Planned Parenthood exposed

The recent discoveries that Planned Parenthood may be engaged in covering up the sexual exploitation of young girls, and in protecting the men who commit the crimes, is not the only, recent black mark on the organization's record. According to Life Dynamics Inc., recordings of telephone conversations between more than 800 abortuary officials - including ones associated with Planned Parenthood - and an LDI representative posing as a 13- or 14-year-old girl impregnated by a much older boyfriend, reveal that numerous facilities are complicit in child sex abuse by failing to report same to the relevant authorities. But a survey of press and other reports from recent years reveals a plethora of other controversies, misdemeanors and examples of malfeasance in several areas. Let's take a look …

• In October 1997, the director of Planned Parenthood in Niagara County, N.Y. was fined $1,000 by the state for committing two unasked-for abortions and a mistaken sterilization. Dr. Rafael G. Cunanan Jr. was also placed on probation for four years. It was found that Cunanan failed to have pregnancy tests done on women before committing dilation and curettages, and suction and curettages. He had also, without consent, done a tubal sterilization on a young woman in 1984, and then paid her to keep silent.

• In 1999, Stop Planned Parenthood International discovered that the Planned Parenthood Federation of America - despite claiming tax-exempt, non-profit status - makes huge profits every year. STOPP said that between 1988 and 1999, the birth control behemoth raked in total profits of $229.8 million - including $42.3 million in one year alone. During that same period of time, the PPFA received $1.6 billion in public monies.

• Also in 1999, a theatrical display sponsored by Planned Parenthood was being performed in Kitchener, Ont.-area high schools and senior elementary schools. According to Norman Eby, a trustee with the Waterloo Region District School Board, the play should have been banned because of its pornography and profanity. In one scene, according to Eby, actors took a Playboy centerfold and showed it to the audience; in another, males did a strip show for girls and dropped their pants.

• In January 2000, Planned Parenthood quietly tried to open an abortion-committing outlet in Sioux Falls, S.D. right beside a public high school, and across the street from a church and daycare center. Residents, as well as the local Catholic bishop, were outraged, calling the attempt "abhorrent and disgusting."

• In August 2000, the Planned Parenthood outlet in Akron, Oh. issued gift certificates for the McDonald's restaurant chain as an incentive to promote condom use.

• In October 2000, it was discovered that the International Planned Parenthood Federation was illegally using U.S Aid monies to finance abortions in Third World countries. The U.S. National Accounting Office said the IPPF and eight other "family planning" groups had refused to comply with a U.S. congressional mandate that U.S. Aid grantees cease abortion activities as a condition of funding. The IPPF claimed its abortion funding, using U.S. money, was "inadvertent."

• In November 2000, a 27-year-old mother of four fell into a coma following a tubal ligation done at a Planned Parenthood outlet in Overland Park, Ks. by the man who headed the Forest Park Street abortuary in St. Louis, Mo. STOPP noted at the time that malpractice cases involving Planned Parenthood are common, but are rarely made known because settlements are usually agreed to outside of court, with a condition of secrecy.

• In February 2001, a 28-year-old California woman won a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood stemming from a botched, first-trimester abortion in 1997. She was awarded $672,610 after a baby missing two limbs was aborted from her several weeks after she was supposed to have had an abortion. It is thought that the woman had twins, with the second baby initially undetected by abortionists. Her lawyer said that since the incident, the woman has contemplated suicide, is haunted by visions of babies being killed and cries uncontrollably at the sight of children.

• Also in February 2001, there was a report of a mother in Baraboo, Wis., who took Planned Parenthood's advice to heart and purchased condoms for her 13-year-old son when she discovered he was having sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl. The police found out, and the mother faced indictment on charges of sexually abusing a child by permitting her son to have sexual relations before he was of age.

• In March 2001, Planned Parenthood Mohawk-Hudson paid a settlement of over $1 million to 24-year-old Lisa Joseph, whose breast cancer was misdiagnosed by a Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner. The nurse had told Joseph that the lump in her breast was not cancerous and that she was too young to have cancer. Two months later, in seeking a second opinion, she was told that she did indeed have cancer. By that point, the disease had spread into her chest wall.

• In April 2001, the International Planned Parenthood Federation promoted a "youth manifesto," which called for young people to "feel good" and "have pleasure and confidence in relationships and in all aspects of sexuality." The manifesto stated that "sexual and reproductive health education" must be available to "young people of all ages and sexual lifestyles." It also said, "Young people must be encouraged to know their own sexual rights," and "obstacles that make young people uncomfortable about themselves, their bodies and their relationships must be removed."

• In August 2001, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute reported that the International Planned Parenthood Federation called upon its European allies to put pressure on European governments to ratify sexual rights for children. It also criticized the traditional understanding of family as "based on a man and woman united by marriage and their children," because it said such institutions "are neither safe, particularly for young girls, nor models of gender equality."

• During the summer of 2001, Planned Parenthood representatives threw members of the Human Life International organization out of what was previously billed as a PP public meeting in Washington. One HLI official was butted in the chest several times by a security official as he made his way out. Then-HLI president Fr. Richard Welch said later that Planned Parenthood was "responsible for physically abusing an HLI staffer in order to keep their agenda and activities secret from the American public."

• Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist tragedy in New York, Planned Parenthood of Blue Ridge, Inc. offered red, white and blue tri-color condoms to raise money for victims, their families and affected communities. Up to four condoms were available per person free for a donation. And, in an open letter, Planned Parenthood of New York City's Joan Malin said her organization was seeking "to contribute to relief efforts as best we can." Its "contribution" took the form of free "reproductive health services" - including abortion - for one week. The "offer" was later extended for a second week.

• In October 2001, Cheryllyn Dudley, a South African MP, put forth a notice of motion in the national assembly that, "Condemns the actions of Planned Parenthood and the United Nations Population Fund, who are advancing their unscrupulous agenda in the name of charity, taking advantage of people when they are most vulnerable … Planned Parenthood alone has killed more New Yorkers than Osama bin Laden has, and these figures pale in comparison with the children they have murdered in Africa, Asia and South America." The motion also called PP a "most insidious enemy … (who) murders the unborn children of the world in broad daylight."

• In December 2001, the Colorado state health department announced that Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains wasn't going to get any more money from the state because an audit revealed that it was subsidizing the rent of a separate Planned Parenthood arm that performs abortions. In addition, the health department notified PP that it might not have been complying with federal regulations on fees it charged for contraceptives for low-income women, because PP charged more than other agencies.

• Also in December 2001, Stop Planned Parenthood International and Concerned Women for America called for the cessation of federal funding of Planned Parenthood by citing its irresponsibility through its "Joe Sperm" character and a "Three Rivers Condom" ad, which featured a picture of the implosion of Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium and the subheading: "It Contains The Explosion." CWA also recalled a St. Louis, Mo. case in which a woman was allegedly denied access to her ultrasound by a Planned Parenthood counsellor and pressured into undergoing an abortion against her will.

• In March of last year, the PPFA was criticized for its "ever-increasing terrorism on the unborn child" after the organization's latest report showed it had committed more abortions than ever before. The figure of 197,070 abortions in 2000 was a 7.8 increase over the number in 1999. The organization was also very active in distributing abortifacient "emergency contraception" - the dispensing of those drugs skyrocketed 275 per cent in 2000 over the year before. "Planned Parenthood thrives by making the 'problems' worse," commented Life Decisions International president Doug Scott. "If they were to implement programs that were successful, the organization would go out of business."

• Also in March, the Wisconsin state assembly adopted a budget provision that ceased the state's subsidization of organizations that commit or promote abortions - including Planned Parenthood. Polls showed that 70 per cent of Wisconsin residents agreed with the measure.

• Last April, the American Life League produced a report detailing the Planned Parenthood Federation of America's financial activities. Among the revelations were the facts that the PPFA: receives 29 per cent of its income from abortion; has made $815 million from abortion since 1977; has made a profit for each of the past 15 years; and has seen its abortion committals increase every year since 1994.

• In May of 2002, it was reported that the Planned Parenthood Federation of America performed 80 abortions for every adoption referral it made during the year 2000. More than 98 per cent of women who sought PP's counsel eventually had abortions, while the organization's adoption referrals dropped for the fourth consecutive year. A reporter who contacted a PPFA abortuary was told that the minimum cost for an abortion was $300.

• Also in May, worldnetdaily.com reported on a California father who accessed Planned Parenthood's website for teens. "It's beyond disgusting," he said. "It has a letter written to kids that begins with, 'Despite what your teachers and parents say ...' and it was something along the lines of: 'You don't really need math or French or literature after high school. What you need to learn is SEX' - in capital letters."

• In July of last year, a top Planned Parenthood official in Iowa was threatened with jail if the group didn't hand over to investigators the names of women who took pregnancy tests at the group's Storm Lake clinic. The names were a last resort for law enforcement authorities, whose search had stalled for the mother of a baby boy left for a shredder at a recycling centre in May. Planned Parenthood officials said records of pregnancy tests were off limits under federal privacy laws, but county officials disagreed.

• This past August, Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles and San Diego were sued by the United States Justice Foundation, which charged that they asked women to offer medical services - including assisting with abortions - that they were not licensed to perform. They then fired one woman when she complained about it. A litigation counsel for the USJF called the case "unbelievable. It's a time bomb." He said Planned Parenthood medical staff told one woman, "Don't worry about it," when she complained about various medical procedural discrepancies. In a press release, the USJF observed: "Abortion is a multi-billion dollar per year industry and numerous individuals are getting rich off of it. One reason why they are getting rich off of it is the use of non-physicians in these procedures, in violation of California law."

• In November, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wapello, Ia. was ejected from county building space after the Louisa County Board of Supervisors voted 2-1 to remove the group. A PP official observed, "They didn't want anything to do with Planned Parenthood."

• Also in November, Planned Parenthood of North-Central Ohio was blasted for its proposal to have two teens from each of four high schools in Morrow County be paid $100 to act as outreach workers, and get an additional $5 bonus for every patient they recruited for a Planned Parenthood clinic in Cardington, Oh. STOPP noted that the clear intent of the scheme was to get kids hooked on sex and contraception, without parental involvement.

• At Christmas time, Planned Parenthood was criticized for mocking the Christian faith - some characterized it more as blasphemy - for sending out holiday cards with the slogan "Choice on Earth." Despite the backlash, the organization then went a step further and produced "Choice on Earth" T-shirts. Life Decisions International president Douglas R. Scott chalked the episode up to Planned Parenthood's usual antics. "Planned Parenthood has a long and proud tradition of ridiculing the things and people of God," he said. Kerry Daughtery, a columnist for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, said, "Using the message of Christmas to promote this ghastly procedure (abortion) crosses even the most blurred line of common decency." Planned Parenthood's online store sells items such as magnets celebrating diversity on behalf of homosexuals and abortion-pill penholders. It previously has come under fire for giving out condoms that look like lollipops.

• Last month, Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine examined where all of Planned Parenthood's money goes. The publication found that PP's senior officials, even at the local level, receive exorbitant salaries and benefits. An Indiana affiliate paid its medical director more than $265,000, plus $24,000 in benefits. Another Indiana affiliate gave its president and CEO $357,000 in 2000. Other monies have been invested in stocks and other securities, endowments, foundations, buildings and clinics. Planned Parenthood in Des Moines, Ia. bought more than $120,000 in stock in the maker of lingerie for Victoria's Secret.

• Also last month, a Phoenix, Az. judge ruled Planned Parenthood was negligent in its failure to report a 13-year-old foster-care girl's abortion to Child Protective Services. The case began in 1998 when the girl had an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic accompanied by her 23-year-old foster brother, with whom she was having a sexual relationship. Court records showed that Planned Parenthood did not notify authorities until the girl returned six months later for a second abortion. According to lawsuits filed on behalf of the Phoenix-area teen, the abortion provider's failure to notify police or the CPS of her first abortion, on Nov. 10, 1998, resulted in continued molestation and sexual exploitation. Planned Parenthood's gross negligence led to her second abortion six month's later, the girl's attorney argued.