Director of the ACLU of Illinois, in a prepared release, “these measures are designed to eliminate meaningful access to abortion services in Illinois. The voters of Illinois do not endorse this radical agenda. Voters rejected a gubernatorial candidate with a solid, anti-abortion record because they want the state’s leadership to focus on fixing the budget and creating jobs.”

Connell added that “women are not livestock,” referring to the Illinois legislature’s ability to handle agricultural issues.

NASW parrots the PP line:

Illinois already imposes important and rigorous reporting requirements on social workers and other licensed health care providers, educators, etc. Social workers are already mandated reporters. Singling out reproductive health providers is not necessary to ensure the safety of Illinois minors and compels them to take their valuable time to train volunteers and office staff who are not mandated reporters in any other type of work place. Their time could be better spent serving clients in need.

David Schmidt, of Live Action, the group that has repeatedly recorded PP staff members saying they will hide sexual abuse of minors, said PP’s opposition is no surprise given what the group has uncovered in the past. Live Action’s Mona Lisa Project divulges the lengths to which PP will go to provide abortions, even when its operatives know the girl seeking “help” is the victim of statory rape by much older men.

“Planned Parenthood’s opposition to common-sense child sexual abuse reporting requirements is absolutely shocking to me,” Schmidt said. “It shows that Planned Parenthood has an institutional problem with child sexual abuse reporting and not just a training issues.”

At Live Action we have recorded over a dozen times on video, Planned Parenthood staff failing to properly handle cases of suspected child abuse. …Planned Parenthood has played those incidences off as training issues or isolated incidences. Their opposition to HB 2093 is clear, institutional support for a system that doesn’t do its best to protect young abused children. Since protecting abused young children is not at the top of Planned Parenthood’s priority list, they should be stripped of their $363 million dollars in annual federal funds and all should be warned — they are unsafe for children both born and unborn.

Live Action reprised the Mona Lisa operation in February, sending an undercover pimp into the PP office in Perth Amboy N.J. A PP staff member eagerly explained how the pimp could procure abortions and contraceptives for underage prostitutes that were supposedly illegal aliens.

Other bills

These aren’t the only anti-abortion bills PP and its cohort opposes.

They’re also fighting HB 1919, which requires abortionists perform an ultrasound at least one hour before a woman’s abortion so she can see the target of the “doctor’s” knives and suction tubes. HB 3156, another bill that sent the abortion lobby into apoplexy, requires abortion clinics to meet the same building safety and health codes as other ambulatory surgical care centers.

Live Action

One would think PP might back off HB 2093, given that even the state’s chapter of the National Abortion Rights Action League is opposing it. As well, the organization sports a richly-deserved black eye for getting caught in yet another video sting that shows a top clinic staff member explaining how to break the law.

That was the undercover operation in Perth Amboy. An operative for Live Action, representing himself as a pimp, showed up at clinic to seek abortions and contraceptives for his young charges. The clinic director gave shocking advice to the pimp, explaining that PP would keep the identity and age of his prostitutes a secret.

Among the more interesting remarks were these:

One, minors are always accepted without parental consent. The only thing you do have to be careful is if they are minor, we are obligated, if we hear any certain information to kind of report, so, the first thing that is, what if they do speak English or even Spanish, it doesn’t matter what they speak — if we’re going to have it translated, they just have to be aware, that they have to be careful with whatever — you know, I’m not going to be like leading — I’m don’t want to get anybody in trouble

Even if they lie, just say, “Oh he’s the same age as me, 15,”…it’s just that mainly 14 and under we have to, doesn’t matter if their partner’s the same age, younger, whatever, 14 and under we have to report. Like on the paperwork there’s going to be a point that asks, uh, like are you sexually active, stuff like that … if they’re under a certain age… — you know, me and my other counselor, like for the most part we want as little information as possible — cause we don’t want to be involved.

As well, the clinic director told the undercover operatives to say the prostitutes are students to get contraceptives more cheaply: “If they’re minors, put down that they’re students,” Woodruff says. “Yeah, just kind of play along that they’re students — we want to make it look as legit as possible.”

Even worse, she offered advice on how quickly the prostitutes can return to work after an abortion and what kind of sex they should offer. “Waist up,” Woodruff advises.

PP fired the employee, but accused Live Action of “an astoundingly cynical form of political activity.”

Still Getting Taxpayer Funds

The video sting inspired pro-lifers and their allies in Congress to begin a move to defund PP, which receives some $363 annually in taxpayer revenues. With the help of that money, it has performed millions abortions of the years, 324,008 in 2008 alone. Between 2002 and 2008, PP collected more than $2 billion in federal funds.

The leader of the effort to defund PP in Congress is Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ill. He has introduced legislation to defund the group, and last week, voted against the stop-gap funding measure to the keep the government running for the time being because it contained taxpayer funds for PP. Fifty-four Republicans joined him.

PP will use those funds to murder unborn children.

Photo: In this Jan. 23, 2011 photo, Bryan Howard, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Arizona, Inc., poses in front of a Planned Parenthood facility in Tucson, Ariz.: AP Images