The Health Consequences of Sex Trafficking and Their Implications for Identifying Victims in Healthcare Facilities study found that of the 66 sex trafficking victims they learned about, 55% had undergone at least one abortion. More than 30% had multiple abortions.

“The prevalence of forced abortions is an especially disturbing trend in sex trafficking,” wrote study authors Laura J. Lederer and Christopher A. Wetzel. “One victim noted that ‘in most of [my six abortions,] I was under serious pressure from my pimps to abort the babies.’ Another survivor, whose abuse at the hands of her traffickers was particularly brutal, reported 17 abortions and indicated that at least some of them were forced on her.”

What’s most disturbing is that while some of these forced abortions are “back alley” procedures, most are performed within health clinics, including Planned Parenthood. Sex trafficking victims are taken to these clinics time and time again yet despite obvious signs of abuse and the simple fact that these girls are underage, clinics fail to report the situation to police, allowing the pimps to continue to enslave their victims.

“During the time I was on the street, I went to hospitals, urgent care clinics, women’s health clinics, and private doctors,” said a trafficking survivor included in the study. “No one ever asked me anything anytime I ever went to a clinic. … I was on birth control during the 10 years I was on the streets – mostly Depo-Provera shots which I got at the Planned Parenthood and other neighborhood clinics. I also got the morning-after pill from them. I was young and so I had to have a waiver signed in order to get these.”

So many chances for this survivor to be rescued, but stories like hers are anything but uncommon in the $39 billion dollar a year sex trafficking business.

“At least one of my [six] abortions was from Planned Parenthood because they didn’t ask any questions,” said another survivor. “But they were expensive and on the street you didn’t want to pay $250, $300, or more. So you went ‘back door’ where the charge was more like $150. I had so much scar tissue from these abortions because there was no follow-up and in a couple of cases I had bad infections, so bad that I eventually lost my fallopian tubes [and had to have a hysterectomy].”

Not only did clinic workers not question why these young girls were being brought in for abortions and birth control, but those who did know what was happening chose to ignore the evidence in order to cash in on the abortions and birth control. Plus, they didn’t want to deal with pesky laws mandating that sex crimes be reported.

In one case reported in the study, a 15-year-old girl went to Planned Parenthood which, rather than help her, chose to falsify her medical records, marking the assault as consensual sex because they didn’t want to deal with the “hassle of having to report the assault to law enforcement.” In this case, there were eleven other victims that could have been saved if this one girl’s assault had been reported.

One would think that health clinics, especially Planned Parenthood, which constantly boasts about how much it cares for women and girls, would go above and beyond to help sex trafficking and sexual assault victims escape their pimps and abusers. Instead, they have done the opposite. It was discovered in this study, and in a Live Action undercover investigation as well. In addition, Life Dynamics released a report of 60 cases in which underage girls were raped by older men such as step-fathers, taken to clinics for abortions, and then sent home with their rapists.

Meanwhile, pregnancy centers such as Care Net are training their staffs to know the signs of sexual assault and trafficking in order to help girls escape the clutches of their abusers.

The Health Consequences of Sex Trafficking and Their Implications for Identifying Victims in Healthcare Facilities study found that of the 66 sex trafficking victims they learned about, 55% had undergone at least one abortion. More than 30% had multiple abortions.

“The prevalence of forced abortions is an especially disturbing trend in sex trafficking,” wrote study authors Laura J. Lederer and Christopher A. Wetzel. “One victim noted that ‘in most of [my six abortions,] I was under serious pressure from my pimps to abort the babies.’ Another survivor, whose abuse at the hands of her traffickers was particularly brutal, reported 17 abortions and indicated that at least some of them were forced on her.”

What’s most disturbing is that while some of these forced abortions are “back alley” procedures, most are performed within health clinics, including Planned Parenthood. Sex trafficking victims are taken to these clinics time and time again yet despite obvious signs of abuse and the simple fact that these girls are underage, clinics fail to report the situation to police, allowing the pimps to continue to enslave their victims.

“During the time I was on the street, I went to hospitals, urgent care clinics, women’s health clinics, and private doctors,” said a trafficking survivor included in the study. “No one ever asked me anything anytime I ever went to a clinic. … I was on birth control during the 10 years I was on the streets – mostly Depo-Provera shots which I got at the Planned Parenthood and other neighborhood clinics. I also got the morning-after pill from them. I was young and so I had to have a waiver signed in order to get these.”

So many chances for this survivor to be rescued, but stories like hers are anything but uncommon in the $39 billion dollar a year sex trafficking business.

“At least one of my [six] abortions was from Planned Parenthood because they didn’t ask any questions,” said another survivor. “But they were expensive and on the street you didn’t want to pay $250, $300, or more. So you went ‘back door’ where the charge was more like $150. I had so much scar tissue from these abortions because there was no follow-up and in a couple of cases I had bad infections, so bad that I eventually lost my fallopian tubes [and had to have a hysterectomy].”

Not only did clinic workers not question why these young girls were being brought in for abortions and birth control, but those who did know what was happening chose to ignore the evidence in order to cash in on the abortions and birth control. Plus, they didn’t want to deal with pesky laws mandating that sex crimes be reported.

In one case reported in the study, a 15-year-old girl went to Planned Parenthood which, rather than help her, chose to falsify her medical records, marking the assault as consensual sex because they didn’t want to deal with the “hassle of having to report the assault to law enforcement.” In this case, there were eleven other victims that could have been saved if this one girl’s assault had been reported.

One would think that health clinics, especially Planned Parenthood, which constantly boasts about how much it cares for women and girls, would go above and beyond to help sex trafficking and sexual assault victims escape their pimps and abusers. Instead, they have done the opposite. It was discovered in this study, and in a Live Action undercover investigation as well. In addition, Life Dynamics released a report of 60 cases in which underage girls were raped by older men such as step-fathers, taken to clinics for abortions, and then sent home with their rapists.

Meanwhile, pregnancy centers such as Care Net are training their staffs to know the signs of sexual assault and trafficking in order to help girls escape the clutches of their abusers.