Planned Parenthood flop

The dust has barely settled on Planned Parenthood and its previous brush with the law in Bloomington before the organization finds itself in another legal scandal, this time in Indianapolis.

You may remember that in December 2008, Live Action Films, an anti-choice group based in California, released video of an undercover sting operation in Bloomington. The video showed a 20-year-old woman posing as a 13-year-old pregnant girl after sexual relations with a 31-year-old man. In the video, an employee at the S. College Avenue clinic is seen advising the woman to lie about her age in order to protect her from being reported to Child Protective Services. In Indiana, any sex act between an adult and a person younger than 14 years must be reported to the department or a law enforcement agency.

Although the employee was fired, Planned Parenthood is still dealing with the attack on its credibility, most notably in Indianapolis. Indiana Health Commissioner Judith Monroe recently warned the clinic there that its incomplete “terminated pregnancy reports” were grounds for prosecution.

According to the Indiana Right to Life organization, the Indianapolis clinic did not report either the abortion procedure used or the length of the gestation for the aborted fetus for 278 records during 2007. The organization also claims that several of these records do not indicate the ages of the women undergoing the procedure.

Such so-called technicalities matter when we consider that Indiana law allows abortions after the first trimester only in cases where the woman’s health is threatened. Moreover, such procedures must be performed in hospital settings, not Planned Parenthood, and it is unclear if the Indianapolis clinic omitted this information in order to skirt the law.

Indiana law also requires women under the age of 18 to obtain consent from a parent or judge before having an abortion. As evidenced by the Planned Parenthood sting in Bloomington, some clinic employees are willing to ignore this law if it protects the minor.

That being said, it is disturbing that Planned Parenthood, as a provider of family planning services, continues to resort to poor record-keeping. While the clinic may operate differently from other health care providers, it has a responsibility not just to its patients but its vocal supporters to adhere to the law.

Unfortunately, such legal problems only reinforce the myth, advanced by anti-choice groups, that Planned Parenthood cares little about the women having abortions or, worse yet, following the law. It is our hope that these cases act as a wake-up call for Indiana’s Planned Parenthoods and illustrate the need for more effective employee training.

To be sure, as college students, many of us owe a debt of gratitude to the clinic, but the critical nature of these services does not give Planned Parenthood a free pass.