In an undercover video shot by college pro-life activists, a Planned Parenthood of Indiana counselor learns that the client who has come to the clinic for an abortion is a 13-year-old girl who has gotten pregnant by a 31-year-old man. (She's really a college student posing as a pregnant minor who, under state law, is the victim of statutory rape). The PP nurse tells her that under the law, the State of Indiana has to be notified about this, because the child is a victim of a crime. The girl says the guy will get in trouble if she has to rat him out. So the PP nurse offers to cover up the statutory rape, and not let the state know.
Says the PP nurse: "OK, so that's that problem solved."
The nurse also coaches her on how to evade Illinois' parental consent laws.
The funny ("funny") part of this story is how law enforcement in Bloomington reacts to this. The activists have a Planned Parenthood employee on tape, apparently committing a crime. According to the Washington Times:
Indiana law requires health-care providers and others to report a sexual act between an adult and a person under 14 to law enforcement or the Department of Child Protective Services. Not reporting such an act is a misdemeanor punishable under state law by a maximum of 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.A city spokesman said Thursday that the Bloomington City Police is not investigating the clinic or the nurse for possibly violating the statutory-rape notification law, but is beefing up security around the facility to protect it from a possible backlash.
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What about an undercover vice officer soliciting prostitution, David? Or the beauty queens who pose as thirteen year old girls on the internet willing to have sex with adults where the stings are televized on CNN? They're not who they pretend to be (a john, a thirteen year old, etc.) so ya think the perpetraters get off sky free? Think again!
"Think again!"
The difference is they are doing it in cooperation with the police. They aren't freelance stings. Steps are being taken to make sure everything is legal, admissible in court, and the the evidence is secure.
And, while Daniel is partially correct, it's worth pointing out that officers 'soliciting' prostitution are not only committing entrapment and likely to get any busts thrown out of court, but are also breaking the law and likely to actually be charged with a crime. I don't think 'soliciting' means what you think it means.
But even more relevantly, various positions are required to report, as I said, actual abuse. Not imaginary abuse. If they turn on their TV and watch a TV show about abused children, they don't have to call that in.
The 'stings' you're talking about, Tom, happen when the person besides the police officer actually crosses the line into illegal behavior, which the police officer is very careful not to suggest, or it's entrapment.
All 'must report abuse laws' have, at the minimum, actual abuse of actual underaged people, so by definition no one involved can actually break the law. (Unless it's the person running the 'sting', as it's sometimes illegal to provide false information to get medical treatment.)
But I'm tired of talking about this. Why don't you find some law under which the Planned Parenthood person's behavior would be illegal?
"45 000 reported cases of picketing"
Um, excuse me, picketing is a legal activity, not a "case" of something to be "reported."
That number is included in your stats for pure shock value because it has lots of zeroes, and its value is totally bogus, since it doesn't describe anything wrong, harmful, or illegal.
"As it is not illegal to fail to report imaginary instances of statutory rape, it's really hard to see what the police would be supposed to do about this."
That doesn't make sense, since the counselor did not know it was imaginary. If you mean what the police would do after it was revealed that it was a sting, fine -- no crime was in reality committed, so there's nothing they could do (though again, greater scrutiny and real sting operations have been set up with less indication of criminal activity. There was no crime to prosecute here, but I'd think that if the police were serious about investigating crime, they'd check out to see whether this incident reflected a pattern of actual crimes occurring.) But in the moment it was happening, the counselor was knowingly failing to report a crime, as far as she knew. So she was consciously committing what she should have believed to be a crime, though it would have turned out later not to be.
'The "girl" was obviously not 13 years old as anyone can plainly see.'
No, no one can look at another person and "plainly see" her age. There are people who look much older and younger than their ages. It wasn't impossible that a 13 year old could look like this young lady. f9You might have a point that someone ought to have been suspicious, but you can't say that someone can "plainly see" another person's age.
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