Redstate

Child abuse enablers, beware.

By Leon H Wolf Posted in Liberals | Life Issues | Party of Death — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Although this is only a relatively small piece of a single lawsuit, this is extraordinarily bad news for Planned Parenthood:

The Ohio Supreme Court has reversed itself and will hold a hearing on a case involving a secret abortion on a 14-year-old girl who was a victim of rape. A Cincinnati couple is upset their daughter had an abortion at a local Planned Parenthood facility without their knowledge or consent as required by state law.

The girl's parents filed a lawsuit against the abortion facility for violating the state's parental notification law by not telling them of her abortion, which may have been coerced.

More below...

The story goes on to note that the specific issue the Supreme Court will hear arguments on is whether the girl's parents are entitled to access to Planned Parenthood records on other underage girls they've performed abortions on. Presumably, the parents are attempting to establish the existence of habit evidence with respect to Planned Parenthood's failure to notify parents, as they are required to do under Ohio Law.

Now, I'm quite sure that if the Ohio Supremes rule in the parents' favor, the information will be released under an appropriate protective order which removes the name of the individual girls in question - and this is as it should be. It might even be that none of this evidence will see the light of day until trial, if it happens. However, I am hopeful that somehow, some way, this evidence will see the light of day. And I can guarantee you that Planned Parenthood wants the exact opposite. Why?

It is one thing to point to anecdotal evidence that Planned Parenthood is violating the law with respect to their legal obligations to report sexual abuse - and such anecdotal evidence abounds. It is another thing to have hard records which establish, within a given territory, exactly how pervasive their illegal derelictions of their reporting duties are.

If you're a defender of Planned Parenthood, you have to be asking yourself an important question: why are they fighting so hard to prevent the release of this information? It's one thing to fight for a protective order preventing the release of the individual names of the girls to the public, but it's another thing altogether to fight to prevent the release of records that would show compliance with the law altogether. The former shows an understandable concern for the privacy of your patients. The latter shows that you have something to hide.

My firm conviction is that Planned Parenthood has quite a bit to hide in this instance. And my hope is that the Supreme Court of Ohio allows some sunlight to shine in the dark corners of Planned Parenthood's practices with respect to reporting suspected (and per se) sexual abuse. The public - and this poor girl's parents - deserve to know exactly how often Planned Parenthood is willing to actively overlook the rape of pre-teen and early teen girls just so they can get their medicare and medicaid payments for performing another abortion.