Standing Up Against Child Sexual Abuse Enablers

A few days ago, I wrote an essay calling on all Christian bloggers to speak out against child sexual abuse by persons in authority in the church as well as the efforts to cover up incidents and protect the perpetrators. At this point, no other Christan blogger (of which I am aware) has published their own statement against protecting pedophiles, but I remain confident that the great majority of the church membership despises such activity. I will return, from time to time, to this call to the Christian body of bloggers to join with their own statements.

As horrendous as child sexual abuse by pastors or Sunday School teachers may be, I have just read a report that I found much more outrageous -- the enabling of Child Sexual Abuse by an organization that is praised by most non-Christians and which is seen in many circles as anti-Christian: Planned Parenthood.

The first news I received about this came from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. According to his report, a case in Ohio is revealing what may be a practice in Planned Parenthood clinics of enabling child sexual abuse.

A story out of Mason, Ohio paints a horrifying picture of just how far Planned Parenthood may be willing to go to attract young abortion clients. In what prosecutors are calling "one of the worst cases of child abuse" in Warren County, a local man has been sentenced to five years in prison--one for each year he molested and raped his own daughter. The abuse could have been prevented, or at the very least, cut short, the girl's attorney says, had Planned Parenthood intervened when the young girl reported her dad at the clinic where she was forced to undergo an abortion. Rather than help the hurting child, lawyer Brian Hurley alleges, Planned Parenthood preyed on the girl's vulnerability and refused to intervene as the law requires. Instead, clinic workers performed the procedure and sent her back with a supply of birth control where her tormentor continued sexually assaulting her for another year and a half. In 2006, the girl was so terrified that her dad would also abuse her sister that she shared her story with a high school official, who, unlike Planned Parenthood, contacted police. Tragically, her situation may not be an isolated one; many others are made possible by the government's funding of Planned Parenthood. Similar allegations have been raised in Indiana and Kansas. In the Sunflower State, former state attorney general Phill Kline has obtained abortion clinic records that appear to show a long trail of criminal neglect. Hurley thinks stonewalling on such cases will not work, "If we ever do get a look at all the records, it will ...show... [Planned Parenthood] set up a system to prevent reporting abuse. Some people roll their eyes when you bring up abortion. Nobody rolls their eyes about abuse." Planned Parenthood officials in Ohio deny they have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy about statutory rape.

The article where FRC obtained its information came from an article by Peter Bronson in the local paper, the Zanesville Times Recorder, entitled Planned Parenthood Looked the Other Way, Mason Rape Victim Says.

Apparently, as the article notes, this is not an isolated incident. World News Daily published an article by Bob Unruh dated May 12, 2007 entitled 'Pedophile protection racket' still going strong. According to Mr. Unruh,

"Local research has shown that two 11-year-old females have had abortions at this facility, and [the cases] have not been reported [to authorities] as required by [the Michigan Child Protection Law of 1975]," according to a statement released at a news conference in front of a Michigan Planned Parenthood business by Ann Norton of Operation Red Sea and others.

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[Ohio Lawyer Brian] Hurley also said he represents another victim, who was assaulted by her soccer coach at age 14, and taken to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. She identified herself with a junior-high school ID and the 21-year-old coach paid with a credit card and driver's license, but still there was no report.

Planned Parenthood officials there, too, have battled against releasing records that could reveal cases of assaults on children.

"My guess is that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that is why Planned Parenthood will do anything to prevent us from seeing its records," Hurley said.

And at UCLA, student reporter Lila Rose has written about posing as a 15-year-old and going to a Santa Monica Planned Parenthood. She "explained" that her boyfriend was 23.

"Planned Parenthood staff informed Rose that this constituted statutory rape and then encouraged her to 'figure out a birth-date that works,' to obtain the abortion and avoid getting the man in trouble with the police," according to a report.

"The Planned Parenthood staff assured Rose that if she said she was 16 or older, they wouldn't have to report the rape," said the report.

Now, I recognize that many on the left don't find either FRC or World Net Daily to be reliable sources of information. They view them much the same way as I view Mother Jones Magazine -- an unreliable rag which will bend facts to meet a political agenda. But the article in the Zanesville Times Recorder should concern everyone. If this is proven to be true, then the question arises whether this is an isolated incident or is it, as Child Predators.com claims, a widespread practice of turning "a blind eye to child rape" so that Planned Parenthood can "sell more abortions, more birth control products and more treatments for sexually transmitted diseases"?

If these allegations are true, then the practices of Planned Parenthood are so outrageous as to be beyond comparison. Just as I called on Christians to take a stand against child sexual abuse in the church, I call on all readers, Christian and non-Christian alike, to demand that Planned Parenthood cooperate with the investigators in these cases. If this is an isolated incident, then I would hope that Planned Parenthood would want to cooperate in establishing that fact. If, however, this is a widespread practice, then it behooves Planned Parenthood to coooperate so that it can learn that as well so that it can clean up its own house.