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Anti-Abortion Group Live Action Launches O’Keefe-Style Campaign Against Planned Parenthood

Anti-abortion activists from Live Action in Arizona are trying to entrap Planned Parenthood in an embarrassing scandal, much the same way James O’Keefe targeted ACORN. The organization’s efforts won’t be nearly as successful.

abortionprotest Anti Abortion Group Live Action Launches OKeefe Style Campaign Against Planned Parenthood

A man working with the anti-abortion group Live Action has visited at least a dozen Planned Parenthood clinics around the country, including in Arizona, New Jersey and Alabama, to “prove” the group performs abortions on underage girls, preferring confidentiality to the law.

According to Planned Parenthood, the man has come into the clinics, and first asks for treatment for STDs. Once in a private session with an employee, he explains that he has underage, sex trafficked girls who need an abortion. His tapes “show” the employees agreeing to perform the procedure, “no questions asked.”

“In ten Planned Parenthood clinics, Live Action videos depict investigators posing as underage girls, as young as 13 years old, saying they were impregnated by men over twice their age,” the group’s found, Lila Rose, brags on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website.

While Live Action tried to present these tapes as evidence for defunding the “corrupt” and “abusive” organization, Planned Parenthood Arizona CEO Bryan Howard told The Arizona Republic the tapes have been “highly edited” and were made solely to “embarrass us”.

And the most important detail: none of the Planned Parenthood clinics agreed to perform the hypothetical abortions. Instead, they notified the police of potential sex trafficking, while their national president, Cecile Richards, last week called on the FBI to launch a complete investigation.

Live Action desperately wants to take down Planned Parenthood, just one of the many campaigns currently underway to dismantle abortion, and are clearly inspired by James O’Keefe, the conservative activist who launched a “pimp sting” against controversial community organizing group ACORN.

O’Keefe can’t take all the credit for ACORN’s eventual demise, but his videos helped fuel opposition that ended up defunding the group, which eventually filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors. Live Action’s actions won’t be nearly as successful.

First of all, it’s clear Planned Parenthood has procedures in place to safeguard young women’s confidentiality, yes, but also safety. Second, the group’s onto Live Action, and will surely be on the lookout for suspicious appointments and activities. And then there’s FBI involvement, which makes Live Action’s campaign even more complicated.

But Live Action’s greatest hurdle comes thanks to their unspoken hero, O’Keefe: his videos “exposing” ACORN employees advising a pimp helped raise awareness of such tactics.

While conservatives like Breitbart and his followers may buy into the smoke and mirrors, the public, and its politicians, won’t take video, especially in the wake of Shirley Sherrod’s firing last year, at face value.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that Planned Parenthood is in the free and clear: conservative Republicans such as Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota are backing a bill to defund the abortion provider.

If such a bill becomes law, Live Action does, in fact, win, which is why those who believe in choice need to fight back with as much moxie and gusto possible. Live Action proves right wingers will do anything feasible to eradicate abortion in the United States, and their must be countered.

Not with the type of shenanigans and trickery Live Action obviously enjoys, but with cold, hard facts, like that “Obamacare” does not fund abortions, and pressure for Republicans to expand on why they’re backing legislation to redefine rape in order to make it harder for women to get abortions. The right has as a whole remained silent on this issue thus far. Perhaps because the know they’re wrong.

Here’s Live Action’s video of one of the attempted “stings:”

  1. February 01, 2011 at 4:06 pm, Joe Carter said:

    ***First of all, it’s clear Planned Parenthood has procedures in place to safeguard young women’s confidentiality, yes, but also safety***

    You don’t seem to be informed of the fact about Planned Parenthood. This is not the first time Live Action has caught PP on tape offering to cover up statutory rape. There are also about a hundred other recordings (http://www.traditionalvalues.org/1/pph/index2.php) of PP offering to cover up such instances of rape.

    Also, how morally obtuse to you have to be to apologize for such activity? Did you even watch the video you posted? The guy is talking about the exploitation of sex slaves and the woman is telling him how to keep it covered up. Do you really see nothing wrong with that?

    Why don’t you put your ideology in check long enough to be human.

    Reply

  2. February 01, 2011 at 4:47 pm, Rebecca said:

    Planned Parenthood can cry foul all they want. Their whining and your explaining away does not even begin to explain the content of the video.

    No, PP doesn’t agree to do the abortions, but the clinic worker does give the “pimp” info on how to take illegally trafficked girls to other clinics to get them.

    I have the same question as the other commenter—did you even watch the video?

    Reply

  3. February 01, 2011 at 5:03 pm, Steve Ahlquist said:

    @Rebecca and Joe Carter: It is clear that neither of you has the ability to understand what can be done with editing, and that your preconceived idea that abortion is wrong has destroyed your ability to rationally parse the evidence. Wake up and see what’s happening here: This is a naked and obvious attempt to frame good people doing important work, and supporting this kind of dishonesty marks is in itself equally dishonest. Engage the evidence honestly, or give up any hope of being taken seriously.

    Reply

  4. February 01, 2011 at 5:21 pm, Jeff said:

    @Steve Ahlquist: Open your eyes, please. You obviously no longer have the ability to see the truth about Planned Parenthood. If you did, I would tell you to google Margaret Sanger and eugenics. Also, there are many ways to help young women in trouble but what is seen in this video is NOT the way.

    Reply

    • February 02, 2011 at 1:55 pm, Steve Ahlquist said:

      I don’t want to go off on a tangent about Margaret Sanger and Eugenics, but I will. Margaret Sanger advocated for birth control and safe legal abortion. She also advocated for eugenics. Jefferson Davis, leader of the Confederacy, advocated for Christian values, and he also advocated for slavery. Notice that people throughout history can have both good and bad views, and sometimes their good views can lead them down the wrong path (such as using the Bible to justify slavery.)

      Helen Keller was a communist and Ronald Reagan raised taxes. Who cares? You can’t stigmatize an idea by attacking a person. Everything I know about Planned Parenthood tells me that they do the best they can in terrible circumstances to help women and girls in trouble. The alternative is what?

      Reply

  5. February 01, 2011 at 5:37 pm, Rebecca said:

    @Steve

    This is 2011. I am fully aware that “editing” can make any comment damning.

    However.

    I think the most telling part of the video was the manager’s comments about the other nurse/worker, you know the one she called a “f****** c***.” Obviously, this other woman follows the letter of the law while this Amy individual has no problem doing otherwise.

    I’d also like to note that I made no comment about the morality of abortion. You’re the one that seems to have preconceived notions.

    Reply

    • February 02, 2011 at 2:01 pm, Steve Ahlquist said:

      The video does seem pretty damning, in this highly edited form. Looking at the time codes I estimate that anywhere from half to two thirds of the interview is missing. Also, the FBI is involved, so perhaps this woman was simply cozying up to these people towards the idea of gaining his trust and rescuing the girls. We won’t know until the entire story is revealed, and this tape is not the whole story.

      And even if this turns out to be as bad as it looks, we are talking about one individual in an organization that employs thousands. The woman talks about a coworker (in very disparaging terms) who is a stickler for the law. Suppose this other woman is the norm, and the woman in the tape is an outlier?

      Knowing that the tape is edited and then claiming that it shows some sort of ethical malfeasance on the part of Planned Parenthood is dishonest, and you know it.

      Reply

  6. February 01, 2011 at 6:21 pm, mind your business said:

    having been to planned parenthood as a patient for regular medical care, I fully support funding for the organization. as long as private healthcare is beyond the affordable range for most people, plenty of girls, women, and men turn to PP for regular gynecological care/STD testing/breast exams, and so on. without access to these services, what should I do? perform my own pelvic exam? or just get ovarian cancer and hope for the best?

    also, aside from the obvious – ie, things like this are edited for maximum impact, with altered chronological order of events/statements (duh) – generally most workers in positions like this are trained to “go along” with a situation and turn all information over to authorities. it is not their job to pursue criminal prosecution or investigation against a pimp. they cannot jeopardize the health or safety of their patients, so it would have been highly counterproductive to take on an antagonistic or accusatory tone against a potential criminal.

    Reply

  7. February 01, 2011 at 6:33 pm, MagnanaMouse said:

    Very nice work, Andrew Belonsky. It’s funny that the angry faux-Christian demographic up in arms over this are commenting at how this proves Planned Parenthood hasn’t learned from the fraud and selective editing perpetrated by Breitbart against ACORN, while it’s them who haven’t learned: Fraud — lying and misrepresenting the truth to terrorize the weak into avoiding help available to them — is un-Christian and evil. Planned Parenthood workers acted responsibly and made sure these Fraudsters — assuming they were really the low-lives they painted themselves — would bring in the children they represent themselves as being Devils to — so they can be treated and saved by the system we have in place to save them. Planned Parenthood reported these Devils to authorities, and now, TA DA! the FBI is going to be investigating the fraudsters. We are learning from Egypt in that the authorities, lying to the people so they exhibit willful and trained ignorance to deny themselves the rights as free men and women to be given their rights as human beings, are NOT to be trusted. They perpetrate FRAUD to fool the people. This is the story. And, Andrew, thank you for telling it so eloquently.

    Reply

  8. February 01, 2011 at 7:51 pm, me said:

    The people at Planned Parenthood knows they are killing babies and they are doing it for MONEY!! Satan is behind the lies!! You people at Planned Parenthood I will pray for your conversion because your going to need it when you die and meet God face to face!!

    Reply

    • February 02, 2011 at 2:04 pm, Steve Ahlquist said:

      Drivel like this isn’t worth responding to.

      Reply

  9. February 02, 2011 at 1:56 pm, susan said:

    say t he full tape is up and ready for viewing at Live Action.org

    Reply

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