Abortion foes' dirty tactics

Advocates of a California "parental notification" bill accuse Planned Parenthood of protecting sexual predators instead of teen girls. But who is really breaking the law?

By Katharine Mieszkowski

Read more: Abortion, Politics, News, Planned Parenthood, Katharine Mieszkowski, 2006 Elections

Nov. 4, 2006 | Advocates for California's Proposition 85, a ballot initiative that would require parental notification before a minor has an abortion, aren't afraid to play dirty to win. They're even telling voters that Planned Parenthood covers up the sexual abuse of young girls, although the evidence to support this allegation was fabricated and may have been acquired illegally.

Supporters of Proposition 85 are attempting to convince voters that requiring parental notification is crucial to preventing older men from taking advantage of underage girls. They say that abortion providers like Planned Parenthood routinely stand by while girls as young as 13 are preyed upon by grown men who seduce them, get them pregnant, and then bring them into clinics for abortions, all without the girls' parents having a clue. To make their case, they've dug up recordings of phone calls made four years ago by antiabortion group Life Dynamics that supposedly show Planned Parenthood employees ignoring laws that require them to report to authorities any suspicion of abuse -- including statutory rape.

"The tapes prove pretty unequivocally that Planned Parenthood is protecting men who sexually abuse children," insists Albin Rhomberg, spokesperson for the Yes on 85 campaign. "In short, they're engaging in predator protection, and that's outrageous."

What's more outrageous, argue opponents of Proposition 85, are the accusations themselves, which are based on dubious evidence. "If you listen to those tapes in their entirety," says Kathy Kneer, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, "you can tell that they were designed to entrap our staff." Life Dynamics admits the calls were not, in fact, made by actual pregnant teenagers. "These actors playing young girls really prey on our staff's concern for getting these girls into care," she says.

Kneer calls the recordings a "smear campaign" and notes that though they have been out in the public domain for four years, no employee of Planned Parenthood has yet been charged with coddling statutory rapists because of the tapes. "If there was any proof that we have been covering up for child sexual predators, you can assume that we would have been facing real charges. Does that mean that law enforcement in 50 states has participated in this coverup? Does that mean district attorneys in every state have too?"

Back in 2002, Life Dynamics, based in Denton, Texas, conducted an elaborate sting operation, placing more than 800 phone calls, it claims, to family-planning clinics around the country. A woman impersonating a 13-year-old girl would call a clinic, ostensibly to schedule an abortion. The goal of the calls was to record the response of the clinic receptionist when told the girl on the line was 13 years old and that the man who had allegedly impregnated her was 22. Life Dynamics posted audio files and transcripts from the calls on the Web at ChildPredators.com. The organization then claimed that the tapes proved that 91 percent of the clinics called didn't fulfill their legal obligation to report statutory rape, instead choosing to "sell more abortions, more birth control products and more treatments for sexually transmitted diseases when they turn a blind eye to child rape."

The tapes and accusations prompted the state of Connecticut to launch a criminal investigation into the alleged coverup. The investigation soon collapsed since there were no real pregnant teens involved, and hence no victims. The recordings have also made waves in Nebraska, Alabama and West Virginia, where they have been used by antiabortion groups. In 2002, Nebraskans United for Life employed them to pressure the state's attorney general to investigate abortion providers. In February 2006, Alabama Alliance against Abortion played excerpts from the calls at a rally outside the statehouse in Montgomery, during which the group accused the state's attorney general of being soft on sex offenders. Also in February, West Virginians for Life used the clips as part of a failed campaign to strengthen West Virginia's parental notification law.

Life Dynamics is the same group that in the late '90s promoted the myth that abortion providers illicitly traffic in the sale of fetal tissue. In March 2000, sparked by a report on "20/20" that included the Life Dynamics claim, Congress launched an investigation of the supposed traffic. But the inquiry floundered when the star witness, a medical technician, admitted under oath that he'd lied on camera to "20/20" about witnessing fetal tissue smuggling and that he had been paid more than $20,000 by Life Dynamics. "By the end of the hearing, even the legislators who were opposed to choice said that Life Dynamics had no credibility," says Vicky Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation.

But the credibility of Life Dynamics is apparently no problem for California's Yes on 85 campaign. The campaign is using the tapes and transcripts of the calls made to California clinics from the Life Dynamics' archive. It features them on its Web site under the heading: "Voting YES on Prop 85 will protect young girls from sexual abuse. Hear Planned Parenthood staff in many California cities caught on tape telling a 13-year-old girl that they will conceal her sexual exploitation by a 22-year-old predator."

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