Planned Parenthood gets ACORNed

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for the oldest reproductive-health-services organization in the country. Planned Parenthood has been targeted in a “sting” operation by the same bunch who gave us the thoroughly debunked ACORN tapes.

Lila Rose, a young California college student who made her bones working with James O’Keefe—the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now scammer who was later caught trying to break into a congresswoman’s office and planning the seduction/rape of CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau—has a direct-action anti-abortion group called Live Action, and her acknowledged goal is to get Planned Parenthood defunded.

She sent an actor and actress into a number of Planned Parenthood offices across the country with a hidden camera. These two claimed to be a pimp and his lead prostitute, who said they were running a sex-trafficking ring with very young (14-15) teenage girls, some of whom were not legal immigrants. And they wanted to set up sexual and reproductive health-care services with Planned Parenthood.

Surprise, Planned Parenthood called the cops. Before the first of these “undercover videos” hit the e-mail chains and anti-abortion newsgroups, I’d already received press information about a series of really weird incidents at Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country, which had already been reported to local law enforcement and to the FBI.

In one of the 15 Planned Parenthood affiliates that were targeted, one employee suggested that the girls could lie about their age and immigration status. She’s been fired.

So let’s see. A national nonprofit health-care provider, with roughly 40,000 employees and who knows how many volunteers, had one employee violate their policy and get fired. Do you think Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health or Catholic Healthcare West would do that well? I certainly hope so.

I’m not saying sex trafficking of children isn’t a real and serious issue, by any means, but after 10 years in law enforcement—and more than a few encounters with real, live abusers of women who “ran girls” (they don’t call themselves “pimps,” people, please—that’s just on Lifetime movies!)—I’ll make an authoritative statement: Providing sexual and reproductive health care for the women they abuse is not a priority. It’s not even on the agenda.

The only place you’ll see “pimps” worrying about taxes, STDs and abortions is in these “undercover” operations, and in the feverish fantasies of anti-abortion-rights advocates who want to shut down Planned Parenthood.

Compiled from Kel’s Hot Flash.