The United Nations Population Fund recently put out a report on children and adolescents. Part of it deals with abortion laws and how they affect minors, stating, “Adolescents who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy and want to terminate it may be more likely to resort to unsafe abortion knowing that they have to get the permission of their parents or guardian to get a legal abortion.” So in other words, the only way to protect vulnerable youth… is to help them kill vulnerable youth.
It seems like the authors didn’t really think out the logic behind that principle. Nevertheless, there’s another group of people who know exactly why they want children to have freer access to abortion: sexual predators. They understand that far from making adolescents less vulnerable, abortion on demand makes them easier to victimize.
Serial abuser Mervin Wolf knew what to do when one of his victims thought she was pregnant: Wolf purchased two pregnancy tests and told the girl she would be getting an abortion if they came back positive. Wolf had been raping the teen since she was seven years old, and pregnancy would have raised suspicions.
Mervin Wolf isn’t the only predator to recognize the value of abortion. The group Life Dynamics has compiled a list of over fifty men who used it to hide their crimes and continue abusing–sometimes for years. Life Dynamics also recorded almost a thousand telephone calls to Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation clinics from an actress claiming to be fourteen and pregnant via her adult boyfriend. In almost eight hundred cases, staff were ready to arrange a secret abortion.
Live Action has documented a similar willingness to cover-up abusive relationships. In 2008, Live Action founder Lila Rose told a staff member at the Planned Parenthood Memphis Health Center that she was 14 and had been impregnated by a 31 year-old boyfriend. In response, the staff member instructed Rose to lie about the man’s age when seeking an abortion. Similar encounters with Planned Parenthood were recorded elsewhere.
Volunteers have also visited Planned Parenthood centers while posing as sex traffickers. In 2011, Planned Parenthood staff at multiple facilities had no problem with helping pimps use underage prostitutes. This included an offer to set up involuntary abortions on teens who “can’t speak English” and “won’t know what’s going on.”
This fits with what former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson has said. In 2011, she and six other ex-Planned Parenthood employees released a letter to Congress calling for an investigation of their old employer. The former staff asserted that Planned Parenthood’s policies are inadequate to protect victims.
Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood’s Congressional allies have opposed such efforts. This is despite the fact that the abortion giant receives over half a billion dollars in federal money every year.
Pro-lifers who want to make a change can contact their representative and ask that Planned Parenthood be held to account. You can also sign Live Action’s petition calling for an end to the group’s public funding.
Sexual predators know that by taking a no-questions-asked approach to abortion, Planned Parenthood is making it easy for them to operate undetected. Now it’s time for Congress to stop going easy on Planned Parenthood.
