Fr. Pavone is the Founding Director of Priests for Life. You may contact Priests for Life at PO Box 141172, Staten Island, NY 10314; Tel: 888-PFL-3448 or 718-980-4400; Fax: 718-980-6515; Email: mail@priestsforlife.org; Website: www.priestsforlife.org.
For many months, my friends and colleagues at Life Dynamics in Denton, Texas, have been gathering more information about what an abortion clinic is likely to do if an underage girl who has been impregnated by an adult asks for an abortion. The fact that the abortion or birth control that the clinic sells is “legal” does not take away the clinic workers' responsibility to report. The requirement under the law, furthermore, for the health care worker is simply to report, not to investigate. In other words, the very fact that an underage girl is pregnant indicates that there may have been criminal activity or abuse. The health care worker does not have to investigate whether there was or not, but must simply report that there might be.
What Life Dynamics did is describe in their own words on their website, www.childpredators.com, how they gathered their data: “Life Dynamics conducted a covert investigation in which we called over 800 Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation facilities across the country. Our caller portrayed a 13-year-old girl who was pregnant by her 22-year-old boyfriend. Her story was that she wanted an abortion because she and her boyfriend did not want her parents to find out about the sexual relationship. In every call the ages of the girl and her boyfriend were made perfectly clear. It was also unmistakable that the motivation for the abortion was to conceal this illicit sexual activity from the girl's parents and the authorities.
The results were appalling. Even though many of these clinic workers openly acknowledged to our caller that this situation was illegal and that they were required to report it to the state, the overwhelming majority readily agreed to conceal this illegal sexual activity. Some employees of these organizations even coached our caller on how to avoid detection, how to circumvent parental involvement laws and what to say or not say when she came to the clinic.”
So what should be done next?
First of all, spread the word. People, especially those who are parents, have a right to know about the risks their children and grandchildren face in legal abortion clinics.
Secondly, legislation can be introduced to stop these clinics and their supporting organizations from receiving state and federal funding. After all, recipients of these funds are required to use the money only in accordance with all state and federal laws.
Thirdly, massive litigation should be launched against the abortion industry for engaging in this illegal activity.
Along with changing laws and hearts, we simply need to put abortionists out of business.
