A sting leads to a planned tragedy
By
IDS STAFF EDITORIAL
POSTED AT
09:55 PM ON Dec. 7, 2008
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Few organizations find themselves quite in the eye of the storm like Planned Parenthood.
While protests outside the clinic and threats against employees are standard fare, clinics nationwide will now have to contend with the latest development – undercover video sting operations.
Bloomington’s Planned Parenthood learned this the hard way. In June, a 20-year-old UCLA student, Lila Rose, visited the Bloomington Planned Parenthood Clinic posing as a 13-year-old pregnant from consensual sex with a 31-year-old man. In an undercover video Rose took, Rose asked the nurse, now suspended, about having an abortion.
In Indiana, any sexual act between an adult and a person younger than 14 years must be reported to the Department of Child Protective Services or a law enforcement agency.
But the nurse suggested that Rose to lie about her partner’s age, a clear violation of the law. The nurse also encouraged the crossing of state lines to Illinois to have an abortion due to strict parental notification laws in Indiana.
Live Action Films, which released the video on its Web site, makes use of independent media to disseminate an anti-choice message to young people while championing student journalism, a problematic claim. Journalism is inherently non-partisan and fair, but Live Action Films is anything but.
The group is stridently anti-choice, and it is bothersome that individuals like Rose exploit the nature of investigative journalism to advance their narrow goals.
Many anti-abortion groups are perennially invested in ending federal funding for clinics that provide abortions. Currently, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America receives more than $300 million in federal funds for family planning services.
But cutting off federal funds will only make these services more expensive, thereby threatening access for low-income women and college students, two key demographics here in Bloomington.
Apart from the counterproductive moves by Live Action Films, it also seems that sting operations like these weaken the trust that is needed when providing medical services, especially abortions. Young women who become pregnant, either due to rape or consensual sex, must already contend with the difficulties associated with choosing to have an abortion, like mental anguish.
Such stings, however, compound the anxiety by casting a cloud of suspicion over the many women who walk into the clinic for an abortion. Planned Parenthood employees might now be less likely to foster a trusting relationship with their patients at the risk of ending up on the receiving end of a sting operation. It goes without saying that this greatly damages the patient-provider relationship.
It is true that medical providers, including Planned Parenthood, must follow state guidelines regarding young victims. But in determining such violations, it is important that the regular functions of the clinic remain relatively untouched.
The valuable time and resources expended on Rose’s fictitious case could have been directed towards a real victim and, perhaps, that is the biggest tragedy.