It\'s not their responsibility

Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit organization that provides medical services and educational information about reproductive health care and human sexuality. The organization is accessible; it offers adults a place to go when they need information and don't otherwise know where to obtain it. It provides teenagers with sound and helpful guidance when they are scared and confused. It is this accessibility that makes Planned Parenthood and other health clinics such important community resources. \nLife Dynamics, Inc., a Texas-based anti-abortion organization headed by Mark Crutcher, conducted an experiment in which women, pretending to be thirteen-year-old girls, made phone calls to several clinics across the country. Each woman claimed to be pregnant with the child of her 22-year-old boyfriend. Life Dynamics reports that the "overwhelming majority" of these calls did not result in the counselor reporting the incident to police even though healthcare workers are legally required to contact officials if they receive information concerning a statutory rape. \nWhile Crutcher's objective is not to protect teenage girls from statutory rape or lock up the offenders, but to end organizations like Planned Parenthood, the experiment still raises an important question: Is it the responsibility of organizations such as Planned Parenthood to report incidents of statutory rape to the police? \nThe superficial answer is "yes." Why shouldn't healthcare workers contact the police? If even one offender is caught, then hasn't the policy proven useful? But in order to pursue a more detailed treatment of the question, we must remember what the objective of these organizations is -- why they are so helpful to pregnant teenage girls. \nIs Planned Parenthood's accessibility compromised by its employees' obligation to contact police? Yes. Is a scared, pregnant teenage girl going to call a clinic if she knows that her boyfriend will be arrested (remember that this boyfriend is an adult who will doubtlessly oppose such a phone call and who presumably holds considerable sway over the girl)? Probably not. Planned Parenthood cannot be expected to provide an accessible bastion of reliable information and medical treatment while playing the role of police informant. \nThe answer, then, must be "no." Is it, though, more important for the girl to contact Planned Parenthood than it is for the man to be arrested? In most circumstances, yes. \n Consider the case where the girl is too frightened of the legal repercussions to contact a clinic. Not only is the girl denied the information and treatment that she would have received had she called, but most likely, the perpetrator is not even caught. \n What, then, should organizations like Planned Parenthood do? They should stick to what they do best -- providing educational resources and pointing people in the right direction. Clinics should give teenage girls information on people they can talk to about their relationships. Clinics should train parents so that they can effectively communicate the possible dangers of these relationships. \nThis way, not only do clinics help educate young girls about relationships, but they also preserve their original intention and perhaps most importantly, their accessibility.