Media

April 29, 2009 | Contact: media@liveaction.org, 323.454.3304

MEMPHIS – Following the release of undercover footage from a Memphis Planned Parenthood clinic, state lawmakers have introduced legislation that could divert taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood in Tennessee. In response to Planned Parenthood of Greater Memphis Region’s contesting the veracity of the footage, the group responsible for filming, Live Action, has sent the state Attorney General and Memphis District Attorney an unedited version for review.

The full footage is available for public viewing here:

Lila Rose, 20-year-old president of Live Action, says the unedited video further exposes Planned Parenthood’s reckless counseling practices. When Lila, posing as a 14-year-old girl impregnated by a 31-year-old man, mentions, “My boyfriend said he could pay for everything–But he shouldn’t come here to pay ’cause you’ll see him, right?” the counselor replies, “It doesn’t matter. As long as your parents are not here and can’t identify him, he can just pay and that’s it. He could be like your older brother or whatever.” Tennessee law states that a minor must have parental consent before undergoing an abortion.

Rose commends the Tennessee state lawmakers, led by Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey and Sen. Jack Johnson, who have questioned the state’s over $700,000 funding of Planned Parenthood. “Why would citizens tolerate paying the bills of an organization that protects statutory rapists and victimizes young girls? This is the sad result of the careless abortion-first mentality that has persisted at Planned Parenthood for decades.”

On Monday, Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region CEO Barry Chase sent an email to state legislators asking them to stop the bill and claimed that Live Action’s president, Lila Rose, refused to release the unedited footage, even though neither Rose nor Live Action received any correspondence from Mr. Chase.

“We have not received a request from Planned Parenthood for the raw footage, so their efforts to raise doubts about the validity of the tapes are made only to mislead,” Rose said in response. “The typical last-ditch effort of Planned Parenthood is to wantonly suggest that the unedited tapes might prove them innocent. But to better illustrate the deliberate cover up of statutory rape and abuse by Planned Parenthood, we have made the entire video public.”

Live Action has also responded to gross errors in Mr. Chase’s email to legislators: “It is all the more troubling to think that even a novice counselor at Planned Parenthood would know to recommend this law-evasion strategy. How prevalent must law-evasion be at Planned Parenthood clinics when even the ‘interpreters’ are implicated?” states Live Action’s letter to TN lawmakers. See the letter here: www.liveaction.org/memphis/letter.html.

Live Action has released similar footage from five other clinics, located in Arizona and Indiana, as part of its Mona Lisa Project, which shows Planned Parenthood employees as they respond negligently to reports of statutory rape and offer secret abortions instead. Find out more here.