Wednesday, May 6, 2009

District Attorney Reviewing Footage of Sexual Abuse Cover up at Memphis Planned Parenthood Used in State Legislation

District Attorney Reviewing Footage of Sexual Abuse Cover up at Memphis Planned Parenthood Used in State Legislation

MEMPHIS, May 6 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Shelby County District Attorney's Office is reviewing whether to begin an investigation into a Memphis Planned Parenthood after one of its employees was caught on hidden camera telling an alleged victim of statutory rape to hide the identity of her perpetrator from a judge. This tape was also cited by state legislators in conjunction with a proposed bill to divert taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood, which passed a Tennessee House of Representatives Health & Human Resources sub-Committee on Monday.


The video shows Lila Rose, 20-year-old UCLA student and president of the nonprofit Live Action, enter Planned Parenthood's Memphis Health Center undercover and tell an employee that she is 14 years old and pregnant by her 31-year-old "boyfriend." The employee instructs her to make up a false age of the boyfriend when obtaining a judicial bypass to the parental consent requirement for abortion so that the judge will not find out she is a victim of statutory rape: "Don't mention it. Just say you have a boyfriend 17 years old--whatever." (View the video here: www.youtube.com/watch? v=qMlrAj4v4J4&feature=channel_page)

Live Action sent the raw footage from the Memphis undercover investigation to District Attorney Bill Gibbons for review last week, and also released it to the public on LiveAction.org and YouTube. According to the District Attorney Office spokeswoman Jennifer Donnals, "Gen. Gibbons has assigned one of the prosecutors in our Grand Jury section to review the video to determine if the matter warrants any further investigation."

"Telling a little girl lie to a judge so that a statutory rapist goes undetected is a serious offense, yet Planned Parenthood representatives have remained indifferent and full of excuses since the video was released," says Rose. "Planned Parenthood cannot expect to receive taxpayer money when it undercuts Tennessee's system of protection for children."

For more on this story, visit www.LiveAction.org.

3mnewswire.org

No comments:

Pages