Anti-abortion movement gets a new-media twist

[madmusic]

Source: LA Times

Lila Rose, a UCLA student, goes undercover at Planned Parenthood clinics to pose as an underage girl pregnant by a 31-year-old. Her surreptitious videos go on YouTube, and inspire outrage.

By Robin Abcarian
April 26, 2009

The girl's voice in the videotape is tiny and tentative. She is talking to a nursing aide in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bloomington, Ind. The girl wants an abortion.

The aide explains that the girl will need a parent's consent because she is only 13.

The girl balks; she does not want to name the father.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-abortion26-2009apr26,0,5408628.story?

---

Why not infiltrate them? Everybody Brown Shirt everybody.

[XemaSab]

1. How about infiltrating an anti-abortion center

and listening to the workers there try to tell a girl she shouldn't abort her dad's child.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Seriously

[madmusic]

3. Good idea. nt

[GoddessOfGuinness]

14. That was my first thought...

or her stepdad's. Maybe they could explain what to do when her mother gets pissed at her daughter instead of her husband.

[saigon68]

15. Or the Priest's child

[lbrtbell]

45. Hear, hear!

I'm tired of these people telling us how horrible we are, while they cover up far worse crimes.

[Dappleganger]

27. +1

[paulsby]

28. both are valid investigative techniques

and a time honored way for people to get at underlying truths.


i would support a woman infiltrating an anti-abortion center. i also support what was done in this case.

[Hugabear]

34. You support anti-abortion zealots illegally videotaping inside a PP clinic?

Wow, just wow.

[paulsby]

35. i don't support the aspect of it that violated the california law

against two party consent (although i do disagree with two party consent laws).

two party consent laws work against truth gathering, regarldess of the underlying reason.

i have worked in states with two party and one party consent.

but i absolutely support undercover investigations as a powerful disinfectant, to borrow a term.

[targetpractice]

4. Isn't that fraud?

Nevertheless... I believe the Planned Parenthood workers must report suspected abuse of a minor by law... That's infuriating that they did not.

[madmusic]

6. It's illegal in California

California's wiretapping law is a "two-party consent" law. California makes it a crime to record or eavesdrop on any confidential communication, including a private conversation or telephone call, without the consent of all parties to the conversation. See Cal. Penal Code § 632. The statute applies to "confidential communications" -- i.e., conversations in which the participants have an expectation of privacy. A California court has ruled that this statute applies to the use of hidden video cameras to record conversations as well. See California v. Gibbons, 215 Cal. App. 3d 1204 (1989). If you are operating in California, you should always get the consent of all parties before recording any conversation that common sense tells you might be "private" or "confidential." In addition to subjecting you to criminal prosecution, violating the California wiretapping law can expose you to a civil lawsuit for damages by an injured party. See Cal. Penal Code § 637.2.

http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/california/california-recording-law

[caseymoz]

7. Yes, it's infuriating that they did not, but . . .

They had long conversations with her trying to persuade her to report it. I mean that one conversation edited down to just five minutes was forty-eight minutes long. I have to see some of those videos and the dance that she did to get these responses out of these workers who were just trying to medically help a girl who was in terrible fix.

And who's to say they weren't going to report it anyway? I know it would have been awfully deceptive to a 13-year-old, but it's really the job of a social services agency, not a Planned Parenthood employee, to deal with it-- they are thinking medically, they might have still reported it to the authorities prepared to handle it. Or she may have talked to her supervisor.

Most of all, who is to say that even though they meant what they said at the time that they weren't going to change their minds about it and report it? I mean, confidentiality doesn't stand if the session reveals the commission of a serious crime. It might take councilors a while to figure that out after being hit with this. How many people could think through a problem like that on the spot? I think of the anguish that those workers must have felt being confronted by this awful dilemma. I'm certain that was captured on camera and cut out. How they must feel to find out they were tricked. This is a deception that incites animal rage, like giving your hand to somebody who's drowning and having them punch you in the eye, and then laugh at you because they weren't really drowning. To top it all off, these counselors lost their jobs.

So, there is no demonstrated attempt to commit a crime of omission here. That's speaking both about legality and in actuality. I think this woman deserves to be followed around with a secret camera, and also be confronted with a similar practical joke and see how she holds up to a moral "stress test." What do they say about glass houses?

I am so pissed off at this!

[targetpractice]

10. I was too quick to reply... Context is important.

Thanks for your thoughts... A family member of mine works in daycare for kids... She's told me about situations where she's had to report abuse of a minor... and it's a delicate situation to gathering information before making a report.

[CTyankee]

59. We had the same situation at PP of CT when I worked there.

I guess this is getting to be one of the antichoicer's tactics. Luckily for us, our state AG, Dick Blumenthal, is a big friend of PPCT and everything was worked out. As I recall, there was further training of staff on this, which is what should happen. Clinical staffers are so incredibly patient advocates that they want to do anything to help. They don't make a lot of money and they are amazingly hard working and empathetic.

However, state law is state law. If I were a staffer I would have gone to my supervisor and discussed the situation vis a vis the law. In both our situation and the one in CA there was no actual abuse taking place, which is probably why we had ours resolved through our direct contact with the AG's office.

[paulsby]

29. it's not fraud

read the penal code.

ruse investigations are not fraud. if she falsely represented her situation in order to gain pecuniary benefit, it would be

[targetpractice]

30. Can you cite a resource that says "pecuniary benefit" is required to be fraud?

I've always understood fraud to be defined as ANY deception to gain the trust of another party that leads them to do something they wouldn't otherwise do if your true identity was known.... give information, pay money, have sex, etc.

[paulsby]

36. then you are wrong

i have investigated dozens of fraud cases, in 20 yrs of police work.

undercover investigations, whether conducted by private citizens or cops are not fraud.

period.

your above definition is closer to the definition of entrapment than fraud, anyway.

if i ask a guy to sell me an illegal weapon, while working undercover, that's not entrapment, or fraud.

if i tell him i will pay him 20k for it, when the going rate is 1k, that's entrapment.

neither is fraud.

deception to gain trust is not fraud (not in the criminal sense, you may argue it is morally), unless certain other factors are met.

[targetpractice]

38. You have different experience...

I don't have the background to dispute you. So, I'll trust you.

However, I am confused...

I've encountered fraud in a competitive business situation... where a competitor sought to get information about our product plans by posing as a prospective customer. This happens all the time and is considered fraud, according to the lawyers I worked with. If I understand you, that's similar to private investigation and maybe civil (not criminal) fraud.

Wikipedia defines criminal fraud (with links to other sources) as...

In the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and is also a civil law violation. Many hoaxes are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not technically frauds. Defrauding people of money is presumably the most common type of fraud, but there have also been many fraudulent "discoveries" in art, archaeology, and science.

In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them – usually, to obtain property or services unjustly. Fraud can be accomplished through the aid of forged objects. In the criminal law of common law jurisdictions it may be called "theft by deception," "larceny by trick," "larceny by fraud and deception," or something similar

It certainly seems to me like the deception above was intended to harm or damage Planned Parenthood.

[paulsby]

39. some points

wikipedia (realizing this is not a model penal code or a legal reference) essentially gets it right.

in the first paragraph "those not made for personal gain are not technically frauds"
if you misrepresent yourself to try to ferret out violations of the law (like not reporting 13 yr old teen pregnancy in the instant case), that is certainly not fraud.

if you misrepresent (for example) your name, to get free services, that would be fraud (and theft generally speaking).

the critical part about the second paragraph is the "unjustly" iow how you get the services.

the person in this case wasn't trying to obtain a service that costs money for free via deception (that could be fraud). they were doing something similar to what chris hanson et al do in misprepresenting who they are to try to catch the OTHER party in a criminal or unscrupulous act.

that gets a high degree of protection in the law, as it should.

people have done this with shady chiro's, dr's and lawyers, for instance. not to get free stuff, but to expose corruption.

and harming people by exposing THEIR miscounduct is not the kind of damage that is referred to under the fraud statutes.

and thank god this stuff is not fraud.

i am pro-choice. i am also 100% for exposing of corruption, whether it is amongst agencies i agree with or i disagree with.

truth IS the best disinfectant.

your first example (getting information about product plans) is fraud for COMMERCIAL purposes. that is an ENTIRELY different thing, and is definitely going to be viewed as fraud (stealing trade secrets, private business practices, etc.).

TOTALLY different from the instant case.

[targetpractice]

41. Hey thanks!

I learned something today from you... I appreciate that!

Thanks for taking the time. :-)

[paulsby]

42. np

i appreciate civil discourse.

fwiw, i worked "deep undercover" for some time (in another state), so this is an area of the law i had to be VERY familiar with.

[targetpractice]

43. Interesting...

I didn't know private citizens were allowed to conduct "ruse investigations"... That concept is brand new to me and seems like it could be very easily abused... fishing expeditions, collateral damage, and whatnot.

I'll be googling to learn more.

[paulsby]

44. yes

for example, the group that hanson hires for the "to catch a predator" are a private citizens group.

also, investigative journalists, who are in many respects private citizens, do this stuff all the time.

people just need to use common sense, a little restraint, etc.

as far as ruses go. generally speaking, lying is not illegal. and most ruse investigations are based on lies.

lying to an officer in the course of an official investigation is of course illegal.

lying to a guy at a pro-life meetingthat you are a supporter of "the cause" because you want to attend and see what kind of actions are being planned is NOT illegal.

and generally speaking, in many respects, cops are MORE restricted in what kinds of actions they can take in ruse investigations to infiltrate groups or attend meetings UNLESS they have at least reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. in other words, citizens have more latitude in this respect.

[surrealAmerican]

53. Think about this:

It's not as if journalists have to be licensed by the state, and there is a long history of such investigations by them. If you were to outlaw "ruse" investigations by "private" citizens, the only way the truth would come to light would be if law enforcement agents investigated, and they need some sort of evidence before they can do that.

[Realityhack]

57. OTOH

if you do not rule them out wiretapping laws become meaningless.

[No Elephants]

48. Regardless of what you investigated, there are many kinds of fraud. The wiki defintion of

fraud is deceiving a person in order to damage that person and that is undoubtedly what this woman did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud

You cite this "Many hoaxes are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not technically frauds." Note, however, that there is a difference between "money" and "personal gain."

Moreover, definitions of fraud differ from one jurisdiction to another, and there is both criminal fraud, which you have been your bailiwick, and civil (non-criminal) fraud.

Quite a few civil actions are gounded in deception and they don't all involve money. Neither do all crimes, even though those may have been the only ones that you investigated.

This woman's actions involved more than one crime, whether or not she committed criminal fraud under California law, and probably more than one civil tort, not to mention garden variety lying. She may be able to square all that with her Christian beliefs on the ground that she is saving innocent babies, but she committed crimes and torts nonetheless.

P.S. I just did a quick google of criminal fraud under California law. There are quite a few provisions and not all of them involve personal gain of any kind. For instance, falsifying a medical record is fraud under California law, period. Why you did it and what you may or may not have gotten from it is irrelevant. That fact that you did it alone is a crime.

[paulsby]

50. please spare me the "wiki definition"

i have to present actual cases for trial.

i can't tell the prosecutor "but wiki says..."

i know what fraud is. so would you if you understood a little criminal law.

this is not (criminal) fraud. period.

i tried to explain that to you.

it is the exact same thing that investigative journalists do, private citizens do, and cops do - all the frigging time, and is not illegal

you simply don't know what you are talking about. you disagree with the TARGETing aspect of this person's investigation, so you can't accept the fact that what she did was 100% legal (apart from the issues with 2 party consent which are seperate).

you don't like undercover stings, etc. fine. they are not fraud, and they are not illegal.

period.

"but wiki says..."

lol

[madmusic]

51. There are some problems with you logic

First, you say "(apart from the issues with 2 party consent which are seperate)."

They are not separate. Planned Parenthood should have pressed charges and sued for damages on the first occasion in Los Angeles. It would have saved them all this grief, but they didn't want to appear to be a Goliath.

Second, you say you are pro choice (Roe v. Wade) but you are against 2 party consent. Both are based on personal privacy rights. Either we have privacy rights or we don't.

You also use Chris Hansen as an example, but "Dateline" quit making those "To Catch a Predator" shows because they were sued and settled out of court.

California's 2 party consent law is a good law. Otherwise everyone will try to out Brown Shirt everyone else and Roe .v Wade will get eaten up in the shark fest.

[Realityhack]

56. I don't know the california laws but...

here in Mass it could be wiretapping without being fraud. If CA is a two party consent state I would think the recording is likely a crime especially if cut together to misrepresent the conversation before 'reporting' on youtube.

ETA. I remember a case here where someone recorded a police officer harassing them and still got nailed on wiretapping.

[No Elephants]

47. Since nothing ever happened, you don't really know what the ultimate

result would have been. The story says someone at Planned Parenthood was saying that the law had to be obeyed. We don't know what further discussions, etc. would have occured. And, apparently, nothing in the law says that the abuse has to be reported before the abortion occurs.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[depakid]

8. "Lila Rose"

She was home schooled, she wrote in an e-mail, and also attended a part-time Christian school and a junior college throughout high school. When she was 15, she said, she founded Live Action and began giving anti-abortion presentations to schools and youth groups.

Between 2006 and 2008, Rose attended four workshops at the Leadership Institute, a Virginia-based educational foundation that teaches conservatives how to polish their communication skills.

So, not only does she look the fundy part....

[starroute]

24. The Leadership Institute! That explains it right there

The Leadership Institute Karl Rove's and Jeff Gannon's alma mater -- notorious for teaching dirty tricks to young ring-wingers since 1980-whatever. See, for example:

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/05/25/blackwell/

http://mediamatters.org/items/200502120002

[47of74]

9. I hope the next place she goes into

The people there say excuse me, step out into the hall, and call the police right away then wait for them to arrive before talking to her anymore.

Of course we'd probably never see the video of her having to explain that she's not 13 or pregnant to the cops that come to interview her.

[tomm2thumbs]

12. a one week story-max - someone was trying to help and went outside of the rules

no good deed goes unpunished

[McCamy Taylor]

11. This is medical bullshit. The law gives 13 and 14 y/o girls autonomy when it comes

to pregnancy, STD and related matters for the simple (public health) reason that it is in the best interest of society to encourage them to seek OB care, birth control, treatment of gonorrhea etc. If workers turn away girls who refuse to report their partners for being overage, then they are violating their medical ethic. The proper course if you have a girl who needs treatment is to get her the treatment she needs first, for her medical problem and then report or do whatever else is necessary. If you have to lie to a girl "No, we will not report" in order to get VD tested and treated, then you lie to her. However, it is always better to try to win her trust and get her to do the right thing voluntarily---something that is easier to do if you first treat her in a professional manner.

There is no case to be made against the workers, because all of them can say "She needed medical treatment. We were going to get that for her and then we were going to take care of the social/criminal issue. If we had insisted upon reporting before she got treatment, she might have left untreated."

All this YouTube nonsense will do is encourage girls who really need services to lie about abuse or incest, for fear of being turned away. And then, how much more incest and abuse will go undetected and unreported since workers will not even have a chance to counsel girls to get legal help. Plus, it will cut funding so that fewer indigent (which includes young women) can get necessary services.

I wonder if the woman who is doing these YouTube videos for her self aggrandizement has any idea how irresponsible she is being. People like her are a danger to the public health.

[Hello_Kitty]

13. I'm just imagining....

The middle-aged man who is the head of the anti-choice group that put the "decoy" up to it. I'm sure he had a real good time coaching her about how to play a young nubile girl deflowered by a much older man... :puke:

There ain't no perv like a right wing perv. This is nothing but an opportunity for anti-choice creeps to get their jollies on young girls.

[DeltaLitProf]

16. Planned Parenthood needs to follow the law

If the law says they must report evidence of statutory rape, they need to do it. Everyone who works at a PP facility needs to understand that idiots like Lila Rose are out there, supported by multimillionaires who'd like nothing more than to get funding pulled.

And yes, Lila's picture does need to be familiar to every worker in every reproductive services office. Her work endangers women just as surely as Eric Rudolph's did.

[TommyO]

17. Lila needs to follow the law too, see post #6

Her secret recordings appear to have broken California law.

[Crunchy Frog]

19. If you've got a big enough lobby behind you, you can get away with breaking laws.

My guess is that she'll get away with it, because people will be too intimidated by the wealthy and powerful fundy groups.

[ninety lives]

21. They ALL need to follow the law

People who don't follow the law hurt their cause. It is not a reflection on the cause, but those thoughtless people are counterproductive.

[Crunchy Frog]

18. Maybe someone should post a youtube video

of a 13 year old girl giving birth to the child of her rapist after being unable to obtain an abortion.

[Proletariatprincess]

20. Or, a 13 year old girl dying in childbirth.

It happens. We forget that women still die in childbirth...even in 1st world countries.

[Control-Z]

37. Or, a 13 year old girl dying

after the street abortion she was forced to seek.

[Blue_Tires]

55. +1

[Ranting_Wacko]

22. Sickening. Just Sickening -nt-

[Optical.Catalyst]

23. The only way conservatives can advance their agenda is through trickery and deceit

Conservatives make big claims about the truth, but in action, they are usually far from it.

[krabigirl]

25. What a disgrace to womnahood. I won't use the b word to describe her, but that's what she is.

These people are sick freaks. Hope I would never run into one of them in a dark alley.

[torbird]

26. Her co-conspirator, James O'Keefe

I know O'Keefe from his days as a Rutgers undergrad -- he was a real little Horowitz Nazi bastard, ambushing profs with smears and distortions, videotaping it, and then "sharing" with the student body his little masterpieces of bullshit. O'Keefe is almost certainly the handler for Lila Rose, and even as a student and head of the conservative group on campus, there was some question about who funded his activities and his rag student paper, The Centurion. Eventually, O'Keefe was reprimanded by the president of the university for stealing things off liberal websites, including photographs, and using his paper for personal ad hominem attacks. "Live up to the rules," indeed. No biblical scholar, he.

O'Keefe got bankrolled at least in part by the ultra-conservative Leadership Institute, a fact that only emerged after O'Keefe had graduated, as this likely would have made him look too much like Rovian tool while he was a student.

See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutgers_Centurion

and here:

http://www.wheresthepaper.org/Salon05_24MyRightWingDegree.htm

and for my own amusement (read the comments on the Leadership Institute (LI)):

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:Q2fP8noF4lYJ:crnation.com/2008/03/28/crnc-field-program-update/+james+o%27keefe+LI&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Peace out, y'all. And relax -- these folks are *exactly* as dumb as they look.

[47of74]

31. Nice...another reason not to trust anything a Republican says or does.

[NashVegas]

32. They're Using PP's Own Compassion and Non-Judgmentalism As a Weapon Against Them

[Hugabear]

33. Isn't videotaping inside a clinic against the law?

This woman is clearly an anti-choice right-wing nutjob; she was on Glen Beck's show explaining how she went "undercover" with a hidden camera, and LIED about her situation in order to pull a "gotcha". She clearly has an anti-choice agenda.

For starters, we don't even know if she's telling us the truth. She's obviously willing to lie about her identity, how do we know if the whole thing isn't just some bullshit fake? But even assuming she's telling the truth, isn't it illegal to bring videocameras or recording devices into places like these? Could she not be prosecuted for this?

[bitchkitty]

40. Idiotic ungrateful twat

I suppose she'd like to go back to the 50s? I hate sanctimonious little assholes like this. Trick people who want to help her, so she can be a Youtube star?

Lila Rose, you fucking stink.

[No Elephants]

46. First, what's up wtih the LA Times" "Anti-abortion?" What happened to anti-choice or, at worst,

pro-life? Like many, many Democrats, I am anti abortion, but pre-choice.

Second, I miss the good old days when Massachusetts and UCLA were "hotbeds of liberalism." sigh.

But, this, um, young woman is costing kids sex education. Not to mention that she, a Christian, is using misleading practices to accomplish her anti-choice agenda. Sure she sends the full tape aloneg with the five minute version. Which does she think people are really going to watch, start to finish?

[No Elephants]

49. The real story here is that Republicans, aided and abetted by churches, are

indoctinating people at very young ages. Church Youth Groups. leadership conferences, even books for very young kids. (Think Mrs. Cheney.)

Churches have also been infiltratiing schools by offering courses like "American History" free of charge to the school.

Getting 'em young is very effective, IMO. Democrats need to wake up and smell the indoctrination.

[ohheckyeah]

52. With all of the opposition to abortion

and the far right groups looking for any excuse to shut down Planned Parenthood it is imperative these clinics keep everything legal and above board.

Does anybody here know anything about David Reardon and the Elliot Institute? Here's a quote from him: “Unlike pregnancies resulting from rape, most incest pregnancies are actually desired, at least at a subconscious level, in order to expose the incest.”

There are lots of off shoots owned by Reardon that are spreading lots of lies and statistics that are pure crap.

The best way to fight them is with facts and keeping it all legal.

[No Elephants]

58. Opposition to CHOICE, not opposition to abortion. Abortion has no cheerleaders of whom I am aware.

[ohheckyeah]

61. No, their opposition is to abortion

for any reason and under any circumstances. You don't have to be a cheerleader to believe there are situations for which abortion is the best answer. I'm glad abortion is available as an option but I don't wave pom poms and cheer it's use.

[surrealAmerican]

54. Perhaps they would have reported it after ...

... the pregnancy test. They had no physical evidence that anything this kid said was true.

[crimsonblue]

60. I'm confused by this...

The woman clearly misrepresented herself and lied in order to elicit an illegal outcome. I don't see how Planned Parenthood could be on the legal hook for this. Also, this could be easily solved if they demand to see valid ID for each woman that comes in, that way they can verify the age of the patient. If you have to show ID at the Emergency room, why not Planned Parenthood.