As part of the project to shine a light on what she claims is the taxpayer-subsidised organisation's cover-up of sexual abuse, Lila Rose has posed as a teenage girl to visit Planned Parenthood clinics, the country's largest provider of surgical abortions.
She claims Planned Parenthood counsellors routinely ignore their duty to report statutory rape when dealing with young girls impregnated by older men and often tell them to lie about their age or the identity of their sex partners rather than alert authorities.
Walking into two Los Angeles area Planned Parenthood clinics with a hidden video camera in March 2007, Miss Rose, then 18, told the staff she was 15 and had been impregnated by her 23-year-old boyfriend.She said the workers at the first centre encouraged her to lie about her age so that they would not have to report statutory rape. At the second centre, she says, counsellors aggressively pushed her to have an abortion.
Since then, she has conducted stings at six other clinics.
A 20-year-old history major at University of California, Los Angeles, she has posted the tapes on the website of her nonprofit group, LiveAction.org, prompting authorities in three states to launch investigations into Planned Parenthood.
"Planned Parenthood is looking at these young girls as a plumbing problem: 'We'll get you that abortion and send you on your way,'" Miss Rose said. "And that's disrespecting two human lives. It's destroying her pre-born child and sending her back to an abuser."
Her activities have won her support from conservatives, anti-abortion activists and some child abuse experts and umbrage from abortion rights supporters.
Planned Parenthood clinics have posted her picture to alert workers.
A spokesman for Planned Parenthood declined to discuss the specific cases involving Miss Rose but said the organisation has strict policies and procedures regarding mandatory reporting and takes seriously laws protecting minors.
"In rare instances where health centre employees violate those policies, immediate corrective action is taken," he said.
Thirty-six years after the US Supreme Court's ruling in the landmark Roe v. Wade case that termination of pregnancy was legal, abortion is still a bitterly debated social and political issue in the United States.
A Gallup poll conducted earlier this month showed 51 per cent of Americans identified themselves as "pro-life."
original story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5403432/US-student-becomes-anti-abortion-star-for-clandestine-filming.html
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