Planned Parenthood of Indiana orders retraining after video surfaces

Francesca Jarosz

December 20, 2008 by Francesca Jarosz | Star staff

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Planned Parenthood of Indiana leaders pledged Friday to reinforce their commitment to protecting minors after recently released videos showed employees at two Indiana clinics disregarding claims of child abuse.Health center employees at Planned Parenthood’s 35 clinics statewide have been retrained over the past two weeks in state requirements to report suspected child abuse, said Betty Cockrum, president and chief executive at Planned Parenthood of Indiana. The group also will work with a child-abuse prevention agency to provide additional training to staff.The employees shown in the videos no longer work for the agency. The Bloomington worker was fired a few days after being suspended, and the Indianapolis counselor resigned Thursday, Cockrum said.“We’re not going to let this go — this is a very serious situation,” said Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kate Shepherd. “(Reporting) always has been taken seriously, but we want to make sure there’s no confusion.”Planned Parenthood’s announcement came a day after the Marion County prosecutor’s office said an investigative team would examine video footage depicting a counselor at an Indianapolis clinic dismissing a claim of abuse.The investigation will determine whether there are charges brought against Planned Parenthood or individual employees and what the possible charges could be, said Mario Massillamany, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.“We just want to make sure first the information is accurate, and then go forward and see if the facts fit into the standard of it being a crime, a (Class) B misdemeanor,” Massillamany said.At the maximum, that would mean 180 days in jail upon conviction.A video recorded in June and released this week by anti-abortion group Live Action Films showed a woman from the group visiting the clinic at 8590 Georgetown Road while posing as a 13-year-old girl. She told the counselor she had been impregnated by a 31-year-old boyfriend and wanted an abortion.In the video, which was edited by the group, the counselor told the girl she could get an abortion in surrounding states without parental consent and assured her the conversation about her boyfriend’s age would be confidential.Indiana law stipulates a duty to report sexual acts between adults and children younger than 14 to law enforcement or child welfare authorities.Live Action is a “youth-led human rights movement dedicated to universal life rights and respect for all,” according to its Web site. The group has leaders from three universities in California and one in Oregon and has done tapings at other clinics in different cities.Earlier this month, similar footage was recorded by the same group at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bloomington.Bob Miller, chief deputy prosecutor for Monroe County, said his office is not pursuing an investigation because no one has made a complaint to a police agency, which would have to investigate the incident for the prosecutor to bring charges.The Marion County prosecutor’s office has a grand jury section with an investigative unit that can handle such cases.Marion County’s case could become additionally complex because the woman in both videos was Lila Rose, who actually is 20 years old. She is president of Live Action’s University of California-Los Angeles chapter.Massillamany said case law suggests that if prosecutors can prove the counselor had a reason think the girl was 13, they can prove she broke the law by not reporting it.A sampling of law professors agreed with that interpretation of the law and said the case is comparable to detectives who find criminals through undercover work.“State of mind is a pretty important element of all criminal cases,” said Lisa Decker, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Indiana State University who also is a former police officer and prosecutor. “That’s what you’re really getting at — what the person was intending to do.”Defendants in a case such as this could argue that they didn’t believe the girl was 13, but in many cases involving undercover detectives who pose as children online to catch sexual predators, those arguments have not held up, said Joel Schumm, a clinical professor of law at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis who teaches a juvenile justice course.Rose said Friday that her group did an “excellent job” of portraying her as age 13 and expressed support for the investigation.“(Planned Parenthood) needs to be thoroughly investigated by Indiana authorities and held accountable for their criminal activity and the cover-up of the sexual abuse of children,” she said.Cockrum said her group has sent a letter to Live Action requesting raw footage of the incidents at the clinics but has not yet received a response.Rose would not comment on Cockrum’s request.Planned Parenthood has a chart in each of its clinics stipulating when consensual sex between minors and adults should be reported. The organization also provides training to patient services employees on reporting abuse and outlines it extensively in its procedural manual. The additional training is designed to reinforce the law.“We will leave no stone unturned,” Cockrum said, “to ensure we get this right in every single instance.”

Categories: Communities, Metro & State

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marion county prosecutor, planned parenthood of indiana, child abuse prevention, live action films, class b misdemeanor, Planned Parenthood, georgetown road, kate shepherd, prevention agency, cockrum, investigative team, old boyfriend, serious situation, additional training, video footage, health center, old girl, counselor, spokeswoman, abortion, topstories, Metro, Metro & State

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