An anti-abortion group's hidden-camera video has motivated County Attorney Andrew Thomas to call for legislation that would broaden an existing law that mandates that medical professionals must report child abuse.
"There aren't going to be prosecutions in this case," he said, "but there need to be changes."
Thomas is recommending legislation "to make clear the statute applies to non-professional employees and workers at medical or abortion clinics, such as clerical and triage staff, not just licensed professionals."The videos were designed to show that Planned Parenthood facilities may not be meeting their legal obligation to report the sexual abuse of minors.
In the tapes, a young adult woman posed as a 15-year-old girl. She told workers at two separate Arizona Planned Parenthood facilities that she was pregnant and that the father was an adult.
In reality, the young woman, Lila Rose, was not pregnant and was not a minor.
In the video, Rose and her friend start at a clinic on Seventh Avenue in Phoenix where a Planned Parenthood worker, her face obscured, tells the women that they will need to see a counselor.
Rose and her friend then describe the father of the child as being "a lot older than me."
They want to know if there will be a lot of questions if he pays for an abortion.
"No," the Planned Parenthood worker is shown saying. "We don't ask a lot of questions."
The worker then sends the young women to a second facility on Seventh Street in Phoenix.
There, they speak with a clinician who says, "I mean everything is confidential here, you know what I mean?"
Thomas called the video tapes a "ruse" because the women were posing as victims.
But he said there is a "glitch" in the law because it specifies "medical professionals" but not necessarily the triage workers who make contact with the clients.
Planned Parenthood said procedures have changed since the video was recorded in July. The changes were put into place before the group Live Action started posting their videos.
Now, clinicians are trained in how to talk to all patients.
Also, young women or girls who appear to be victims of a crime are told up-front that Planned Parenthood has a legal obligation to share suspicions with law enforcement.
Clinicians are now responsible for the reporting of any suspicions. Previously, that was likely to be a counselor's role.
After the tapes were released, Cynde Cerf, director of communication and marketing for Planned Parenthood Arizona, said that from Feb. 1 to March 20 of this year, Planned Parenthood Arizona reported 24 cases of suspicions of abuse.
Thomas said that Planned Parenthood went to the Phoenix Police Department before the tapes were released and asked to receive additional training on reporting suspected abuse of minors.
That training has not yet occurred.
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