By Dave Andrusko
And then there were three. Live Action, the pro-life organization which does undercover investigative work, released footage today apparently showing that, like Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas and New York, two abortion clinics in Arizona affiliated with the National Abortion Federation are willing to perform sex-selective abortions.
The video takes on additional significance because it is a felony to knowingly perform a sex-selection abortion in Arizona and because the House of Representatives did not pass a bill to ban sex-selection abortions nationwide.
The Tucson Women’s Center and the Camelback Family Planning in Phoenix are the two NAF-affiliate abortion clinics featured in the latest video. Persons identified as staff are shown promising to ignore the law and perform a sex-selective abortion (employees at both clinics admit what they are being asked to do is against the law) and coaching a woman to lie on official paperwork.
The Daily Caller’s Caroline May writes that
At the Camelback clinic, a counselor named Barb tells the Live Action actor hoping to abort her child due to its sex not to mention her motive.
“Don’t tell us that, because we don’t want to know.” Barb tells the actor in reference to the clinic’s abortion doctor, Live Action identifies as Gabrielle Goodrick. “You can tell her, she’s gonna tell you the same thing, just: ‘Don’t let it be known!’ She’s really good about that. You’ll like that about her.”
At the Tucson Women’s Center a surgical assistant named Francisco tells the actor that the clinic could be forced out of business if its staff were to knowingly perform sex-selective abortions, but assures her that he will not reveal her secret.
“We cannot terminate an abortion on sex. We could lose our license,” he says explaining the law. After some assurance from the actor that she will not tell the doctor, Francisco responds, ”I’ll just forget about it.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, NAF had not publicly responded to Live Action’s video and charges.
As reported Tuesday in NRL News Today, Planned Parenthood seems to be trying to muddy what its position clearly has been (and is) on sex-selection abortions: that it will perform abortion for any reason, and in fact will not inquire as to the reason, except in jurisdictions in which it is illegal.
A letter to the editor of the Washington Post, written by Chloe Cooney, PPFA’s director of global advocacy, that appeared Monday begins with the ritual denunciations of the Live Action videos (they are “hoaxes” that are “heavily edited”). Cooney then adds, “Planned Parenthood opposes sex-selection abortions.”
But read carefully, the letter does not say PPFA won’t do these abortions, merely that “Planned Parenthood opposes sex-selection abortions.” Just another attempt by PPFA to have it both ways.
So what does “Planned Parenthood opposes sex-selection abortion” mean? In Cooney’s letter you find a response very similar to the initial statement issued by Leslie Kantor, PPFA’s vice president for education, after Live Action posted its first “Gendercide” project video on You Tube. That is, that PPFA supposedly has thoroughly trained its staff, and “If any Planned Parenthood organization learns of an instance where a staff member has not fully followed policies or procedures, it will take swift action and remedy the situation.”
But beyond throwing an employee under the bus (as PPFA did after the first video aired), does that mean, or does that not mean, that if PPFA learns that the reason a woman wants an abortion is because the child is of the “wrong” sex, they won’t perform the abortion? If they would abort the child anyway, what difference does their alleged “opposition” make?
“Sex-selective abortion is a global search-and-destroy mission against little girls that is spreading at an alarming rate,” Live Action president Lila Rose said. “While we wait for Congress to pass the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act to ban sex-selective abortion in the U.S., state authorities should vigorously enforce Arizona’s law. The clinics supporting sex-selective abortion should be investigated, prosecuted, defunded, and delicensed immediately.”
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