Media

Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star gets 5 things wrong about Planned Parenthood tapes

By Newsroom | February 17, 2011 , 12:06am

Truth and Lies Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star has used her editorial space to parrot Planned Parenthood talking points and mislead the public. It’s time to set the record straight.

1. Sanchez smears video credibility by repeating false editing claim

First, Sanchez writes about videos done by other groups calling them “heavily and misleadingly edited videos” and then unfairly ties Live Action to those characterizations by saying “and now here we go again.”

Later Sanchez calls our videos “very obviously edited” in an attempt to discredit them.

Our response: Well, the abridged videos are edited for brevity, but ALL abridged videos from the project have a link directly to the full, uncut tape on screen. Sanchez is giving the false impression that the videos are some hatchet job when we have put the full tape out to the public for their viewing. Sanchez’s false claims are an outright deception of the public.

2. Sanchez makes false claim about abortion funding

Sanchez repeated a common but incorrect line that “federal funds do not provide abortions.”

Our response: The US federal government currently funds abortion in the District of Columbia.

3. Sanchez throws ad hominem attack at Live Action

Sanchez writes “I don’t see organizations like Live Action doing much to help the poor.” The truth is, Live Action is a mostly student-run group that operates on a very limited budget — $130,000 budget in 2010. We are a small collection of young people exposing extraordinary corruption and abuses. Instead of holding Planned Parenthood accountable and demanding they fix their problems, Sanchez wants to attack a bunch of college students that she has never met for not doing enough to help the poor. Without getting into everyone’s personal details, I can tell you that the Live Action leadership team is some of the most compassionate people that one will ever meet. They are highly involved in youth programs and community service and to smear our character because we exposed problems at Planned Parenthood is completely unjustified. We don’t receive a dime of money from the government, and unlike Planned Parenthood who receives a whopping $363,300,000, we don’t then proceeds to go and violate the public trust.

4. Sending a letter almost a week later is not “the right protocols”

Sanchez says:

Even in the instance where the worker was fired, superiors were alerted after the actors left, and Planned Parenthood followed the right protocols. Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder warning of the possibility of an inter-state sex trafficking ring and requesting federal investigation. The letter is dated January 18…”

Our response: Our undercover video in Perth Amboy, New Jersey was shot January 13th – 5 days before Planned Parenthood sent a letter to the FBI. If Sanchez thinks that 5 days to report child sex abuse is “the right protocols” then she is sorely mistaken. The law requires immediate reporting, and on this Planned Parenthood has not produced documentation showing compliance. To believe that 5 days is an acceptable length of time to report child sex abuse is unconscionable.

5. “Live Action videos have proved nothing”

Let’s take a trip down memory lane…

Live Action discovers child sex abuse cover-up at Bloomington, IN Planned Parenthood. Employee was fired after public outrage.

Live Action discovers child sex abuse cover-up at Indianapolis, IN Planned Parenthood. Employee resigned after video release.

Allegedly impregnated 14-year-old is told by Planned Parenthood to lie about age of much older statutory rapist. Planned Plarenthood said the employee on the video left Planned Parenthood sometime after the video was shot but before it was released:

A Planned Parenthood of Alabama clinic was caught violating the state parental consent law and child sexual abuse reporting requirements. The state health department launched an investigation following the release of this video and found numerous real case violations which resulted in the clinic being placed on probation.

Wisconsin Planned Parenthood failed to report sexual abuse of a minor girl as required by law. The state CEO them proceeded to lie about the incident as seen in the second video below.