This one has more relevance to my American readers than to others. Expose Planned Parenthood is an organisation that has the goal of exposing the conduct of the Government funded Planned Parenthood.
Make no mistake about it, Expose Planned Parenthood are opposed to liberal abortion laws. But the way they expose Planned Parenthood is not by pointing out that they facilitate killing unborn children. That’s not news. It’s the fact that Planned Parenthood in many cases conducts itself as though the ends justifies the means, and no ethical question is so serious that it can’t be ignored.
Here’s a recent example of Planned Parenthood effective aiding and abetting (as far as its employee knew) underage prostitution.
And here Lila Rose discusses the exposé on CNN.
And lastly, Planned Pimphood’s response:
Notice the main response: It’s not that what Live Action have recorded is misleading. it’s not that what they are saying is false. It’s not that they haven’t made a damning case against planned parenthood. The “main point,” Planned Parenthood says, is that Live Action hold “extreme” political views (that is, they oppose abortion). What an amazing defence, the good old ad hominem.
Admittedly this hasn’t been done in New Zealand. Back in the mid-late nineties an organisation I was involved in had a young woman go into a Family Planning Association clinic in Hamilton, New Zealand, seeking an abortion, making it very clear that she did not meet any of the legal criteria, and on multiple occasions FPA were prepared to flagrantly break the law. But this footage takes it to a new level.
EDIT: After I thought I was clever coming up with the title of this post, Bryan Kemper pointed out to me that he had already coined the phrase “planned pimphood.” This is NOT over, Bryan!
Amy
It happens all the time 🙁
Matt
I think the same women caught PP on tape a few years ago joking about how it was “understandable” to want to abort black babies, laughing at the contention the less black babies there are the better, and accepting donations for abortion providing it was only used to abort black babies. It seems she has got them again.
peter
Let’s be honest here. You claim that “Planned Parenthood effective aiding and abetting underage prostitution” is not true. It is obviously against their policy and they fired the person on the tape.
From news:
“We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape released this morning, which depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable,” Phyllis Kinsler, chief of Planned Parenthood of New Jersey, said in a statement. “The employee in the video was immediately suspended from her duties this morning and was terminated this evening.”
Just the truth, please.
Glenn
Peter, you might not believe that the actions of this PP staffer amount to PP aiding and abetting child prostitution. I take a very different view. What’s more, she wasn’t even shocked or surprised by what happened. It was clearly not a new issue.
Consider that the second staffer, believing that minors were being used as sex workers, basically offered “judicial bypass” so that it could happen without an adult finding out. Clearly you and I have different standards on what counts as aiding and abetting child prostitution.
Cheers.
Glenn
As Bryan Kemper notes, this is a pattern in PP: http://bryankemper.com/2011/02/04/pattern-emerges-three-more-virginia-planned-parenthood-clinics-caught-on-tape-willing-to-aid-and-abet-sexual-exploitation-of-minors/
Del
Awesome blog!
Here’s another view from inside Planned Parenthood. Abby Johnson was a PP clinic director until she watched an abortion while holding an ultrasound probe. She is now a pro-life spokewoman in America.
Here is her personal description of Planned Parenthood’s attitude toward women at risk:
http://www.abbyjohnson.org/2011/02/house-of-cards/
peter
Glenn,
According to your thinking if couple of soldiers are caught shooting innocent kids and court-martialed you think military is effective aiding and abetting killing innocent kids. Or if couple of priests from nomination X abuse kids then nomination X is effective aiding and abetting abuse kids.
Don’t blame an organisation when some of its members act against the laws, rules and guidelines. When you overplay your claim, you get dismissed.
You said:
“Clearly you and I have different standards on what counts as aiding and abetting child prostitution.”
So it seems.
peter
If we actually look a this issues, MediaMatters explains:
Live Action claim that Planned Parenthood was covering-up “child sex trafficking” was clearly a lie and “Live Action doctored audio of their Richmond sting”. “What else are they lying about?” MediaMatters has video’s showing how doctoring was done.
Previously they pointed out that “Lila Rose, after all, began infiltrating abortion clinics in collaboration with James O’Keefe — a convicted criminal who repeatedly lied about his heavily edited ACORN videos. Rose herself has a history of smearing the subjects of her videos.”
Does the truth really matter here? Whose cause are they helping with doctored audio?
Glenn
Peter, Media Matters is sounding pretty desperate here.
This kind of smear (the false allegation of doctoring), implies that in fact the PP personnel involved did not say what they are depicted as saying and really that’s a trick. It’s a tactic resorted to when one realises that someone has been caught and there’s no way to justify what is captured, so they poison the well. MediaMatters is pretending that this is some sort of “ah HA, gotcha” moment, when it’s not. Live Action, from the very beginning, were always honest about the fact that they edited out parts of these clips, shortening them.
Did you notice, for example, when Lila was being interviewed, right before the clips were played, the interviewer stated that she knew they had been edited? Or did you skip over that so that you could credulously buy into MediaMatters’ smear that Live Action were somehow falsifying thing. Sorry, there’s no gotcha there. For a refresher, check the interview clip again – it’s here in this blog post.
Surely you see how absolutely easy the “they made it up” card is to play: “After some time had lapsed, PP produced what appeared to be a letter alerting authorities to what was going on. But there’s no evidence that it’s genuine.” See how that works?
Your example about a couple of soldiers simply doesn’t work. There are now examples of this going on in several PP clinics – clinics that deal with a high volume of customers. Your example with a couple of soldiers would imply that Live Action just luckily stumbled onto the worst PP clinics out there each time, and that this phenomenon would otherwise not have been discovered.
As for the rhetorical silliness about whether or not the truth matters, that’s based on the misleading slur that Live Action have been coy about anything. They haven’t.
I know the facts can suck sometimes, but they are what they are, and it was made public.
Glenn
Peter, wow. Just wow. After posting that last comment I went and watched that hack job of a video clip at Media Matters.
First, what on earth? The commenter on the Media Matters video claimed that even in the version shown on that news interview, the clip showed “no wrongdoing.” Wow. Even YOU were willing to liken this to a rogue soldier.
Secondly, the “doctoring” (lol!) consists of audio being shifted along the timeline (the face of the staff member was not visible at the time so we can’t tell which version has the audio aligned correctly), and no conversation, question or response being altered in any way. Yeah, sure, play the liar card when there’s absolutely no evidence.
If you buy the line that this is the nefarious doctoring and Misleading that MediaMatters is so worried about then it seems you’re pretty desperate to find a way of deflecting this bullet from an group with a clear internal problem with the treatment underage sex workers. My only wonder is: Why?
Media Matters asks: If they’re lying (lol!) about this then what else are they lying about. I suppose then you will fully accept this as fair: If Planned Parenthood clinics are abetting this sort of sexual abuse and exploitation, then what else are they abetting?
Del
Gentlemen,
You are splitting some hairs here.
The original recordings have been turned over to law enforcement for close examination. Over 150 members of Congress have joined proposed legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. The Governor of New Jersey has vetoed tax-funding for Planned Parenthood in New Jersey.
The people making the decisions are convinced by this evidence.
Planned Parenthood and their allies (MediaMatters) are doing their best to spin the public opinion back in their favor.
Here in America, it is not working for Planned Parenthood. Lila Rose and LiveAction are credible. The people believe that this is what really happens inside of Planned Parenthood. Not all the time… but often enough to be very disturbing.
Planned Parenthood needs to admit their problems and take bold moves to fix them…. just like the US Catholic bishops cleaned house after their sex scandal broke in 2001.
Planned Parenthood needs to become the safest place for a woman to go, where she will receive real help and choices (and not just pressured into an abortion).
Glenn
Del – It does look that way. I just don’t see how anyone could claim that the recordings were doctored – That’s the very same recordings that Live Action handed over for everyone to scrutinise. That’s just a desperate gasp.
I’m not sure what hairs I’m splitting….
Del
Please ignore my comment about “splitting hairs.”
My point was that it is irrelevant for us to debate whether the videos are credible or doctored, because US law enforcement officials in New Jersey and Virgina are already reacting like this is credible evidence.
http://liveaction.org/blog/planned-parenthood-willingness-to-support-sex-trafficking-of-minors/
http://liveaction.org/blog/new-jersey-ag-investigate-planned-parenthood/
Here is a touching report that insightfully explains why the mainstream media is (predictably) criticizing the evidence instead of reporting the story.
http://biggovernment.com/bdarby/2011/02/03/planned-parenthood-child-trafficking-and-the-poor-choices-of-npr-and-company/#more-224156
Ian Clary
I love how Brooke says, when asked if she approves of what PP is doing, that she is objectively covering the story as a journalist. Yet calls Lila/Live Actions mission as “myopic.” That’s objectivity for ya.
Matt
Why is anyone shocked by this? We have known PPA aids and abets under-age sex for years, that’s what you do when assist high school or intermediate age children in having safe sex. Suddenly people click what this means.