by Oroborus21 24 Replies latest jw friends
This is an issue that I feel very strongly about. I am pro-choice; nobody else has the right to tell me what to do with my body. I am a huge supporter of Planned Parenthood and what they stand for. I don't know if I would ever have an abortion, or if I even could, but nobody has the right to take away that choice.
~Adrienne~
I haven't read all the posts, but I'm going to post my beliefs:
Abortion is Murder of a Baby. It should be listed as Murder in the Lawbooks.
asortafairytale (Adrienne), you said you are "a huge supporter of Planned Parenthood and what they stand for".
Please read the Articles below and tell me if you are still a "huge supporter of what they stand for".
Partial birth infanticide
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Federal Judge Scott Wright in Kansas City, Mo., quickly responded to a frantic appeal from Planned Parenthood and issued an order preventing the implementation of a law designed to prevent partial-birth abortions. The law, titled the Infant Protection Act, was passed in mid-September, when both houses of the Democrat-controlled Missouri legislature voted to overturn a veto by Democrat Gov. Mel Carnahan.
The law applied to abortions not performed in utero, meaning they are performed outside the womb. That's what happens in the heinous and unnecessary form of barbarism called a partial-birth abortion. When all of the baby is out of the birth canal except the head, the abortionist drives scissors into the base of the skull, inserts a suction device, and sucks out the brain. Those who have witnessed this procedure report seeing the baby's tiny hands clenching and unclenching and its tiny feet kicking. This is clearly infanticide.
State Sen. Tom House, a Democrat, captured the sentiment of the state legislature with this comment during a television interview: "This kind of brutality should not be tolerated in a civilized society."
It is a procedure that is indefensible. Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said the following when President Bill Clinton vetoed a similar bill: "Clinton was misled by his medical advisers on what is fact and what is fiction in reference to late-term abortions. Because in no way can I twist my mind to see that the late-term abortion as described -- you know, partial-birth, and then, destruction of the unborn child before the head is born -- is a medical necessity for the mother. It certainly can't be a necessity for the baby. So, I am opposed to ... partial-birth abortions."
It is argued by politicians like Gov. Mel Carnahan and President Bill Clinton that the proposed law does not permit the use of this procedure to protect the "health" of the mother. This is not an argument, but an excuse. Abortionists use the "health" loophole to justify killing the babies of mothers who complain of a wide variety of vague maladies, including nervous twitches, anxieties and headaches. However, as Koop says, there is never a medical necessity for a partial-birth abortion.
Since 1995, 28 states have passed laws similar to the one passed in Missouri. However, the courts have blocked enforcement in 19 of these states. In late September of this year, a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that bans on late-term abortions in Nebraska, Arkansas and Iowa are illegal in that they place "... an undue burden on the right of women to choose whether to have an abortion."
Since Roe v. Wade became law in 1973, there have been more than 38 million abortions. That works out to more than 4,000 a day. Less than 3 percent of these have anything to do with rape, incest or the health of the mother. For the most part, these babies are simply unwanted, so they are killed.
This is a staggering number of acts of violence. And yet, America's news media and newsmakers are selectively indifferent and unmoved. They have managed to turn our compassion in other directions, to lesser tragedies that service some liberal political agenda or some liberal social cause. This lack of outrage reflects a stunted view of life in the womb as subhuman, if human at all, unentitled to protection by the Constitution and unworthy of protection by the human conscience.
Nevertheless, there is hope. The public's opinion of abortions of any kind is clearly shifting. A Zogby poll released in August of this year reveals that 52 percent of respondents "said they personally believe that abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter, while 36.1 percent did not believe abortion destroys a human life."
However, while public opinion is catching up with science, the Supreme Court is not yet catching up with the Constitution. The right to abort babies was hallucinated into the Constitution by activist judges. It was never legislated or voted on by the people.
The esteemed legal scholar Robert H. Bork, in his book, "Slouching Towards Gomorrah," put it this way: "... Roe v. Wade ... was a radical deformation of the Constitution. The Constitution has nothing to say about abortion, leaving it, like most subjects, to the judgment and moral sense of the American people and their elected representatives. ... Roe is nothing more than the Supreme Court's imposition on us of the morality of our cultural elites."
The most innocent and defenseless among us have been betrayed by those institutions whose primary mission is their protection: the government, the system of justice, the medical community and, alas, much of the Protestant church.
Those who should lead the fight against this conspiracy of death have become parties to it by their silence and by their cowardice.
WorldNetDaily contributor Linda Bowles is a nationally syndicated columnist. She and her husband, Warren, have one daughter, Michelle, and live on a ranch situated on the western slope of the California Sierras.
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Ashcroft urged to probe
Planned Parenthood
Petitioners cite evidence of group's protection of sexual predators
Posted: March 15, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
An online petition addressed to the Justice Department accuses Planned Parenthood-sponsored abortion clinics of hiding sexual abuse of children under the guise of a teen-age girl's purported right to privacy.
The petition – to be sent to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson – cites a number of local cases brought against Planned Parenthood, including a judgment by an Arizona court for failing to report the sexual abuse of minors as required by law.
The abortion clinics are "encouraging child sexual abuse, winking at statutory rape and concealing pedophiles," wrote Richard Ackerman, litigation counsel for the United States Justice Foundation.
Ackerman said Planned Parenthood is "displaying an arrogance beyond everything I've ever seen," seeking to "silence any opposition through legal intimidation." The San Diego lawyer said the group threatened him with state bar disciplinary action and a $20,000 financial punishment for presenting evidence of the organization's wrongdoing.
"Planned Parenthood's attorney promised to bankrupt me or anyone who dares to challenge their policy," he said.
The petition refers to a study last year reported by WorldNetDaily, which demonstrated that Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation "knowingly conceal" the crimes of sexual abuse of minors "while aiding and abetting the sexual predators who commit them."
A researcher with Texas-based Life Dynamics – impersonating a 13-year-old girl made pregnant by a 22-year-old boyfriend – told the clinics that she wanted an abortion "because she and her boyfriend did not want her parents to find out about the sexual relationship." The group said that in 91 percent of their calls, the person they reached at the center agreed to conceal the statutory rape. Planned Parenthood's national office refused to give WND a response to the study.
Ackerman notes that the inspector for the California Health & Human Services Department issued a July, 2, 2002, report stating that Planned Parenthood "failed to ensure that there was a policy and procedure to ensure compliance with the legal requirements relative to the treatment of minors."
One week after the report was issued, said Ackerman, a Planned Parenthood attorney appeared with him on national television, claiming that the organization abides by all laws governing the treatment of minors.
Shortly before that appearance, however, Ackerman continued, Planned Parenthood adopted a written policy that "[c]larified that we are not legally obligated to ask [a] partner's age."
"In other words," Ackerman said, "Planned Parenthood doesn't care about finding out who's raping America's children."
In his letter to Ashrcroft and Thompson, Ackerman wrote, "One can only hope your office cares more about protecting the physical safety of our nation's children than in protecting molesters and those who refuse to assist local prosecutors in identifying sexual predators and bringing them to justice."
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Planned Parenthood confronts Kryptonite
© 2001 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Once again we have a story in the news revealing that certain so-called pro-choice groups are as fearful of the choice for life as Superman is of Kryptonite or vampires are of crosses.
It appears that Planned Parenthood of South Carolina has its corporate nose out of joint over a recently enacted state law allowing the state to issue motor vehicle license plates bearing the message "Choose Life." The law, signed by Governor Jim Hodges last Sunday, does not mandate the installation of these plates, but merely makes them available, along with other specialty plates (such as NASCAR), for selection by motorists who want them.
Planned Parenthood apparently tried to get the South Carolina legislature to offer plates saying "Choose Choice," but, in exercising its legislative prerogative, it chose not to do so. Failing at that, the abortion-promoting organization has resorted to the courts.
Planned Parenthood tried to convince a federal judge that in issuing license plates featuring the words "Choose Life," the state will violate the free-speech guarantees of the First Amendment by providing a forum for one political view but not another. The group's attorney, Peter Murphy, said, "The fact that only one choice is being provided by the state is exactly what's wrong."
That's interesting. Do the choicers really want to go down this road? Are they truly contending that a state cannot make statements on political (or other) issues? Don't states often make statements when they pass laws?
For example, if a state enacts a law authorizing capital punishment for certain crimes, is it not making a statement that capital punishment is justifiable? It is absurd to attempt to stretch the First Amendment to the extreme that it precludes a state from taking official positions. Taken to its logical conclusion, such a concept would render a state entirely impotent.
The free-speech guarantees in our state and federal constitutions are designed to prevent the state and federal governments from restricting speech.
How does the issuance of specialty plates endorsing God's greatest creation even remotely suppress speech? Perhaps it would be a different story if the state also passed a law prohibiting bumper stickers carrying the pro-choice or pro-abortion message. That arguably could chill speech. But as it stands now, those who have an aversion to the pro-life stance are free to plaster their vehicles with choice stickers. And they're free to argue their case in the public square, on the radio, on television, in their homes, in church, in the legislature and in their pro-abortion counseling services to pregnant women. So don't talk to me about speech being chilled – it's just nonsense.
Maybe Planned Parenthood is confusing its constitutional principles. Isn't it trying to use the reasoning employed in Establishment Clause cases (loosely, those involving separation of church and state)? In those kinds of cases – as opposed to Free Speech cases – the state can be called to task for taking a position that promotes one religious view over another.
Planned Parenthood obviously understands that it can't sustain a challenge of this law on Establishment Clause grounds. But isn't it showing its true colors by making analogous arguments under the Free Speech clause – exhibiting its nearly religious zeal against dissemination of the pro-life message?
You think I'm overstating the case? Well, I remind you that the state plate does not in any way propose to remove anyone's right to choose – it is just encouraging people to exercise their choice in a particular way. If it is choice, rather than abortion, Planned Parenthood is seeking to protect, the "choose life" message should not bother it.
Planned Parenthood objects that the $70 fee for these specialty plates is to be used to support private non-profit crisis-pregnancy programs, but may not go to any agency or organization that "provides, promotes or refers for abortion." So what? That still does not violate anyone's Free Speech rights. The fees are paid not by the state, but by the motorists who choose, of their own volition, to order the specialty plates. If strident pro-choicers want to fund organizations that do abortion referrals, such as Planned Parenthood, let them buy their pro-choice bumper stickers and donate the balance of their $70 to Planned Parenthood.
The state of South Carolina deserves plaudits for jealously guarding its own sovereignty by resisting the oppressive pressure of political correctness and making a bold statement celebrating life.
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Planned Parenthood
concealing crimes?
Investigation says sex by men with underage girls 'epidemic'
Posted: May 21, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jon Dougherty
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
A pro-life research organization says data collected as a result of an ongoing investigation into teen pregnancy show that the number of underage girls being "sexually exploited" by adult men has reached "epidemic" proportions in the U.S. and that Planned Parenthood facilities are knowingly concealing such sex-abuse crimes.
The firm, Life Dynamics, Inc., based in Denton, Texas, said in an eight-page summary of its data that "among girls 15 and younger who become pregnant, between 60 percent and 80 percent of them are impregnated by adult men." Some girls are even as young as 10 years old, said the summary.
"In America today, we have reached the point where a junior high-school girl is more likely to become pregnant by an adult than by someone close to her own age," said the summary. "One study concluded that the average age of men who father children with girls under 14 is now higher than the average age of men who father children with 18-year-olds."
Life Dynamics researchers say they also found "irrefutable evidence" that pro-abortion-rights organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation "knowingly conceal" the crimes of sexual abuse of minors "while aiding and abetting the sexual predators who commit them."
While the initial summary "reveals only a fraction of the evidence we have uncovered so far," researchers said, "what we can already reveal is that our country is experiencing an epidemic of child sexual abuse."
In its summary, analysts described how one researcher portrayed a 13-year-old girl made pregnant by a 22-year-old boyfriend. The teen-girl imposter telephoned over 800 Planned Parenthood and NAF facilities across the country.
"Her story was that she wanted an abortion because she and her boyfriend did not want her parents to find out about the sexual relationship," the summary stated.
In every instance, the group said, the ages of the girl and her boyfriend "were made perfectly clear" to clinic workers. "It was also made clear," said the summary, "that the motivation for the abortion was to conceal this illicit sexual activity from the girl's parents and the authorities."
Among the findings:
"In the final analysis," said the summary report, "virtually every Planned Parenthood and NAF facility we contacted was willing to illegally conceal the sexual abuse of this 13-year-old girl. In every case, the clinic representative had never met this child, knew virtually nothing about her, had only engaged in a very brief telephone conversation with her, and was told nothing to indicate that her parents would be abusive if they discovered the sexual relationship.
"Nevertheless, they were willing – and in many cases, eager – to help this child hide from her parents and the authorities the fact that she was being sexually exploited," said the summary. "To that end, they provided step-by-step instructions on how to circumvent state laws that were enacted specifically for the purpose of protecting children exactly like her in situations just like this."
When contacted by WND, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood said she was late for an afternoon meeting and would return calls seeking comment, but failed to do so. A spokeswoman for NAF said she did not want to comment until she'd seen the Life Dynamics report.
Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics, said the evidence gathered thus far means the possibilities for future legal litigation "are nothing less than staggering." And he says the problem has occurred in the first place because, he believes, the nation is "sex-obsessed."
"We are all aware of the firestorm currently swirling around the Catholic Church regarding the issue of pedophile priests," Crutcher said. But "if you look at the lawsuits" surrounding the cases, he continued, "the dioceses are not being sued because their priests molested children. They are being sued for negligence because they allegedly knew about the sexual abuse of the children and failed to report it to the authorities.
"Obviously, any organization or any individual that harbors pedophiles and conceals the sexual abuse of children deserves to be prosecuted," he added. "But that's not what's happening. Instead, [some of these groups] are being given hundreds of millions in tax dollars while doing exactly the same things for which huge awards are being levied against the Catholic dioceses."
Crutcher said concealing abortions from parents or failing to report underage pregnancies to authorities is bad enough, but he said providing teen girls with birth control so they can continue sexual relations with adult males could be viewed "as participating in an ongoing or future crime."
The issue, he says, changes from one of failure to report child sexual abuse or statutory rape, to "actual complicity in child sexual abuse or statutory rape."
"That could be viewed as a felony rather than a misdemeanor," he said.
Life Dynamics said it has established a new website – called ChildPredators.com – to "educate children and parents who may have been victimized by these organizations about their litigation opportunities."
Also, Crutcher said the group plans to take its message to the nation's 16,000-plus school districts, many of which allow Planned Parenthood and others on campus to teach sex education or provide counseling to students.
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Planned Parenthood on the run
Posted: May 30, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
It's about time people became aware that Planned Parenthood is not what it pretends to be.
Thanks to some hard work by dedicated people, this detestable organization is finally on the run.
There were two important developments in this battle this month:
It's about time this ugly organization got its comeuppance. From the very start, its evil motivations were cloaked in phony humanitarian ideals.
The group was founded by Margaret Sanger, still portrayed as a feminist heroine by Planned Parenthood activists today.
But Sanger was, first and foremost, a eugenicist – one who believed in the inferiority of non-white races. In 1939, she proposed the infamous "Negro Project," a plan developed at the behest of public-health officials in southern states, where she writes, "the most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
Sanger also attempted to set up birth-control clinics in poor New York City neighborhoods to target "Blacks, Hispanics, Slavs, Amerinds, Fundamentalists, Jews and Catholics."
Sanger was closely tied to Ernst Rudin, who served as Hitler's director of genetic sterilization. An April 1933 article by Rudin – entitled "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need" – for Sanger's monthly magazine, The Birth Control Review, detailed the establishment of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene and advocated its replication in the United States. A subsequent article by Leon Whitney published the following June by Sanger, entitled "Selective Sterilization," praises and defends the Third Reich's pre-holocaust "race purification" program.
After the war had concluded and Nazi atrocities came to light, Sanger quickly changed the name of her organization from the Birth Control League to Planned Parenthood – to distance herself from her earlier Nazi associations.
But that's the history – and there's no changing it, no disguising it. That was the motivation behind the launch of Planned Parenthood. And its anti-parent, "if-it-feels-good-do-it" philosophy is just a new form of an old, evil idea.
Planned Parenthood today is the No. 1 provider of abortions in America. It is the No. 1 lobbying organization behind unrestricted abortion. And abortion is – believe it or not – the No. 1 cause of death among black Americans today. Some 13 million black babies have been aborted in the post-Roe vs. Wade era.
Coincidence? Or the legacy Margaret Sanger sought?
But the word is getting around. People are beginning to see the truth about Planned Parenthood. It's about time these sick, twisted perverts were exposed.
Joseph Farah's nationally syndicated column originates at WorldNetDaily, where he serves as editor and chief executive officer. If you would like to see the column in your local newspaper, contact your local editor. Tell your paper the column is available through Creators Syndicate .
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Abortionists mum on concealment charges
Refuse response to WND on allegations they protect sexual predators
Posted: May 31, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Art Moore
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
Planned Parenthood's national office has been carefully reviewing the summary of a report that charges the organization with concealing the sexual abuse of minors, a spokeswoman said after receiving a copy of the allegations from WorldNetDaily.
After more than a week of seeking a reply, however, spokeswoman Adina Wingate Quijada said yesterday that WND would not get a response from Planned Parenthood.
"There won't be any statement," said Wingate Quijada in a short phone conversation that she abruptly ended. "We've also read what WorldNetDaily has written on this issue."
WND reported May 21 that researchers with Denton, Texas-based Life Dynamics, Inc. found "irrefutable evidence" that abortion-rights organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation "knowingly conceal" the crimes of sexual abuse of minors "while aiding and abetting the sexual predators who commit them."
A Life Dynamics researcher – portraying a 13-year-old girl made pregnant by a 22-year-old boyfriend – called 800 Planned Parenthood and NAF facilities nationwide. The caller told the clinics that she wanted an abortion "because she and her boyfriend did not want her parents to find out about the sexual relationship," an eight-page summary of the report stated.
Among the findings, according to the summary, was that many clinic workers acknowledged the girl's situation was illegal and that they were required by law to report it, but an "overwhelming majority readily agreed" to keep secret the illegal sexual contact.
Life Dynamics said in 91 percent of their calls the person they reached at the center agreed to conceal the statutory rape.
The National Abortion Federation did not respond to calls by WorldNetDaily last week seeking comment. Messages left this week also were not returned.
Prior to today's contact, Wingate Quijada told WND the matter of responding to the charges was "out of her hands" while two of her colleagues examined the report summary.
"If this is all true, action must be taken," Family Research Council spokeswoman Kristin Hansen told WorldNetDaily. "The funding for these clinics should be denied, an investigation should go forward, and the Department of Justice must get involved."
A Justice Department representative who specializes in crimes against children replied to WND that she could not comment on the report and said if crimes were involved such a matter would be investigated by the FBI.
FBI spokeswoman Angela Bell said the agency has investigated online pornography and consequent exploitation of minors, but is not aware of any sexual abuse reporting problems with respect to Planned Parenthood. The allegations by Life Dynamics would be a state and local matter unless it could be established that there is a cross-state "nexus" of crime, she told WND.
Connecticut chief attorney Jack Bailey said Planned Parenthood is in violation of the law, after listening to tapes of phone calls made to centers by Life Dynamics, according to WTIC-TV in Hartford, Conn.
One call was made to a center in West Hartford, Conn., reported WTIC-TV, which said it phoned the facilities Life Dynamics claims are heard on the tapes and verified certain aspects, such as names of employees and the tones on the numbers dialed.
Planned Parenthood: "You just gave me more information than what I needed, OK." Girl: "Oh." Planned Parenthood: "Which was not a good thing, OK. The fact that your boyfriend is 22 and the fact you're 14, that makes us mandated, we're mandated reporters. That means we have to report that." Girl: "So if you didn't know, it would be OK?" Planned Parenthood: "It's not that it's OK, it's just what we don't know, we don't know."
Planned Parenthood insists its policy and practice are in line with Connecticut's child welfare reporting obligations.
In its mission statement, however, the national organization says it believes in the "fundamental right of each individual, throughout the world, to manage his or her fertility, regardless of the individual's income, marital status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or residence."
The group's mission statement further says, "No one should be denied abortion services solely because of age, or economic or social circumstances."
After hearing tapes and examining other data gathered by Life Dynamics, there was no indication "that there was any effort to warn these kids that it's statutory rape if these young girls are impregnated by adult men," said Ed Szymkowiak, national director of STOPP International, an organization of parents against Planned Parenthood.
"People have speculated about this in the past, but he went out and got the evidence," he said of Life Dynamics President Mark Crutcher. "The evidence is there."
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Pedophile priests and Planned Parenthood
Posted: June 19, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
The Catholic Church is, understandably, under a great deal of heat – not because a few priests sexually abused children, but because the institution allowed it to happen and failed to report such crimes to authorities.
Why isn't there an equal amount of outrage over Planned Parenthood's analogous negligence in covering up thousands of similar sexual molestations of underage girls by adult men?
In case you don't know what I'm talking about, I refer you to a story broken by WorldNetDaily last month and widely picked up by other news agencies.
A Texas group called Life Dynamics released a study showing that the overwhelming number of underage pregnant girls were impregnated by adult men – in other words, sexual predators, child molesters. In the course of researching this problem, the group discovered Planned Parenthood's sinister role in covering up the statistics as well as the individual crimes of sexual abuse perpetrated by these adult men.
Here's the way the scheme works: When a teen-age girl reports to a Planned Parenthood worker that she is pregnant by an adult man, more often than not the organization conspires to conceal the crime involved. Sometimes, the employees actually coach the girls to avoid parental involvement and reporting requirements to law enforcement.
In other words, Planned Parenthood was caught red-handed – over and over again – breaking the laws of the land.
While the Planned Parenthood story got some national attention, no one yet has made the obvious connection between the way Planned Parenthood conspired to cover up sexual crimes against children and the allegations against the church.
Obviously, both organizations need to be accountable under the laws of the land.
Worse yet, Planned Parenthood, unlike the church, is still being given hundreds of millions of tax dollars a year to continue its shameful work. I am not aware of even one member of Congress who has called for a review of the group's funding following the revelations about the child sex-abuse cover-up.
Understand that Planned Parenthood counsels millions of girls every year. The pattern of negligence discovered through the Life Dynamics study suggests it is business as usual to break the law in those sessions. It suggests Planned Parenthood is actively protecting pedophiles who prey on young girls. It suggests this has been going on for a long time and there is no evidence to suggest the approach of the organization and its counselors has changed.
They are still telling little girls not to squeal on their predators. They are still covering up the scandal of widespread victimization of little girls by grown men. They are still breaking the law. And they are still getting paid by you to do it.
I don't understand the selective outrage being expressed toward the Catholic Church while the prolific ongoing crimes of Planned Parenthood are overlooked by the public, law enforcement authorities and by the federal government that sponsors the group.
There is an epidemic of child sex abuse gripping our country. Very little of it has anything to do with the Catholic Church. To focus all of our attention on that institution at the exclusion of others does America's children a grave disservice.
Studies show that 60 to 80 percent of girls 15 and younger who get pregnant are impregnated by adult men. Today, a junior high school girl – your junior high school girl – is more likely to become pregnant by an adult man than by someone near her own age.
There's a reason for this. The predators have a taxpayer-supported lobbying group helping them. Its name is Planned Parenthood and it's time to blow the whistle on the scandal.
Don't expect anyone in Washington to wake up to this outrage without some noise being made. By all means, write to your representatives and senators. Tell them it's time to pull the plug on Planned Parenthood funding. Tell them it's time to prosecute not only pervert priests and those who protect them, but the predators who victimize young girls and the organization that ensures they get away with their crimes.
If you want to help the one organization that is working toward the goal of accountability for Planned Parenthood, check out Life Dynamics. You can find more information at the following websites:
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MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Planned Parenthood
in legal crosshairs
Lawsuit threatened over use of unskilled labor, endangering of girls
Posted: July 3, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jon Dougherty
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
A California-based legal group is threatening to sue a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic because the facility allegedly failed to protect sexually abused minors and because it may have utilized unlicensed personnel in abortion procedures.
Richard D. Ackerman, litigation counsel for United States Justice Foundation, said he has evidence supporting his claims in the form of sworn testimony from two Planned Parenthood employees, as well as records from the San Diego Police Department and the California Department of Health Planning Services.
The USJF counsel said he was prompted to act following the release of a report by Life Dynamics, a Texas-based pro-life organization that alleges Planned Parenthood clinics across the country have been "knowingly concealing sex-abuse crimes."
"In America today, we have reached the point where a junior high-school girl is more likely to become pregnant by an adult than by someone close to her own age," said the Life Dynamics report.
Life Dynamics accused Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation of "knowingly" concealing the crimes of sexual abuse of minors "while aiding and abetting the sexual predators who commit them."
Ackerman says documents provided him by San Diego police, coupled with "some of the state reporting" done by Planned Parenthood, have enabled him to confirm "most of what Life Dynamics had to say."
"There is plenty of corroborating evidence," he added – so much so that he said he was motivated to file a formal complaint with the Medical Board of California.
Entry-level jobs?
To support his allegations, Ackerman supplied copies of California superior court hearing transcripts, which contain testimony from Planned Parenthood employees.
According to the testimony, dated Nov. 14, 2001, the employees – Marie Wilkerson, Avecita Mucino and Vanessa Ayala – appear to be admitting that they helped doctors and other medical staff perform "hundreds" of abortions, and that they had little or no training to do so.
The medical board acknowledged receipt of Ackerman's complaint in a June 12 letter, which said officials were "currently reviewing the information" contained in the complaint.
Asked if he planned legal action against the national Planned Parenthood organization, Ackerman said his scope was currently limited because of the nature of the suit.
"If I'm going to bring an unfair business practices or a consumer legal remedies case [against Planned Parenthood]," California statutes require that "I have to do it against each live entity," he told WorldNetDaily.
In a June 7 "Intent to File Litigation" letter to Planned Parenthood of San Diego, Ackerman accused the clinic of using unlicensed personnel to "perform the procedures, diagnoses and treatments" of patients who used the facility.
"You have had unlicensed personnel performing invasive medical procedures on patients within the last three years," the letter said. "Your failure to advise patients as to the qualifications, or lack thereof, of your employees is misleading and harmful to California consumers."
Also, the letter blamed the clinic for unlawfully failing "to report the sexual abuse of minors by adult perpetrators," as required by California statute and as alleged in the Life Dynamics report.
By law, the clinic has 30 days from receipt of the letter to address the accusations, and must provide "proof of compliance," as per the provisions of the California Consumer Remedies Act. Ackerman said the clinic had not yet contacted him.
Officials at the Planned Parenthood affiliate for San Diego and Riverside counties – which has jurisdiction over the clinic in question – did not return multiple requests for comment.
Loosening restrictions
Meanwhile, California lawmakers are considering a bill called the Reproductive Privacy Act that would allow abortion clinics to use "non-physicians" to perform the procedure.
Ackerman, in a critique of the legislation sent to Elizabeth Hill, an analyst for the California legislature, and Assemblyman Dave Cox, the Republican minority leader in the Assembly, said the bill "is not pragmatically sound and would be detrimental to the health and safety of California's women."
According to the California chapter of Planned Parenthood, S.B. 1301 "allows healthcare providers, acting within their particular scopes of practice, to perform or assist in the performance of surgical and non-surgical abortions." Officials there say the legislation is needed because abortions "are singled out for regulation that doesn't apply even to more complex procedures."
The legislation also "will provide greater access to early abortion methods like mifepristone (RU-486) by eliminating arbitrary barriers that currently impede the ability of licensed healthcare professionals to treat patients in the area of reproductive health," said a chapter analysis of the legislation.
"One of the original justifications for Roe v. Wade was that, without the legalization of abortion, unlicensed, untrained personnel would be participating in such procedures, at great risk to their patients," said Gary Kreep, executive director of USJF. "Now, in search of the almighty dollar, Planned Parenthood is seeking to reduce their overhead by having untrained, unlicensed, non-doctors involved in this invasive surgery, in order to save money, without caring at all about the risk to the patient.
"Once again, Planned Parenthood has shown that its high-sounding rhetoric in support of abortion has nothing to do with a woman's right to 'choose,' but instead has to do with profit and greed, pure and simple," he said.
Sue Dunlap, a spokeswoman for the California chapter of Planned Parenthood, defended the proposed legislation and said it would replace "outdated" state law governing abortions signed into law by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967.
If passed, the new law "would let mid-level practitioners – physician's assistants, nurse midwives and nurse practitioners – to dispense RU-486," said Dunlap, referring to the drug mifepristone, which causes "medical abortions," or abortions without the need for surgery, according to WebMD.com.
"We consider that a non-surgical abortion," Dunlap said.
In regards to surgical abortions, she said the measure would permit mid-level medical personnel "to assist," adding that California law currently prohibits their assistance in surgical abortions.
Dunlap denied knowledge of USJF's lawsuit or charges that unqualified San Diego clinic personnel had been participating in surgical abortions. But Ackerman said the practice appears dubious.
"Women are not told that unlicensed personnel will be assisting in surgical procedures," he said. "Some of their personnel have no licenses whatsoever and only a few months of training before they are allowed to 'assist' in abortion procedures."
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I haven't really changed my mind, I am just able to speak about it now openly.
I have to agree with the majority of people here, I don't know that I could do it if I was faced with it as an option, but I believe it is an individual choice that everyone has the right to consider.
I am pro-choice now.
I recognise that some people believe that life is a divine gift and that they believe that a zygote is as important as a neo-nate, but I don't. I respect their rights and ask that they respect mine.
I see it as a biological process like any other that happens to end in a human being. Up until there are significant degrees of neurological development I can't equate an embryo with a neo-nate. Even though a first trimester fetus may look like a human being, it is 14 grams in weight and has less neurological development than a pet rat.
As a pregnancy continues and the fetus develops in the second trimester, especially towards the end of the second trimester when neurological development speeds up greatly, the issue is less easy.
In a decent healthcare system with a population who are decently educated about sex it should be uneccesary to terminate a pregnancy for social reasons in the third trimester, and most would be done early in the second trimester if not before.
I do not think it should be used as birth control, but in any decent healthcare system with good levels of sex education it is unusual for it to be used in such a way.
As you may see, I link abortion with decent sex education.
In the UK and the USA where sex education is dire and poor, teen pregnancy rates are high and the average age of having sex for the first time is low. In Holland where sex education is early and thorough, teen pregnancy rates are 1/8th of what they are in the USA, and the average age people lose their virginity is 17. Rates of STD's are also lower..
This shows that there are no links between sex education and promiscuity. Indeed, if it shows anything it shows that an educated teen will not only have the knowledge to avoid complications of sexual activity, but will have the confidence to delay them until they are ready.
i dont personally think i could ever have an abortion... however that is my choice. i can not and will not make that choice for another woman.
Silence, great 'toon.
I am not for abortion in general, but I do think there may be legitimate reasons to have one. Putting a child up for adoption or other options should be explored first, I guess, in most cases.
UnDF'd...YES!!!
In that study you posted, it was a consensual, albeit illegal, relationship. The girl was scared, and needed help. It happens every day. When I was in high school, one of my best friends had an abortion after being impregnated by a 27 yr. old. We were 15 years old. She doesn't regret it, 6 years later.
Women are finally able to go to a clean, safe, clinical surrounding to have an abortion. If abortion is made illegal, it will still happen just as often. It will just be unsanitary, unsafe, and potentially deadly. If you've never seen the first "If These Walls Could Talk" movie about abortion, go rent it.
Planned Parenthood also does much more than just abortion. They provide contraceptives to women who could otherwise not afford it. They have clinics in poorer countries to provide free pre-natal care, and sex education to women and girls who do not otherwise have access. Currently, they are working to get contraceptives covered on health insurance.
So, yes, I am still a huge supporter of Planned Parenthood.
~Adrienne~
UnDF'd-
Let's say a 13 YO who got pregnant wasn't able to get a covert abortion(not with older man), and she felt there was no way out but to kill herself? Certainly you agree that kids at that age are very irrational, expecially when they are being taken advantage of.
Take away an option, and you put suicide as an option back into the hands of teenagers who make a mistake.
Now, what planned parenthood did was wrong. In that hypothetical situation, that pedophile deserves to be in prison. Still, the young girl needs to be coaxed into Planned Parenthood or another such agency, so that they can be made to see that there are options, but that telling their parents IS a necessity.
Personally, if some young, abused girl called me if I was in a clinic, I would be as supportive as possible, get them in the door, before their own desperation becomes deadly. Then, you call the parents, before the abortion.
Just because people have sex, and then want abortions, doesn't make them monsters.
What about poor people who cannot afford another child? What if they were using protection but it failed?
There are so many what ifs that, if abortion is outlawed, those disadvantaged would be led to desperate acts.
ash
i think it totally depends on the time of the abortion...if its early than the embryo is nothing more than a clump of cells. the later it gets the more questionalbe an abortion gets.
in principle its always the choice of the woman of course but i think the father should have a saying in this too.
