Two hundred trafficking victims, including 84 children, were recently rescued in a nationwide FBI operation. Called “Operation Cross Country,” it is being hailed as a huge success in combating human trafficking over a two-week campaign. But what is particularly concerning is that despite the Biden administration’s rightful praise for the operation, the administration continues to promote one of the most commonly used tools among traffickers to subdue and control their victims: abortion.
Abortion facilities like Planned Parenthood have repeatedly been caught looking the other way when victims of abuse, rape, and trafficking are brought in to undergo abortions — a convenient tool for abusers to cover up their crimes. Live Action’s Aiding Abusers investigation found a systemic, decades-long cover-up of child sexual abuse at Planned Parenthood. The multi-part video series covered sex trafficking, recorded cases, interviews with former workers, and more.
Numerous real-life predators were aided by Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, and Planned Parenthood even advised actors posing as traffickers to pose as the guardians of minors, encouraging them to lie about the ages of their child victims.
Planned Parenthood is well known to trafficking victims, according to a report published by the Annals of Health Law in 2014. It was noted that survivors had “significant contact with clinical treatment facilities, most commonly Planned Parenthood.” Survivors testified to having multiple abortions, often at the demand of their pimps, with one specifically saying Planned Parenthood was chosen because “[they] didn’t ask any questions”:
I got pregnant six times and had six abortions during this time. Several of them were from a doctor who was a client — he did them back door — I came in the back door after hours and paid them off the books. This kept my name off any records…At least one of my abortions was from Planned Parenthood because they didn’t ask any questions.
Other studies have similarly found that traffickers rely heavily on abortion to keep their victims able to work.
To rescue the victims in Operation Cross Country, the FBI worked with 200 state and local agencies across the country, in which 85 suspects of child sex exploitation and human trafficking were either arrested or identified. Among the 84 children who were rescued, 37 were listed as actively missing. The youngest child was just 11 years old, while the average age of the victims was 15.5 years old.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said that human trafficking is one of the most “heinous” crimes the department faces. “Unfortunately, such crimes — against both adults and children — are far more common than most people realize,” he said. “As we did in this operation, the FBI and our partners will continue to find and arrest traffickers, identify and help victims, and raise awareness of the exploitation our most vulnerable populations.”
READ: The role of forced abortion in the sex trafficking crimes of R. Kelly and Ghislaine Maxwell
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) also agreed with Wray that, despite this operation’s success, it’s a sample of what they see on a regular basis. “The success of Operation Cross County reinforces what NCMEC sees every day. Children are being bought and sold for sex in communities across the country by traffickers, gangs and even family members,” Michelle DeLaune, President and CEO for NCMEC, said. “We’re proud to support the FBI’s efforts to prioritize the safety of children. This national operation highlights the need for all child serving professionals to continue to focus on the wellbeing of children and youth to prevent them being targeted in the first place.”
During the operation, specialists helped to reassure victims who were wary of getting involved with the system. Victims were also given resources like clothes, food, shelter, and more based on their needs.
“The Justice Department is committed to doing everything in our power to combat the insidious crimes of human trafficking that devastate survivors and their families,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “I am grateful to the dedicated professionals of the FBI and our law enforcement partners across the country for their tireless work to rescue trafficking survivors, including exploited children, to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of trafficking crimes, and to provide the services and support that survivors need and deserve.”
Yet despite Garland’s insistence that the Justice Department is doing all they can to stop human trafficking, promoting abortion does not help trafficking victims — it helps traffickers.
As the head of the Department of Justice, Merrick Garland must be aware of how abortion is intertwined with sex trafficking. Yet he has vowed to use his department to advance abortion, lining up with the rest of the Biden administration. The pro-abortion bias at the Justice Department will almost certainly cloud their judgment in dealing with this issue, even as they boast about their accomplishment in putting a dent against sex trafficking.
If Garland and his Justice Department want to stop sex trafficking, ending alliances with the abortion industry would go a long way toward this goal.
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