Child services to take no legal action against Planned Parenthood employee

The Indiana Department of Child Services will take no legal action against the employee who was suspended from Bloomington’s Planned Parenthood on Wednesday.

The employee was suspended without pay after an online video was released of her advising a woman posing as a 13-year-old girl to cross state lines to get an abortion without parental consent. When the woman posing as a 13-year-old girl said the man who got her pregnant was 31 years old, she agreed not to report what would, if it were true, be statutory rape.

Steve Vaughn, director of the Indiana Department of Child Services, said child services does not plan to do anything to the employee because there was not an actual minor involved in the incident.

“Since there was no minor involved, that takes us out of the picture,” Vaughn said.
The county prosecutor’s office could also file charges, but no one from the office could be reached for comment by press time.

The video showed a 20-year-old UCLA student who went undercover as a 13-year-old going into Planned Parenthood, saying she was impregnated by a 31-year-old man and asking for help. The Planned Parenthood employee, “Diana,” is seen telling the woman to cross state lines to get an abortion that doesn’t require parental consent and telling her she would pretend that she did not know the man was 31.

Vaughn said if the situation were real, the department would become involved, but it would only involve the employee and not Planned Parenthood.

Kate Shepherd, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood, said the internal investigation has not been completed.

Shepherd said the employee still remains suspended without pay.

The video was released Wednesday but was filmed in June at the 421 S. College Ave. location by the student-led Live Action Films, a student human rights organization.
The video also shows the employee acknowledging that she should report the incident to Child Protective Services but was not going to do so.

The video and the 20-year-old UCLA student, Lila Rose, were featured on the Fox News show The O’Reilly Factor last week.

Rose said the group chose Bloomington because it was in a college town and because of Indiana’s strict abortion regulations for minors.

“I saw a huge need to expose and educate on the issue of abortion and other reproductive issues,” Rose said.