Media

Mailed 1/2/2009.

January 2nd, 2009

Betty Cockrum, President
Planned Parenthood of Indiana
Administrative Offices
200 South Meridian Street
Indianapolis, IN 46206

Dear Ms. Cockrum,

The people of Indiana have recently been shocked to see new evidence Live Action has uncovered of Planned Parenthood of Indiana employees blatantly violating the state’s mandatory reporting laws for the sexual abuse of children.

During just one day of investigation, June 24, 2008, and at two different clinics, all three of the Planned Parenthood workers we spoke with attempted to cover up the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl by a 31-year-old man. Live Action has given copies of the complete, raw footage from our Planned Parenthood Indiana investigation to the appropriate state authorities for analysis as part of their investigation of your reporting practices.

While we agree that lawbreaking by employees must not be tolerated in your organization, it is clear that disciplinary action towards individual personnel is not enough. Therefore, we are asking you to publicly release two pieces of information critical to exposing the extent of legal violations by your employees.

First, release the number of reports of suspected abuse of children under the age of fourteen that Planned Parenthood of Indiana has made to Child Protective Services. Second, release the number of minors under age fourteen to whom Planned Parenthood of Indiana has provided STD testing, abortion services, pregnancy testing, and birth control.
These statistics will enable both concerned citizens and law enforcement officials to assess the true extent of institutional tolerance in Planned Parenthood of Indiana for adult-child sexual relationships.

When considering the welfare of vulnerable children, the harm your negligent behavior poses to their safety fully warrants the release of this data in a timely and complete manner. Live Action values the protection of every patient’s privacy. We therefore request statistical data, similar to that already provided in the Planned Parenthood of Indiana annual report. To ensure the veracity of this statistical data, any further information should be made available to appropriate Indiana state authorities.

As long as you continue to operate in Indiana communities, you have the responsibility to demonstrate transparency to the state, even if this requires releasing records you believe might be incriminating.

Please consider that in this matter your organization can only play one of two roles—Planned Parenthood of Indiana may either opt for transparency in service to the rule of law, or choose to continue in the same secrecy that has already caused deep public distrust and summoned a state investigation.

Sincerely,

Lila Rose
President, Live Action
LiveAction.org