Media

Washington, D.C. – Today, Live Action released two new videos in its seven-part docuseries “Aiding Abusers: Planned Parenthood’s cover-up of child sexual abuse” that provide more evidence that Planned Parenthood’s culture of covering up abuse is widespread throughout the country.

The videos show Planned Parenthood employees at 15 different facilities, from New York to Washington, D.C., to Arizona, Alabama, and Wisconsin, caught on hidden camera willing to cover up child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking.

Recorded in 2008 and 2011, today’s videos include an investigation of child statutory rape reporting and child sex trafficking aiding and abetting at Planned Parenthood, adding to the mounting body of evidence that the corporation’s culture of cover up is systemic and widespread. Live Action released three videos last week showing some of the lawsuits against Planned Parenthood as well as former employees testifying to regularly seeing abuse covered up.

Today’s Statutory Rape Investigation video contains highlights of footage from Live Action’s 2008 undercover investigation where investigators posed as girls as young as 13 years old impregnated by men as old as 31. At eight Planned Parenthood facilities in Indiana, Arizona, Tennessee, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Kentucky, staff were willing to disregard mandatory reporting laws and cover up suspected statutory rape. Staff instructed the underage girls to lie about their ages and told them how to circumvent parental consent laws by going out of state to get abortions.

In one segment of the video, a Planned Parenthood nurse in Bloomington, IN, admitted that our undercover investigator’s pregnancy should be reported as rape to child protective services but then pretended that she didn’t hear the boyfriend’s age of 31, saying, “Okay, I didn’t hear the age. I don’t want to know the age.” She instead advised the teen to say that a made-up 14-year-old classmate got her pregnant. “Problem solved!” the nurse said.

Today’s Sex Trafficking Investigation video contains highlights of footage from Live Action’s 2011 undercover investigation where investigators posed as pimps looking for abortions and treatments for sexually transmitted infections to keep their 14- and 15-year-old prostitutes on the streets.

The undercover footage exposed Planned Parenthood employees at seven facilities in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., aiding the sex traffickers by counseling them on how to get their victims tested for STDs, the best way for them to get abortions, and how to lie on forms about their victims’ ages.

In one segment of the video from Perth Amboy, NJ, Planned Parenthood manager Amy Woodruff coached our undercover “sex traffickers” how to secure secret abortions and warned them to have their victims lie about their ages to avoid mandatory reporting laws, and advised, “If they’re a minor, just tell them to put down that they’re students.” She said, “For the most part, we want as little information as possible.” (Woodruff was fired by Planned Parenthood for her part in the video.)

Live Action President and Founder Lila Rose commented, “Rather than reporting suspected abuse to authorities, Planned Parenthood has repeatedly looked the other way. Because of Planned Parenthood’s atrocious record of returning victims to their abusers to suffer yet more abuse, Live Action has worked for a decade to expose the systemic abuse cover-up.”

She continued, “Planned Parenthood’s reputation for covering up abuse has led to it becoming a haven for sexual abusers and sex traffickers to take their victims to cover up their crimes. While Planned Parenthood frequently attempts to establish itself as a leading advocate on sexual abuse, it is actually one of the biggest accomplices to sexual abuse in the nation.”

A 2014 study on the sex trafficking trade published by the Loyola University Chicago’s Beazley Institute documented how traffickers often force their victims to get abortions so they can quickly get them back on the streets. The report noted that victims had “significant contact with clinical treatment facilities, most commonly Planned Parenthood.” In fact, Planned Parenthood was the top most-visited facility for trafficking victims, second only to hospital emergency rooms. When asked why they went to Planned Parenthood, one survivor said “because they didn’t ask any questions.”