A new Title X rule proposed by the Trump Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) not only requires abortion facilities to be physically and financially separate from federally funded family planning centers, but also zones in on years of concern that Planned Parenthood, in particular, has failed to report potential child sex abuse when young girls show up to obtain abortions.
President Donald Trump himself announced the new rule as he keynoted the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List Campaign for Life gala Tuesday evening.
The new policy bars recipients of federal Title X family planning funds from referring women for abortions and – for abortion providers that also offer family planning services – also requires completely separate facilities for these services. The rule sends the clear message that abortion is not family planning or health care.
The new regulations also require Title X recipients to abide by all state and local laws that mandate the reporting of child abuse and documentation showing such reporting.
A press release from HHS states the rule would also require “annual training for staff at Title X clinics and ensuring they have a site-specific protocol in place to protect victims” and the provision of “counseling to minors on how to resist attempts to coerce them into sexual activities.”
In a statement about the new regulations, Lila Rose, president of Live Action – which has conducted undercover investigations of Planned Parenthood’s alleged response to underage girls reporting they have become pregnant by adult men – says there is “a litany of evidence showing Planned Parenthood repeatedly failing to report child rape and child sexual abuse.”
In 2017, Live Action reported the pro-life group had demonstrated Planned Parenthood’s failure to report child sexual abuse in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.
Additionally, former abortion worker Shelley Guillory said in a webcast produced by And Then There Were None that she was taught to “prep” a child for abortion by noting the father was “only a year older than them or the same age. Which we knew was not true.” She added:
That way we didn’t have to get any law enforcement involved because – you have to stop and think. When we have a minor that’s come in and there’s suspected child abuse or sexual abuse we have to get law enforcement involved. Law enforcement has to be there from the beginning of the procedure to the end. They’re samples and specimens that have to be collected so they can do DNA analysis. Well this makes a lot of our other patients uncomfortable. So to get around that, we started lying about ages. So we had no conflicts as far as that was concerned.
In 2015, Alliance Defending Freedom also prepared a summary of Planned Parenthood’s history of failing to report child sexual abuse:
Not surprisingly, child victims of sexual predators are frequently brought to abortion facilities like Planned Parenthood by the abuser in an effort to hide criminal sexual abuse. Legal proceedings and undercover investigations demonstrate Planned Parenthood facilities often disregard mandatory sex abuse reporting laws. With the evidence of their crimes covered up, predators are free to continue abusing their child victims.
Planned Parenthood has been directly sued for failure to report sexual abuse or to notify parents of minor children seeking abortions. Criminal proceedings also indicate Planned Parenthood failed to report sexual abuse it should have known about. Because no report was immediately made to the proper authorities, the abuse is permitted to continue.
Planned Parenthood and its allies in the media are having a problem with the entire new Trump administration rule:
In particular, left-wing site Bustle says the provision to provide counseling to young girls on how to resist coercion into sex amounts to “victim-blaming” and could be a “major setback” for the #MeToo movement.
“Victim-blaming is at the root of plenty of unacceptable arguments that people make about sexual abuse, from asking what a woman was wearing the night she was abused, to teaching young girls not to lead on men at the risk of getting into trouble,” the pro-abortion site states.
However, Steven Aden, Americans United for Life chief legal officer and general counsel tells Breitbart News, “Research shows that at tender ages, 15 and below, the majority of sexual encounters by minor girls are coerced by older boyfriends and, unfortunately, fathers and father-figures, and abortion is seen by the male as the way out of his problem.”
“This rule is designed to protect girls and young women in these majority circumstances from the very kind of coercion, sexual predation, and sexual assault that the #MeToo movement says it is concerned about,” he adds.
Planned Parenthood claims to be a medical provider and, as such, is required to report sexual abuse.
“Medical providers like Planned Parenthood are mandatory reporters of sex abuse and criminal sexual harassment in all 50 states,” according to Aden. “The certification requirement is simply an attempt to ensure that Title X providers – to be eligible as grantees – simply follow the law. If Planned Parenthood or any other Title X providers are not willing to follow the law, they’re not eligible for funding under this rule.”
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