It’s like they’re a propaganda network, or something.
Two more Planned Parenthood clinics have been caught on tape allegedly trying to conceal statutory rape.
Two more Planned Parenthood clinics in Phoenix, AZ were caught on tape concealing statutory rape.
Fox:
College students Lila Rose and Jackie Stollar said they entered the Phoenix clinics posing as 15-year-old girls and told employees that Stollar needed an abortion after being impregnated by her adult “boyfriend.”
Live Action:
Lila Rose and Jackie Stollar, both college students posing as 15-year-old girls, entered two Phoenix Planned Parenthood clinics undercover and told employees at one clinic that Stollar needed an abortion because her adult “boyfriend” had impregnated her, giving his age as 27-years-old at the second clinic.
Fox:
In December 2008, the Mona Lisa Project exposed similar cases at two Planned Parenthood clinics in Indiana. State prosecutors launched investigations into Planned Parenthood of Indiana and both clinics either fired or suspended employees.
Live Action:
In December 2008, the Mona Lisa Project exposed similar cases at two Planned Parenthood clinics in Indiana. As public scrutiny mounted, both clinics either fired or suspended employees, and state prosecutors launched investigations into Planned Parenthood of Indiana.
I was curious about this “Mona Lisa Project”, and why it was they have been consistantly getting so much rightwing media attention.
Turns out that they are part of a “student” group called LiveAction/LiveAction Films, a group rather silently run by Stephen Reed.
So, how does this “youth group” get the media attention and get the funding to make their movies? Turns out that Stephen Reed is a boardmember of both Focus on the Family *AND* the Family Research Council.
Just as long as we clarify who it is that Fox News is *REALLY* carrying water for here…
the godtards are against SCHIP, headstart and every program that would help the kids they claim to care about
Radical thought here: maybe, if Planned Parenthood actually obeyed the law, there wouldn’t be these stories?
The law is clear: with only a few exceptions (I think clergy), if ANYONE discovers that a minor has been sexually abused, they are legally obligated to report it to authorities. And yes, that includes a 15-year-old who tells a Planned Parenthood receptionist that she’s pregnant by a 27-year-old man.
I understand why Planned Parenthood is so eager to ignore that law. Abortion is big business for them. In 2006 (the last year I can find numbers for), Planned Parenthood performed almost 290,000 abortions and netted over $110 million in “profits.” Presuming about 250 business days in a year, that’s over 1150 abortions a day — or, in three and a half days, one abortion for every single US casualty in Iraq since the invasion almost six years ago.
Back to the point: if you don’t think Planned Parenthood should have to report when they suspect sexual abuse of a minor, feel free to get the states to change their laws. Until then, expect people who don’t like them and think that the laws should apply to them to continue to “sting” them.
J.
“I understand why Planned Parenthood is so eager to ignore that law.”
Um. No you don’t. Otherwise, you would factor in simple human decency — a quality that most people possess at least marginally, I hear — into the picture.
Do you really think it’s easy to tell a young, desperate teenager that you’re going to have to ruin their life and drag it through the mud, because they let it leak how old the dad was?!
Gimmeabreak. It *is* a stupid idea to force doctors and nurses to do something that is clearly against the wishes of the patient. In that respect, I would think it much more proper to mandate that they inform any woman currently over a set age, such as 13, that a crime was committed and ask them if they would like a report filed, giving them disclosure as to the possible ramifications.
In any event, the person in question was let go. So… who cares?
Apparently, the Focus on the Family people aren’t willing to fight Planned Parenthood for giving abortions anymore. They would rather try to go after them in fundamentally dishonest sting actions that fail to point out all those times that PP doesn’t screw up.
They can’t win on the issues, so they’d rather try to win based on a technicality.
Jay-
Good point.
However, IMHO, there is enough wiggle room in the statement “when they suspect sexual abuse…” to allow them to error on the side of confidentiality of the woman (girl). I am not familiar with the laws in either state mentioned, so I may be reading more into the line than you intended.
The point made by OW is legit, though. It’s cut and pasted. If a student were to try and submit this as a term paper, they’d be accused of plagarism.
You’re right, Mark. I shouldn’t have to obey the law if it makes me feel icky. They should have done SOME original reporting.
Officials with Planned Parenthood of Southern Arizona said they planned to investigate the matter.
Whoops. They contacted PP, and PP essentially said “no comment.” I wonder why…
So, what else is there to report? Fox has the press release and the video backing up the press release. Planned Parenthood ain’t saying squat (much like the several other times the’ve been caught violating the law.
Note that Planned Parenthood isn’t saying what folks are saying here — that it’s a stupid law, that they shouldn’t have to obey it, that somehow their employees are exempt, and so on. Nice of you to carry their water for them.
J.
From the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network : “A report of sexual abuse or conduct is not required if the conduct involves only minors who are 14-17 years of age and there is nothing to indicate that the conduct is other than consensual.”
Maybe they didn’t report it because they knew these “undercover” women weren’t really juveniles? Maybe they discovered that they weren’t really pregnant? And since they aren’t police conducting a sting, how could anyone claim a law was broken?
And when Planned Parenthood does report these instances, and it is discovered that it was all a fabrication, why aren’t Live Action punished for breaking the law?
Hey Jay, even though I support Planned Parenthood, I don’t think what they’re alleged to have done here is good or ethical at all, if true.
That said – the issue at hand: Do you think it’s right for Fox News to just cut and past press releases?
As a general rule, no. In certain cases, as a first draft, as long as it checks out, then OK. And I wouldn’t limit it to just Fox News — I recall numerous times other media outlets cut and pasted from press releases from groups like the DNC, the Obama campaign, unions, and the like.
If it’s done as a first draft pending a more complete investigation, I’m willing to cut them some slack.
And I’m curious about your “if true” disclaimer. The organization in question has pulled the precise same stunt several times now, in several different locations, always with documentary video and audio. They’ve got plenty of proof backing up their charges, and it looks like a systemic pattern of abuses, not just one or two rogue individuals.
Planned Parenthood’s response is always the same: a promise to investigate, a statement that the actions of their representatives are not representative of the group, and a promise to be more careful in the future. But that last part never seems to actually happen, because they keep getting caught…
Reprinting the press release largely verbatim is pretty lazy, but hardly the most egregious of sins. Especially since the group accompanied it with proof.
J.
WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS HOW MANY OF THESE RIGHT-WING THUGS ARE WILLING TO ADOPT ALL THESE BABIES THAT ARE NOT ABORTED !!
JT, do you like having cops? I mean, there’s police brutality sometimes, right?
Yes, Parthenon, there is. I’ve even reported witnessing it, and (somewhere) have a letter from the Chief of Police thanking me and telling me the officer in question was disciplined.
I think I see where you’re going, though, and in this case it’s becoming abundantly clear that the stuff these kids are uncovering are not the aberration, but the norm…
J.
The law is clear: with only a few exceptions (I think clergy),
Why is that, do you suppose?
if ANYONE discovers that a minor has been sexually abused, they are legally obligated to report it to authorities. And yes, that includes a 15-year-old who tells a Planned Parenthood receptionist that she’s pregnant by a 27-year-old man.
Hang on a second, though. These ladies were, from the quotes, college students POSING as 15-year olds. If PP had, in fact, contacted authorities (as they should have done), they would have been exposed to filing a false claim, that they were underage when they were not.
So maybe I’m not getting the whole “gotcha” angle of this Mona Lisa Project.
“Hang on a second, though. These ladies were, from the quotes, college students POSING as 15-year olds.”
Exactly. So no law was broken. In fact, had they turned them in to the cops, they could have broken doctor patient confidentiality rules.
So I guess J.G.Thayer is wrong, again.
I recall numerous times other media outlets cut and pasted from press releases from groups like the DNC, the Obama campaign, unions, and the like
So I’m sure you can cite a few such instances.
Jay, I think PP should’ve called the cops, I’m not a fan of turning PP into the police, but these branches fucked up. PP is a very large organization, and hopefully they’ll learn from this.
But do you really believe the idiotic right-wing talking point that PP profits from abortions? Those $110 million they bring in do not cover the costs of performing 290,000 abortions (plus the numbers are generated, costs vary between $250 and $400 each for a procedure which costs $2000 in a clinic, and it’s free of charge for people who can’t afford to pay). If you can make a profit performing any surgery for under $400, give me a call, we’ll set up business and get RICH! Seriously, I never would’ve thought anyone who capable of typing could spout out something so thoughtlessly idiotic. And as far as the 1150/day, it’s not like there’s not an assembly line in one giant fucking abortion factory, there’s 900 clinics nationwide. Yeah, they’re rolling in abortion dough, all Bentleys with 22″ rims which spin to make a holographic image of an aborted fetus when the car hits 40 mph.
Strowbridge, go back to your movies. Leave reality up to those who can deal with it.
Duros, let’s game it out. PP calls the authorities and reports a suspected case of child molestation. The cops come and question the girls, find out they’re running a sting. PP is off the hook; they acted in good conscience (for once) and obeyed the letter of the law. The girls could be in legal trouble, for causing the false alarm.
As Strowbridge pointed out to his detriment, there has to be an INTENT to deceive to constitute lying. Here, the intentional deception is not on PP’s part, so they’re safe. The girls did intend to deceive, so they would be the ones who would be charged.
And Crusty, for the year I cited, their total revenues were over $1 BILLION. The $110 million was the difference between income and reported expenditures.
Lemme get those precise numbers…
total revenues: $1.017 billion.
excess of revenue over expenses:” 112 million
Simple math says that total expenditures were $895 million, give or take.
Sheesh, Strowbridge, you’re really gelded now, aren’t you? The best you got is “yeah, what he said!”
J.
Question: Is the story true or not?
OMG,
A con that believes in following the law!
Oh wait it’s a law that doesn’t affect them….
And it’s impacting negativity on someone they “Don’t” like….
Then again, never mind…….
Jack, the college girls have video and audio. Further, if you read the comments here of Planned Parenthood supporters, it’s pretty clear that they believe it’s true.
J.
Grumpy:
I am really not surprised. Planned Parenthood has the same regard for the laws that the average Obama nominee has for tax laws…
“We don’t like them, so they don’t apply to us.”
J.
Jay Tea,
Um…. Yeah that was my point.
Ya hit the nail right on the head.
Glad you took the time to ferret it out. Thanks for making my silly English statement and translated it into pure con, where the meaning of my muddled statement can be warped to mean something that was not intended, nor implied.
Thanks!
I’m so confused.
Wasn’t Mr. Tea telling us just a couple of weeks ago that he’s actually pro-choice?
Yet he’s so quick to compare the number of abortions performed to combat casualties and feign outrage that a reproductive rights organization values the privacy of its clients over the meddling of politicians.
I just can’t make sense of it.
The point of going to PP is that it’s a refuge that young women can RELY on, and rely on the fact that cops, parents, etc will NOT be called. What is so damned great about busting a 15 year old girl crying out for help?
Which brings up another point; It’s pretty easy to tell a 27yr old from a 15 yr old. I bet the PP personel thought; “Why is this young woman who is at LEAST 18-20 yrs old pretending she’s 15? Oh well, we get all types in here and ours is not to reason why, but to HELP, so help we will.”
The bottom line is that the fundies and faux news don’t care about reason or apathy towards folks who might have different beliefs, they see their warped agenda as the only solution, you know, like the final solution that Hitler so espoused.
For the most part, this should be a lesson to you, Jay Tea: what you tend to get outraged about is rarely anything related to the “news.” Rather, you tend to get worked into a frenzy over something cooked up by a special-interest group for the purpose of getting your dander up. I think you should take this as a lesson that, contrary to your personal beliefs about being well-informed, you tend to serve as just a useful idiot for various right-wing activist and propaganda outlets.
I’m so confused.
I think I get it. This Mona Lisa Project hoo-haw, Live Action whatever, Fox and Jay are just being dicks for the sake of being dicks.
Ha! I thought that they were against cloning!
Quaker, I am squishily pro-choice. I actually believe what Bill Clinton said (apparently more than he did): abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
The circumstantial evidence regarding Planned Parenthood, however, shows that they don’t agree, and have a serious financial stake in more abortions, and are willing to ignore the law to provide ‘em.
One’s position on abortion should be irrelevant in being appalled by their actions.
J.
J.G.Thayer: “Strowbridge, go back to your movies. Leave reality up to those who can deal with it.”
The reality is, PP did nothing wrong. These were college-age women, not 15-year old girls who were molested. There’s nothing in the law books that says you have to report to the police when college-age women pretend to be 15-year olds looking for abortions.
“The circumstantial evidence regarding Planned Parenthood, however, shows that they don’t agree, and have a serious financial stake in more abortions, and are willing to ignore the law to provide ‘em.”
Speaking of having no relationship to reality.
Jay, it is a bizarre right-wing trope that PP position on abortion is all about their financial stake and interest in having more and more abortions. Seriously, this is the sort of urban-legend fundangelical-e-mail-forward sort of craziness stuff here.
The circumstantial evidence regarding Planned Parenthood, however, shows that they don’t agree, and have a serious financial stake in more abortions, and are willing to ignore the law to provide ‘em.
Serious financial stake? What percentage of their operating revenue comes from abortions, Mr. Tea? If abortions were outlawed tomorrow, would PP close its doors?
One’s position on abortion should be irrelevant in being appalled by their actions.
One’s stated views on abortion may be belied by comparing the number of abortions to the number of combat fatalities.
Quaker, PP performed about 290,000 abortions in a single year. By my math (and feel free to correct it), presuming 250 business days in a year (I guesstimated and rounded to make it a convenient number — that’s 50 5-day weeks), that’s almost 1,160 a DAY.
Tell me that that doesn’t give you pause. Say that you have no problem with over 1,100 abortions a day, almost 300,000 a year — and that’s just counting PP.
Those are the numbers. That is the reality. That is the expression of “choice.”
I’d like to see Roe v. Wade struck down, because it’s simply bad law, and the matter returned to the several states. Let the people decide, through their legislators, what they want the law to be. I don’t know precisely where I’d come down on that, but most lkely in favor of some reasonable restrictions (parental notification (but not necessarily approval) for minors, no public funding, and some limits on how late in the pregnancy, for example), but fight like hell against outright bans or onerous limits.
Bet feel free to preach the glories of “choice” and the wonders of an organization that performs over a quarter of a million abortions in a single year. Tell us how wonderful every single one of them is.
J.
Say that you have no problem with over 1,100 abortions a day, almost 300,000 a year
OK. I have no problem with 1,100 abortions a day, almost 300,000 a year.
Happy?
For someone who is (squishily) pro-choice, you seem surprisingly alarmed by those numbers.
Now what about that “major financial stake”?
J.G.Thayer: “Tell me that that doesn’t give you pause. Say that you have no problem with over 1,100 abortions a day, almost 300,000 a year — and that’s just counting PP.”
You know what reaction I have to seeing that number? How much lower would that be with real sex education? Maybe if PP wasn’t demonized by the right and people used their services more before they had sex, there wouldn’t be so many abortions.
“I’d like to see Roe v. Wade struck down, because it’s simply bad law…”
Why? Why is it bad law?
“Tell us how wonderful every single one of them is.”
Strawman.
here’s the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97N9JVCmjYU
i have to say, that looks pretty sketchy on Planned Parenthood’s part. i wouldn’t send my daughters there…
As Strowbridge pointed out to his detriment, there has to be an INTENT to deceive to constitute lying. Here, the intentional deception is not on PP’s part, so they’re safe. The girls did intend to deceive, so they would be the ones who would be charged.
Assuming, of course, that the girls told the police the truth, which they wouldn’t have. They probably would have said that they told PP that they were college students. And then come the crocodile tears…
Look, Jay, I can see that the idea of women having the final say over whether or not they remain pregnant. And that’s fine (well, not really). However, you’re making the big fallacy that they wouldn’t get abortions if they were illegal. Your thinking that women take abortion lightly really speaks volumes about you, and nothing good.
Maybe the PP employees didn’t alert the cops because they (correctly) did not believe that the two liars, Rose and Stollar, were actually underaged.
Jay, you said “I understand why Planned Parenthood is so eager to ignore that law. Abortion is big business for them.”
No. Their big business is in testing and birth control. Abortion is a loser, counting for less than 3% of services. Additionally, while their expenditures for medical services are $588 million, they charge $357 million total for them. They did well in 2006, thanks to grants and private donations, but saying that “Abortion is big business for them” is idiotic.
I’d have no problems preaching the glories of PP, abortions or not. If you don’t believe it, imagine what women would be resorting to without them.
imagine what women would be resorting to without them.
Well done, crusty.
Fred Clark of slacktivist had a great writeup in his Left Behind series when he discussed the all too common evangelical trope of “PP’s financial interest in more abortions.”
For someone like Jay Tea, who’s neither a pro-lifer nor (AFAICT) particularly religious, he sets himself up as particularly vulnerable to being a victim of evangelical right-wing talking points that make no sense except to those who would be particularly gullible.