In light of recent news about the conviction of Harvey Weinstein on two counts of felony sex crimes. and in the ongoing era of the #MeToo movement, let’s take a look back at some recent sexual abuse allegations that have shaken the ‘abortion rights’ movement.
1. Harvey Weinstein
The most well known predator from the #MeToo movement is Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. As previously detailed by Live Action News, this predator was a friend of Planned Parenthood. He even attended Planned Parenthood’s 100th anniversary gala in New York City where he dropped $100,000 in support of the nation’s number one abortion provider.
Harvey Weinstein attends a Planned Parenthood fundraiser (Image: Twitter)
2. Anthony Weiner
Disgraced New York congressman Anthony Weiner was a staunch advocate of abortion, even speaking at Planned Parenthood rallies. He was released from prison last year after he pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor. “With full knowledge that he was communicating with a real 15-year-old girl, the defendant asked her to engage in sexually explicit conduct via Skype and Snapchat, where her body was on display, and where she was asked to sexually perform for him,” prosecutors wrote, according to NPR.
3. National Abortion Federation (NAF)
In June of 2018, the pro-abortion website RewireNews published claims by several NAF staffers that they were frustrated with the lack of response from NAF over repeated sexual harassment allegations against the organization’s head of security. Some staffers claimed they felt pressure not to speak out publicly because, as one staffer admitted, it “hurts the movement.”
NAF eventually suspended the staffer.
4. Guttmacher Institute
Also in June of 2018, Live Action News documented how “The Guttmacher Institute, the former ‘special affiliate’ of Planned Parenthood, announced the termination of their Vice President of Domestic Research, Dr. Lawrence B. Finer, for allegations of ‘inappropriate sexual behavior’ toward current and former Institute employees.” Guttmacher even admitted they were lax in handling the complaint:
Dr. Finer was immediately placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of a comprehensive investigation. Based on what the investigation has uncovered, we terminated his employment on June 22…. While we believed at the time that we had resolved the complaint adequately, we now know that the actions we took were not nearly enough to address the problem.
Finer denied the charge and later sued Guttmacher, according to RewireNews which reported, “In his lawsuit, Finer accuses top officials at the organization of ‘making false, ruinous statements’ about him and exposing him to ‘public hatred, contempt, aversion and disgrace, and induc[ing] an evil and unsavory opinion of him in the minds of a substantial number in the community.”
5. Abortionist Willie Parker accused of sexual assault
Willie Parker once accused of sexual abuse
Live Action News reported one year ago this month how abortionist Willie Parker, who sat on the board of several pro-abortion organizations, was accused of sexual assault. The accusation was published by Medium writer and abortion rights advocate Candice Russell, but Parker later denounced the claims.
A year later, Maggie Bullock at The Atlantic revisited the legitimacy of the accusations in a piece she headlined, “The #MeToo Case That Divided the Abortion-Rights Movement.” When an activist accused one of the most respected physicians in the movement of sexually assaulting her, everyone quickly took sides.”
Bullock wasn’t flattering to Russell at all, even casting doubt on her claims. While The Atlantic writer described Parker as a “black, devoutly Christian ob-gyn,” she said of his accuser, “Russell is what anti-abortion activists call an ‘abortion survivor.’ When her mother was 14 and about to have what would have been her third abortion, she decided at the last minute to keep her baby, Candice….” (Bullock’s description of an “abortion survivor,” however, is inaccurate. An abortion survivor is a child who survives an attempted abortion, not a child whose mother changes her mind before an abortion has been attempted.) She then described Russell’s mother as “a stripper and sometime sex worker, [who] was addicted to meth and heroin,” claiming, Russell “struggles with mental illness.”
Bullock wrote in part:
Russell did not report Parker to the police, and unlike, say, the cases of Matt Lauer at NBC or even Al Franken in the Senate, a workplace investigation was never on the table: The activist and the doctor operated in the same sphere, but they weren’t colleagues. Instead, the case of Russell versus Parker has been battled out largely on message boards and in closed-door conversations within the insular, impassioned realm of abortion rights, among people, mostly women, for whom the cause of bodily autonomy was a calling long before the dawn of the #MeToo movement….
She later added, “Grassroots activists told me that the stain of doubt Russell’s charges put on Parker immediately rendered his presence untenable at meetings and conferences, particularly because they’re valued as “safe spaces” for people who are regularly subject to ugly threats….” But Bullock also noted, “There is no evidence that the conflict over Parker, or his sidelining, seriously damaged the abortion-rights cause. But it did open up one more rift in a movement that some see as already full of them, at an extremely risky time for the future of abortion access.”
NARAL on WIllie Parker hero and sexual abuse allegations
Bullock wasn’t alone in expressing doubt over Russell’s story. Abortion advocate Katha Pollitt at The Nation asked in her recent piece, “Why didn’t movement leaders follow longtime black feminists Loretta Ross and Toni Bond and resist the rush to judgment?”
6. Planned Parenthood
Live Action’s Aiding Abusers report and docuseries exposed allegations of a decades-long cover-up of child sexual abuse by Planned Parenthood. The report documents serious allegations of a failure of Planned Parenthood to follow mandatory reporting laws. This information was gleaned from court cases, civil lawsuits, health report documents, former staffers, and undercover investigations.
The abortion industry has had its share of sexual abuse accusations, media darling abortionists jailed for rape, and abortion doctors with predatory histories. Today, despite these well documented cases, many pro-choice “journalists” allow their support of abortion to keep them from doing real investigative reporting. And, even in the face of proof, Planned Parenthood’s media complicity machine remains quiet, resulting in sexual abuse victims being forgotten.
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