Planned Parenthood’s repeated failure to report child sexual abuse has impacted countless lives

In a recent op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy indicated that defunding Planned Parenthood might be on the radar of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Planned Parenthood has a long history of failing to report child sexual abuse. Despite federal requirements that recipients of taxpayer dollars comply with mandatory reporting laws, the organization is still funded with millions of dollars from state and federal funding every year.

Planned Parenthood’s Pedophile Protection Cover-Ups

Over the past years, Live Action has caught Planned Parenthood coaching undercover investigators (posing as young girls impregnated by adult males) how to cover up those crimes. In addition, Live Action and Live Action News have documented multiple criminal cases of adult predators who transported, paid for, or arranged abortion or birth control visits to Planned Parenthood for their young victims. When Planned Parenthood failed to file reports, the sexual abuse often continued.

 

Planned Parenthood Knows

Live Action News previously noted the “red flags” to watch for when it comes to the sexual abuse of minors.

One study published in 2011 by the Journal of Women’s Health found that “In national surveys, nearly 50% of sexually active adolescent females reported having a sex partner ≥2 years older, and 36% reported a partner ≥3 years older.” It also reported that “that adolescent females who had a sex partner who was ≥6 years older had a pregnancy rate almost four times that of adolescent females with a similar-aged sex partner.”

According to research published on Guttmacher’s website, “On average, young people in the United States have sex for the first time at about age 17… ” Of those who are sexually active at a young age, additional data shows that young girls with a much older “romantic partner” are more likely to engage in sex.

The former “special affiliate” to Planned Parenthood stated separately, “The typical age at which teens first have sex has remained relatively stable over the past several decades, increasing slightly to 17.8 for women and 18.1 for men in the most recent cohort for whom data are available.”

Planned Parenthood’s own glossary (accessed 12/18/2024) defines statutory rape as “Legally, sexual contact between an adult and anyone who is below the age of consent, whether or not the contact is voluntary.”

As you read the summaries below, ask yourself why Planned Parenthood is not following mandatory reporting statutes, when federal programs that fund Planned Parenthood require compliance with mandatory reporting statutes.

Planned Parenthood Failed to Report Child Sexual Abuse 

11-year-old

In 2013, Pennsylvania Department of Health inspectors conducting an annual survey of a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood discovered that while some female patients admitted to being sexually active since the ages of 11 and 12, in at least six instances, the abortion provider did not inquire about the possibility of sexual abuse, nor did staff report the cases to authorities as required by law.

12-year-old

• (Alaska) Jason Thomas Rogers took his 12-year-old stepdaughter to Planned Parenthood for birth control, and Planned Parenthood apparently failed to file a report for suspicion of child sexual abuse. The child was returned to her abuser and was victimized for several additional years, possibly along with the victim’s young friend. Footnotes in the Court of Appeals case state that the victim claimed “Rogers took her to Planned Parenthood on her twelfth birthday to get birth control, and that Rogers then began to have vaginal sex with her.” Police were not notified until the victim turned 16. Rogers was convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse of a minor, which was later upheld on appeal.
• (Arizona) Shawn M. Stevens, 23, impregnated his young victim twice, and sought abortions at Planned Parenthood for her. A timeline from the lawsuit indicates that after he took the 12-year-old to Planned Parenthood for the first abortion, they returned her to her abuser. She suffered six more months of abuse, and she ended up pregnant by age 13; a second abortion was sought at Planned Parenthood, after which authorities were notified. Stevens was reportedly sentenced in 2000 to five years in prison and lifetime probation. In 2002, a judge found Planned Parenthood negligent in the case. The corporation attempted to make excuses, claiming, “no reporting would have been required if she had been eight months older.”
• (Washington State) Luis Gonzalez-Jose raped his preteen victim while her mother showered, and later took her to a Planned Parenthood for an abortion. The victim falsely told Planned Parenthood staff that a 14-year-old boy impregnated her. In 2013, Gonzalez-Jose pleaded guilty to second-degree rape of a child and was sentenced to six years in prison.

13-year-old

• (California) Dwayne Bruce Lee suspected his 13-year-old victim was pregnant and took her to Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test in 2001. Lee drove the victim to a location for the abortion, but it is not clear whether that facility was also a Planned Parenthood. The victim’s abuse continued until she contacted police in 2006. A court document claims he had sex with his victim every day for years after her mother (with whom Lee was in a relationship) left their shared home for work, equating to “hundreds of times.”

• (California) Edgar Ramirez raped his 13-year-old daughter and impregnated her two times, resulting in two abortions at Planned Parenthood in 2010. According to court documents, rather than suspecting abuse when a 13-year-old child presented to Planned Parenthood as pregnant, the abortionist committed the procedure and advised the victim not to have sex for three weeks. Ramirez resumed having sex with the child anyway. Within months, she became pregnant again, resulting in a second Planned Parenthood abortion, at which time the abortionist implanted an IUD to prevent additional pregnancies. Ramirez wasn’t arrested until after the child reported the abuse to police. Ramirez was convicted of attempted murder, committing a lewd act on a child under the age of 15, possession of obscene matter depicting a minor, and two counts of continuous sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 14. He was sentenced to life in prison.

• (California) Gary Wendall Cross, 39, abused his 13-year-old stepdaughter who became pregnant and had an abortion. Planned Parenthood referred the victim (listed as “K”) to a hospital, but apparently did not report suspicion of the abuse when she was brought in for a pregnancy test. Cross took K to San Francisco General Hospital for an abortion; he told her to lie about her age and to use his last name instead of her own. The assaults continued for months until the victim’s mother found paperwork about the abortion and contacted police.
• (Colorado) Timothy David Smith impregnated his 13-year-old step-daughter, then took her to Planned Parenthood to cover his crime. A lawsuit filed against Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood showed that not one of the four staffers with whom the victim interacted inquired about the circumstances of her pregnancy, or verified her relationship with Smith, and no one at Planned Parenthood spoke to the victim about potential sexual abuse. During a deposition, one of the employees said “being 13 and pregnant alone is not a red flag” for possible abuse, in Planned Parenthood’s opinion. Months after the abortion, the abuse ended after the victim reported it to her mother.

• (Illinois) Kenneth Mitchell was arrested by the Chicago Police Department in 2016 for sexually assaulting a minor under 13 and sexual assault of a family member under 18. According to the Chicago Tribune, one victim was eight when the attacks started, and “The victim told a Planned Parenthood counselor of the assaults at some point in 2006 or 2007,” but there was no indication of whether this was reported to authorities. In 2015, the victim informed police of the assaults, and claimed she had told Planned Parenthood years prior. Mitchell was found guilty of multiple offenses and received a 75-year prison sentence.
• (Indiana) Christopher Jewell abused his stepdaughter for over three years, while she was between 13 and 16. The victim said he sexually assaulted her between 30 and 50 times, and took the victim to Planned Parenthood to get birth control pills without her mother’s knowledge. Jewell was not arrested for this, but was later arrested for taking his underage victim for a tattoo. While he was incarcerated, the victim told her boyfriend and mother that Jewell sexually abused her, and this was reported to authorities. Jewell was charged with multiple offenses and was sentenced to 40 years.

14-year-old  

• (Alabama) Planned Parenthood staff in Mobile, Alabama, failed to report the suspected sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl who came there for two abortions.
• (California) Andrew Asa King, 61, victimized a 14-year-old student, who was then taken to Planned Parenthood for an abortion in the 1980s. The assault remained hidden until 2009 when student swimmers who had been coached by King connected through Facebook and discussed the sexual abuse they had endured. After one victim went to the authorities, an investigation uncovered that King had engaged in sexual relations with dozens of female students, aged 10 to 17, starting in 1978. If Planned Parenthood had reported suspicion of abuse, additional victims may have been protected.
• (California) John P. Lenihan, a priest, was accused of sexually abusing a woman when she was 14, and of paying for her abortion at Planned Parenthood. ”When I told him about the pregnancy, he told me that I had to get an abortion,” the victim, who also sued the Roman Catholic Church and received a $1.2M settlement, stated. She said Lenihan drove her to the bank and withdrew money so she could pay for the abortion; she went to Planned Parenthood alone.
• (Connecticut): Kevon Walker allegedly impregnated a 14-year-old girl three times in six months in 2006, when he was 21. Each time, the teen’s mother took her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion, with no one contacting child protective services until the third abortion was scheduled.
• (Connecticut) Sage Robert Lanza received a suspended 10-year sentence behind bars after abusing a 12- and 14-year-old. One was impregnated and received an abortion at Planned Parenthood. After Lanza impregnated the teen, he pressured her to have an abortion and made the appointment for her, but police were not notified until nearly six months later. The victim’s mother claimed that “Lanza had the date of the abortion tattooed on his back. In 2018, Lanza received a 10-year sentence, suspended after two years behind bars, followed by five years of probation. Read more at Live Action News.
• (Michigan) Lovell Charles Sharpe was charged for allegations that he sexually abused and impregnated a 14-year-old child with learning disabilities, then paid for her abortion at Planned Parenthood. Read more at Live Action News.
• (Minnesota) Paul James Frederick was found guilty of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after sexually abusing the 14-year-old girlfriend of his son. He reportedly took the victim to Planned Parenthood “to get birth control” and forced her to have sex with him.
• (Ohio) John Haller, an adult soccer coach, victimized a 13-year-old child who became pregnant at 14. Haller was 21 at the time, and posed as the victim’s step-brother when he took her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion, using “his credit card to pay for the abortion.” Planned Parenthood settled a lawsuit that was filed against them. Read more at Live Action News.
• (Texas) Patrick Charles Lee was indicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of his 14-year-old stepdaughter. The victim testified that Lee sexually assaulted her at knifepoint. When the victim went to Planned Parenthood two days later, she was too afraid to discuss the assault. A week later, authorities were contacted after the victim told her sister. Lee was sentenced to 15 years confinement on each offense.
• (Washington State) George Edward Savanah sexually abused his 14-year-old daughter, impregnating her three times, then took her to two different Planned Parenthood facilities for abortions. The first abortion at Planned Parenthood took place in 2007 and the third abortion occurred in 2012; for five years, she was abused and Planned Parenthood failed to have reported it. The victim’s pregnancies only came to the attention of the authorities once the victim, not Planned Parenthood, spoke to her aunt about the abuse, nearly seven years after she was taken for her first abortion. Read more at Live Action News.

15-year-old

• (Alaska) Dana Ray Thompson took his 15 year-old victim to Planned Parenthood for birth control. Thompson was in his mid-forties when he began raping her repeatedly, calling her his “little slave” and using chains and dog collars and filming the abuse. The victim eventually left the state and reported the abuse once she realized it was not normal. Thompson was convicted of multiple counts of first and second degree sexual abuse of a minor and is now registered with the state as a child sex offender and child kidnapper. Read more at Live Action News
• (Arizona) Mark Joseph Tovar began his deviant molestation and sexual assault against his step-daughter when she was about seven. A court document claimed that when the victim was 15, Tovar impregnated her. Her mother arranged for an abortion in July of 2004, and Tovar reportedly knew about it. Two abortions took place and both occurred at Planned Parenthood. After Planned Parenthood failed to report suspicion of abuse in the first instance, the victim became pregnant two other times, and kept the baby in one of the instances. The sexual abuse wasn’t revealed to police until the victim was 22, nearly seven years after she was first taken to Planned Parenthood at the age of 15. Tovar was convicted of multiple offenses and received two life sentences and multiple presumptive terms, totaling 74 years’ imprisonment, all to be served consecutively.
• (Arizona) Tyler Kost, who was 18 at the time, raped a 15 year-old child, who then sought an abortion at a Tempe Planned Parenthood. A Planned Parenthood counselor “intentionally miscoded” the sexual assault report as a “consensual encounter” to avoid reporting the incident to police, according to a report by the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office. The counselor told the victim and her mother that it “wasn’t worth the hassle” to report the rape, which could have prevented Kost from assaulting other teens at his school. Kost was charged with sexually assaulting 11 girls, ages 12 to 17, but authorities believe he assaulted additional students. In 2017, Kost was sentenced to three years in prison; he was released in 2024 and was required to register as a sex offender.
• (California) Grey David Woods met his 12 year-old victim in 2007 — the daughter of a girlfriend he moved in with. When the girl told her mother, her pleas were ignored. Eventually, Woods began to have sexual intercourse daily with the victim. At age 15, she learned she was pregnant, and Woods and her mother told her to get an abortion. In January 2011, the mother drove the teen to a California Planned Parenthood facility for a second trimester abortion. The victim’s mother told Planned Parenthood staff that an unnamed boy had gotten the teen pregnant and Planned Parenthood committed the procedure. It was nearly two years later that police were alerted to the sexual abuse. Read more at Live Action News.
• (Connecticut) Adam Gault pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 15-year-old victim who was found by police in 2007 in the home of the 41-year-old sexual predator, held in a locked tiny room about 3 feet high and 4 to 5 feet deep. The doorway was hidden by a bureau. The media reported that Gault “repeatedly raped” the girl, ultimately impregnated her and forced her to get an abortion, reportedly at Planned Parenthood in West Hartford. In 2008, Gault pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
• (Iowa) Ritchie Lee Lathrop was 27 when he met his 15-year-old victim, who visited Planned Parenthood for birth control so the predator would be protected while he engaged in a sexual relationship with her. After she obtained birth control pills, they had sex ‘at least every other weekend, if not more…’ The sexual relationship continued after the victim visited Planned Parenthood, and did not end for over a year after. In 2006, the state charged Ritchie Lee Lathrop with third-degree sexual abuse, and his conviction was affirmed on appeal. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Iowa vacated a portion of Lathrop’s sentencing. Read more at Live Action News.
• (Ohio) Joseph Coles was charged in a 242-count indictment in 2006 with rape, kidnapping, gross sexual imposition, and child endangering in connection with the molestation of his stepdaughter. She was impregnated three times and was forced to abort two of his babies. The third time at the age of 15 or 16 she was taken to Planned Parenthood for an abortion, but she did not go through with the procedure. Still, it appears no reports of suspected abuse were filed. According to the court document, Coles assaulted the child when her mother was at work. Her first pregnancy and abortion took place in 2000 when she was just 12, and four years later she became pregnant again. Coles told her to claim one of her “guy friends” was the father, and forced her to start having sex with him again a week after the abortion. After a third pregnancy and abortion, she suffered an abortion injury. Neither Planned Parenthood nor the other abortion facilities she visited had ever contacted the police, leaving her to suffer further assaults.
• (Utah) Jose Cazares-Montalvo, a 34-year-old at the time, was charged with 12 counts of rape after sexually abusing a 15-year-old, allegedly taking the child to three Planned Parenthood facilities to get an abortion after he impregnated her. The only roadblock this predator received from Planned Parenthood was a state law requiring parental consent for the abortion. When the predator was told that a parent or guardian must sign for the procedure, he took matters into his own hands, by allegedly giving the teen “a drink to induce a miscarriage.” The paper did not name the perpetrator (though a second media outlet published the name as Jose Cazares-Montalvo), but indicated that the call to police originated not from Planned Parenthood, but from the victim’s mother after she “found a plastic bottle of the liquid mixture in the teen’s room” and “suspected her daughter had been raped…” The predator admitted to police that he took the victim to Planned Parenthood.

16-year-old

• (Ohio) John Blank began sexually abusing his daughter Denise Fairbanks when she was just 13. After she became pregnant in 2004 at 16, Blank took her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. In her lawsuit, Fairbanks claims she told Planned Parenthood about the abuse, but workers failed to report the abuse to authorities. The organization’s “don’t ask/don’t tell” practices caused Fairbanks to undergo additional abuse. In an interview with Live Action, Fairbanks’ attorney claimed that Planned Parenthood told her she needed to get on birth control. She was sexually assaulted for another year. Planned Parenthood eventually settled the case. Read more at Live Action News.

• (Texas) James Aaron Lenox was arrested in 2017 by the Texas’ Lone Star Fugitive Task Force for allegedly sex trafficking a 16-year-old of whom he had custody. The 51-year-old predator reportedly took his victim, whom he had allegedly sexually assaulted, to Planned Parenthood for an IUD. Read more at Live Action News.
• (West Virginia) George Michael Puskas II, a police officer, drove his victim to Planned Parenthood for birth control. According to the Department of Justice, he engaged in a sexual relationship with the victim and took sexual photos. The victim “first met Puskas in 2001″ when she was eight, and he was a coach for her brother’s sport team. The criminal action court order stated “the victim advised that during the period that she and Puskas were sexually active, he would drive her to a Planned Parenthood… so that she could receive birth control injections.” It goes on to state that they “engaged in sexual intercourse almost daily… when she would have been 16 and 17 years of age.” In 2012, Puskas resigned from the Ripley Police Department and in 2013 pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.

17-year-old

• (Indiana) Peter Downey, former principal of New Haven Middle School, allegedly impregnated his teen victim who “worked for him as an extern at the middle school.” Downey and the victim allegedly had sex in various hotels in Fort Wayne and his own home, as well as in the middle school building. The girl became pregnant by Downey in 2008 when she was 17; Downey drove her to a Planned Parenthood in Chicago to get an abortion when she was just shy of six weeks pregnant. The victim provided police with medical records from Planned Parenthood with her name and Downey’s written on them. Police say the victim turned 18 on May 3, 2009, and the relationship continued until February 2013. Downey was not arrested until 2021 and was sentenced in 2022 to three years for two counts of felony Child Seduction.

Despite being a mandated reporter, Planned Parenthood has received billions of taxpayer dollars over the past decade, all while failing to comply with mandatory reporting statutes. In addition to covering up child sexual abuse, multiple abuses, scandals, fraud, racism, pregnancy discrimination, privacy breaches, as well as Medicaid fraud and even accusations of retaliation have piled up against Planned Parenthood.

Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek:

Stop killing America’s future. Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!