Planned Parenthood has fired a clinic manager who was seen on videotape advising a man posing as a sex trafficker, and anti-abortion groups seized on the episode to step up their campaign to cut off public financing for the organization.See what I mean?
The manager was videotaped covertly in a clinic in Perth Amboy, N.J., by actors working for an anti-abortion group, Live Action. The manager gave advice on how to get medical care for under-age prostitutes. The tape’s release on Tuesday embarrassed Planned Parenthood, which provides contraceptives, gynecological care, cancer screening and abortions across the country, mainly to low-income women.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America said that immediately after the “highly unusual” visit, its affiliate had notified prosecutors.
The organization said last week that people claiming to be sex traffickers visited at least 12 of its clinics in six states in January and that it had concluded that the visits were a hoax by Live Action. But Planned Parenthood officials expressed dismay at the statements of the office manager in the videotape, and fired her on Tuesday night.
“We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape,” Phyllis Kinsler, chief executive of the agency’s central New Jersey branch, said in a statement. Ms. Kinsler said the tape “depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable.”
Stuart Schear, vice president for communications of the national federation, said in an interview on Wednesday that Planned Parenthood had “zero tolerance” for unethical behavior and that the behavior filmed in the video was “very isolated.”
“We cannot lose sight of the bigger picture that we have opponents who are in many cases opposed to birth control, honest sex education and legal abortion, and are coordinating with allies on Capitol Hill to defund Planned Parenthood,” Mr. Schear said.
It's the pro-life forces who're portrayed at the bad guys, and the meme is that the director at the Perth Amboy clinic was an aberration.
I should have more pro-life reporting soon. Egypt is dominating the news and I've been extremely fascinated by developments. So, more on that as events warrant, and then some social issues as well.
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