According to an Indiana television station, state attorney general Steve Carter says his office is investigating Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN). "The development comes after a health center aide was caught on video telling a woman who claimed to be a pregnant teen to lie about the age of the father," WTHR reported this morning.

Meanwhile the Associated Press has reported that PPIN has fired the unnamed aide. Last Thursday Betty Cockrum, PPIN CEO, issued a statement "saying the assistant violated the group's policies on reporting abuse."

"While this video was altered and edited from its original form, it is clear the actions by the employee in question were unacceptable," the statement said.

"A thorough internal review of this matter has taken place and the health center assistant shown in the video is no longer employed by PPIN." Cockrum also said that "All employees of the network's 35 Indiana health centers had been retrained on reporting procedures and policies."

UCLA student Lila Rose, president of Live Action Films Rose, posed as a 13-year-old who goes to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bloomington, Indiana. In the footage, shot last June, Rose "told the aide she had been impregnated by a 31-year-old man," the AP reported. "It also showed the aide telling the patient to seek an abortion in Illinois, where parental consent is not needed, and to lie about the man's age."

This was hardly the first time a PPFA affiliate has been embroiled in allegations it’s avoided observing state statutory rape laws. Dr. Randall k. O'Bannon provided a very useful overview which can be found at http://nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Dec08/nv120508.html.

As he explained in his conclusion, ”Planned Parenthood portrays these as atypical, isolated incidents, but these are hardly the first to be reported. Nor is it just about young women acting the part of teens who have been statutorily raped.

“In 2005, the parents of a 14-year-old girl filed suit against Planned Parenthood of Ohio. They alleged that a PP clinic failed to report their daughter's statutory rape by her 21-year-old boyfriend and failed to notify them of the abortion.”

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Part Two