CAUGHT: Planned Parenthood’s Cover-up of Child Sexual Abuse

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
By
Writer

This week, pro-life activism group Live Action announced a new docuseries in which it explores alleged cases of child sex abuse and trafficking at Planned Parenthood facilities across the country.

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The video series coincides with the latest Live Action report titled, “Aiding Abusers: Planned Parenthood’s Cover-Up of Child Sexual Abuse,” which features nearly two decades of research and testimonies from former Planned Parenthood employees, court cases where the abortion giant was accused of failing to report suspected abuse, undercover video footage and statements from women who claim their abuse was not reported by Planned Parenthood.

Live Action has called on Congress to investigate Planned Parenthood to determine how far-reaching the problem may be. The group has also repeated its call for the defunding of the abortion provider.

“It is important to note that Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest recipient of federal Title X family planning funds, securing about $60 million a year from taxpayers,” the report notes. “In 2015, 474 of Planned Parenthood’s nearly 650 facilities were Title X recipients, according to the Guttmacher Institute.”

In 2011, Live Action published an undercover investigation that appeared to show Planned Parenthood workers failing to report suspected sexual abuse and trafficking of minors. The new report notes that following the 2011 investigation, Planned Parenthood publicly vowed to “retrain its thousands of employees how to identify and report potential child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking.” The organization also publicly pledged that immediate “termination of employment is the only possible action” when staff fail to report potential cases of abuse.

But Ramona Treviño, a former Planned Parenthood manager who attended the training, told Live Action that the abortion giant instead used those training sessions to teach employees how to avoid being caught in future hidden camera investigations.

In a summary of the 2018 report, Live Action notes that they “did not find any documented instances of employees who were actually terminated for failing to report sexual abuse.”

From the report:

Despite the evidence that this reporting problem seems to be part of Planned Parenthood’s culture and a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding underage pregnancies seems to be prevalent throughout the organization, Planned Parenthood affiliates continue to receive Title X funding and children continue to remain trapped in abusive situations.

Planned Parenthood’s willful and repeated failures to report such abuse are cause for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to investigate how widespread these failures are among its 474 Title X facilities and whether other violations have been covered up. The cases in this report were only brought to the attention of authorities because someone other than Planned Parenthood came forward.

Because the cases in this report span many years, it is unknown whether a particular offending Planned Parenthood center or the Planned Parenthood regional affiliate overseeing it was a Title X grant recipient at the time of the offense. This is another reason an HHS investigation needs to be initiated.

On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood denounced the new report and docuseries as being based on “discredited evidence.”

Live Action Founder and President Lila Rose responded on Twitter, accusing Planned Parenthood of “attacking the testimonies of the very girls who endured horrific abuse.”

To view the full report, click here.