Monday Minute : The Difference between Privacy and Secrecy

Thoughts from our director.

The first two months of 2011 have been challenging for Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion business. They claim to be “America’s most trusted provider of reproductive health care”, but the nature and volume of the attention they are getting could threaten the trust they want to have with the American public—and rightly so.

In Kansas, a case against Planned Parenthood continues in which 107 charges have been filed for making false information, failing to maintain records, and conducting illegal late-term abortions. In Virginia, New Jersey, and New York, Planned Parenthood employees were caught telling underage girls how to get around abortion laws, hiding the age of statutory rapists, and telling pimps how to get abortions for the victims of their child-trafficking.

Fueled by this shocking evidence, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would prevent the federal government from giving money to Planned Parenthood.

Initially Planned Parenthood’s responded to their apparent cooperation with sex traffickers by claiming that the employees depicted in the videos were actually plants. After that claim turned out to be meritless, they tried to portray themselves as the victim of a heartless effort to use their culture of privacy against them.

This is the point at which they most clearly demonstrate their detachment from the rest of the “not personally profiting from abortion and contraceptives” world.If you have watched any of the videos, you will be struck by the ease with which employees fraternize with individuals who have just admitted to pimping children for sex. It is the kind of ease and comfort that comes only from familiarity.

Perhaps that specific scenario was new, but it is obvious that Planned Parenthood employees are accustomed to confronting situations that should horrify them and simply dispensing contraceptives and abortions without judgment.

When a 15-year old admits that she was impregnated by a man who is 23, the public says “call the parents, tell the cops, throw the pervert in jail”. Planned Parenthood says, “just lie about your age and we’ll say nothing.” When a pimp says he wants to be able to gets abortions for the girls he sells for sex abortions without the authorities knowing about it, the public says “the gallows at noon tomorrow”. Planned Parenthood says, “just say you’re the guardian and we won’t have to report anything”.

The public is outraged, not because they hate privacy, but because they have not been conditioned to turn a blind eye to obvious injustices in the name of protecting privacy.

Shielding information from those who have no need for it is privacy. Refusing to notify parents that their child is pregnant by a man twice her age or has a sexually transmitted disease is secrecy because parents have a right to know when their children are in danger. The rationalization involved in reaching any other conclusion makes you unworthy of the public’s trust.

In Washington State, a parental notification law cannot even receive a public hearing because Rep. Eilene Cody, the chair of the House Health Care & Wellness committee, believes it is appropriate that 14-year old girls are considered emancipated the moment they conceive. In other words, she believes parent’s have no right to know when their daughter is pregnant. The last poll Gallup did on this issue revealed that 69% of the public felt that parents should be involved when teens get pregnant.

If young women know that Planned Parenthood will get parents and authorities involved when it is appropriate, they would go to Planned Parenthood less often. This would be bad for Planned Parenthood’s revenue because pimps and girls running from their parents would fear accountability. Still, it would be good for the community and the women they serve because sex-traffickers and girls engaged in dangerous behavior would no longer have a safe haven from law enforcement and parents.

Planned Parenthood has spent their life trying to convince themselves, and those who work with them, that these unfortunate incidences are simply the tradeoff for a culture of privacy that ultimately serves women well. But deep down, they must have known the chickens would come home to roost. Now that they have, they can’t really be surprised that we no longer want to pay for their delusions.