Lila Rose tells the Values Voter Summit she wishes abortions would be performed in the public square. Via YouTube.

The grainy video, filmed in Bloomington, Ind., last year, features a young woman with bleach-blonde hair fidgeting in her chair. As haunting music loops over her small voice, she tells a Planned Parenthood worker that she’s 13 years old, almost 14. She mentions an older boyfriend. The worker says Indiana law dictates that people 13 years old or under who have had intercourse must be reported to Child Protective Services. The timestamp in the corner of the screen skips back and forth. The video lingers accusingly on a clip, edited to repeat multiple times, of the worker saying she didn’t hear the boyfriend’s age. It fades into black.

Lila Rose, the 21-year-old woman behind an undercover video campaign against Planned Parenthood, as well as the actress in most of her recordings, is scheduled to travel to Minnesota to speak at a benefit dinner for Pro-Life Action Ministries in Brooklyn Center on Monday.

Following the successful bipartisan push to defund ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) after a similar undercover video campaign, abortion opponents are refocusing their energy on Planned Parenthood. Only last weekend, following a speech in which she said she wished abortions in the United States would be conducted literally in “public squares,” Rose hosted a breakout session at the 2009 Value Voters Summit entitled “Defunding Planned Parenthood.” Participants were urged to “learn from people, like you, who have successfully stopped Planned Parenthood funding in their communities.”

Rose is a superstar in the anti-abortion movement, backing a California ballot measure to constitutionally expand the legal definition of a human to include fetuses and rubbing shoulders with Republican luminaries like Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The videos she produces are designed to fuel allegations that Planned Parenthood staff neglect to report statutory rape, as many state laws require. With only nine videos in her holster, her organization, Live Action, has managed to threaten some government funding for Planned Parenthood in Indiana, California and Tennessee — despite the fact that none of those organizations has ever used such funds for abortions.

Rose’s work faces criticism from reproductive-rights advocates who allege the videos are edited manipulatively and feature non-medical staff. It also raises ethical questions about secretly videotaping workers and the mainstream media’s careless treatment of the videos.

“Defunding Planned Parenthood”

Kathi Di Nicola, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota (PPMNS) said her organization wasn’t threatened by Rose’s impending visit.

“Serving the reproductive needs of our patients is our number-one priority, day in and day out,” Di Nicola said. “We’ve done that for 81 years in Minnesota and we’re not intimidated by those who attempt to undermine our work.”

Representatives from both PPMNS and Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) declined to comment about security measures prompted by Rose’s undercover videos or her presence in the state this week.

There’s been little direct public response to Rose’s operation from Planned Parenthood, which is, after all, no stranger to criticism. Their rejoinders have been limited to some general statements and a pair of now-withdrawn lawsuits in California.

“Ultimately, their modus operandi has been to try to minimize the scandal because clearly they want to keep operating as they are,” Rose said in an interview with the Minnesota Independent.

Planned Parenthood is accustomed to taking heat from anti-abortion activists, despite the fact that only a small proportion of the services the organization provides involve abortion, said Linnea House, executive director for NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota.

The tactic’s goal “is to get [a worker] to say something that the general public would disagree with,” House said. “It seems like what they’re trying to do is get Planned Parenthood defunded.”

Rose claims to have cost Planned Parenthood $1.1 million nationwide because of her videos. In June 2009, the Tennessee state legislature worked to revoke Planned Parenthood’s preferential status for federal Title X Family Planning funds because of outrage fueled by one of Rose’s videos that purported to show a Planned Parenthood worker telling an underage girl how to avoid statutory rape charges for her older boyfriend.

Representatives of Planned Parenthood in the greater Memphis area say the final legislation won’t really affect their funding, but that it’s more of a symbolic vote.

Rose also said her videos have led to the firing or other reprimanding of Planned Parenthood workers. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America declined to comment on specific staffing issues related to the videos, but in an e-mailed statement PPFA spokesman Diane Quest said, “Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers take all claims [of employee misconduct], regardless of their source, seriously.”

Quest said the organization is dedicated to protecting teens, and making sure they receive the medical care they need.

“Millions of parents trust that their teens will get accurate information and quality care at Planned Parenthood health centers, and affiliate staff work exceptionally hard to maintain that trust,” Quest said. “In the rare cases when an affiliate health center determines that a staff person hasn’t met Planned Parenthood’s high standards of employment, swift action is taken — action that can include retraining and other steps.”

But a leaked e-mail from Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region CEO Barry Chase to state legislators in April pointed out that the worker featured in Rose’s Memphis video was a translator, not a nurse or caregiver. That’s another common criticism of Rose’s videos; it’s often unclear who she is filming and in what context. In the e-mail, Chase refers to the Memphis video as “highly edited.”

It’s also not clear that she’s ever sat down with Planned Parenthood’s trained nurses, instead focusing on clerical or other workers. According to the PPFA, Rose never had official patient appointments or filled out any paper work.

Biased media or media bias?

Since the ACORN videos broke, the tactic of secretly videotaping the political opponents of right-wing activists has quickly gained mainstream conservative approval.

“It’s definitely a trend or even beyond a trend, it’s a growing number of people that are not just listening to the mainstream media anymore, or what used to be the mainstream media, and instead are determined to really find the facts for themselves,” Rose told the Minnesota Independent.

Such undisclosed investigations can be ethically troubling, said Jane Kirtley, professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota and member of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Committee.

“Just because you’re doing something that involves hidden camera surveillance doesn’t mean you’re doing it for journalistic purposes,” Kirtley said.

In traditional journalism circles, she said, the use of undercover cameras is regarded as a last resort, and in many states it can be illegal.

“There is this aspect of it which troubles people, the old question: Do the ends justify the means?” Kirtley said. “If you’re going to be uncovering misconduct on the part of somebody else, does that justify your engaging in something that some people think is inappropriate, like using deception?”

Kirtley said Rose’s videos, depending on how they are done, could potentially fit into the media’s watchdog role, which has often been fulfilled or supplemented by advocacy groups.

Rose, who wavers between referring to herself as a “journalist” and “activist,” readily admits that her aim is dramatic effect, shrugging off criticism that undercover videos can land her in ethically murky water. (Aside from a stint publishing a campus magazine at UCLA, Rose has no formal journalistic experience.)

“Those are diversions from the real subject at hand, which is that young girls are being abused sexually and taken in for secret abortions,” Rose said. “A lot of times, [these criticisms] are shameful diversions because what those people are saying basically is any undercover journalism and any work like this is just not OK.”

Rose points out that mainstream media shows like NBC Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” use her form of undercover journalism.  In fact, Rose turns the tables on mainstream media outlets, accusing them of political bias for not following up on her investigations.

“People get uncomfortable with certain organizations being exposed and the embarrassment it causes them because of the true horrific things that are happening behind the closed doors of those organizations,” Rose said. “They’re willing to sacrifice the public being truly informed as they should be for their own political agenda. As a journalist I find that sickening and I think that’s not right; I think the public deserves to know.”

But Kirtley said the mainstream media’s big problem resides in its rush to air videos like Rose’s without providing appropriate disclaimers or context.

“I’m not suggesting that news organizations of any stripe shouldn’t use user-generated content. There are many times where that’s absolutely appropriate and enriches the whole news-gathering and reporting experience,” Kirtley said. “If you’re taking material from a group that has an agenda, you have an obligation to be absolutely clear in rebroadcasting the material that it comes from them and you’re reporting it because of the fact that they did it and not because the content is necessarily accurate.”

Rose said her organization has prepared other videos for 2009. Although Rose won’t disclose how many undercover videos her organization has shot or where they were filmed, she said that a 2009 video based in Minnesota is a possibility.

Despite her intense involvement in anti-abortion events and activism, Rose said her mission to “defund Planned Parenthood” isn’t about abortion.

“Many [young women] are manipulated by partners or by older men [...] into getting these abortions, so definitely we’re staunchly against [abortion],” Rose said. “But even on a purely organizational level, the way that Planned Parenthood operates in accepting tax money and in manipulating women and assessing the sexual abuse cover-up is reason enough to stop taxpayer funds going to the organization.”

Linnea House of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota said the loss of any funding for the organization would hurt Planned Parenthood’s mission as the largest provider of family planning and reproductive health care in the country.

“This is basically another tool for [anti-abortion activists] to be doing some fear-mongering,” House said. “Doing these undercover exposés on an organization that is internationally and nationally known as a provider is a tactic to be used by those who don’t have a whole lot of options.”

Bachmann’s information seems to have been gleaned from right-wing media outlets that earlier this year Politifact ruled as lies.

“We see no language in the three main versions of the bill that would allow school-based clinics, which have a long history of providing basic health services to underprivileged students, to provide abortions,” the site wrote. “Nor would the clinics even be new — they have been around for three decades. So we rate the claim Pants on Fire!”

Further, as The Hill notes, any clinics established by the bill would have to follow state and local laws regarding parental consent.

Video and transcript below

But parents are going to excluded from Planned Parenthood as they write these clinics because the bill orders that these clinics protect patient privacy and student records. What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what’s going to go on — comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care — is that abortion? Does that mean that someone’s 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.

On The Daily Show yesterday, Stewart shows how conservative rhetoric on Fox has flipped. As Gawker puts it:

Stewart and his staff dug deep into the archives to find some great footage of various Fox News personalities vehemently condemning the very behaviors that they’re now so enthusiastically championing, like criticizing the president during a time of war and taking to the streets in protests. These are the types of things that liberals do! So Fox News = the new liberals!

Then comes Rep. Bachmann, whose logic about health care would seem to also apply to reproductive health. She told Sean Hannity on his Tuesday radio show that “people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions.”

As Matthew DeLong puts it at our sister site in Washington, “Somebody call Planned Parenthood. Looks like they’ve got a surprising new spokesperson.”

While it is surprising, it’s not the first time Bachmann’s used this kind of logic. During a July 22 floor speech, she tested out an appeal to pro-choicers, citing how complicated she feels reformed health care would be:

On this issue of women making a decision about whether or not to have an abortion, one of the main arguments that was proffered was: No government should get between a woman and her doctor. The government should not get between the woman and her doctor when she comes to making that decision.

Yet it’s so curious. When you look at these 33 new bureaucracies that are created, when it comes to that decision about an abortion, you’ve got 33 new bureaucracies now that are created… The government is going to be between them and their doctor in a whole new way, a big way, a 33-bureaucracy way.

According to a report (PDF) released this week by the Minnesota Department of Health, 12,948 abortions were performed in 2008 – down from 13,843 in 2007 and the lowest number since 1975.

Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota said the decrease could be attributed to affordable access to birth control.

“The best way to sustain reductions in the need for abortion is to provide accessible, affordable birth control and accurate, fact based sexuality education to all Minnesotans,” said Kathi Di Nicola, PPMNS communications director. “Planned Parenthood continues to work with the legislature and in our clinics across the state to do just that.”

Di Nicola noted that 95 percent of the care PPMNS provides comes in the form of prevention. The organization provided more than 300,000 units of contraception, nearly 58,000 tests for sexually transmitted diseases, more than 20,000 breast cancer screenings and more than 17,000 cervical cancer screenings.

“The overall decline in abortion in nearly every category is positive news and a goal that PPMNS works toward every day in our clinics across the region,” she said.

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, said the decline was due to the Positive Alternatives program, a faith-based, state-funded program that urges women considering abortion to forgo the procedure.

“This report demonstrates that Positive Alternatives is working for women and their unborn babies,” said Scott Fischbach, executive director for MCCL.

While MCCL is openly hostile to PPMNS, Di Nicola offered an olive branch in working to reduce abortions in Minnesota through education and contraception.

“We again call on groups like the MCCL join to with us in taking tangible, common-sense steps to prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion in Minnesota,” she said.

PPMNS has accepted the help of the U.S. Marshals. The group provides reproductive health services in Minnesota and the Dakotas. It is the only provider of abortion services in South Dakota.

“In the wake of the tragic murder of Dr. George Tiller, PPMNS has accepted an offer to supplement our present security with support from the U.S. Marshals Service,” Sarah Stoesz, president of PPMNS told the Washington Post. “It is critically important that we ensure the safety of our doctors, staff and patients.”

If the group’s assertion is correct, the programs cost taxpayers more than $200,000 per woman successfully treated.

Data released by the Minnesota Department of Health show a slight drop in abortions among women on medical assistance between 2006 and 2007, the most current year that data is available. Medical providers were reimbursed by the state for 3,914 procedures in 2007 compared to 3,937 in 2006, a drop of 0.6 percent.

MCCL says Positive Alternatives, a state program that encourages women to carry their pregnancy to term, was responsible for the decrease.

Positive Alternatives awards grants to 37 groups, many of which are religion-based. The Highland LifeCare Center, Inc., in St. Paul, for example, tells pregnant women, “Having an abortion may affect more than just your body and your mind — it may have an impact on your relationship with God. What is God’s desire for you in this situation? How does God see your unborn child? These are important questions to consider.”

In a press release titled, “Positive Alternatives helped to save lives, reduce taxpayer funded abortions in 2007,” MCCL executive director Scott Fischbach said, “Positive Alternatives is making a real difference for pregnant women in need. The DHS report is more proof that women are receiving the help they need to successfully face the challenges of unexpected pregnancy without resorting to abortion.”

But reproductive health advocates aren’t buying that reasoning.

“MCCL’s statement … is disingenuous at best and is probably due to a decrease in unintended pregnancies,” said Linnea House, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota.

House added that if MCCL is correct, then the figures demonstrate a colossal cost to taxpayers. The difference between 2006 and 2007 is 23 abortions among low-income women, and the Positive Alternatives program costs $4.75 million every two years, she pointed out.

“Their numbers show that this is an investment of $206,521 per woman,” said House. “By comparison, an investment in family planning programs, programs the MCCL has consistently fought against, helps nearly 50,000 women and every dollar invested will save the state at least $5 in return.”

Kathi Di Nicola, communications director for Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, agreed that the decrease is more likely attributable to family planning programs.

“We would attribute the decrease to fewer unintended pregnancies, which is likely the result of increased access to affordable, accessible family planning,” she said.

“One year’s data does not constitute a trend, but it is encouraging news for family planning providers,” she added.

House said the most effective state programs are those that prevent pregnancy in the first place.

“We know that family planning programs prevent unintended pregnancies and actually save the taxpayer money,” she said.

Photo by Lisa Yarost, Flickr

The budget proposed Tuesday by Gov. Tim Pawlenty would cut $2 million from the Family Planning Special Projects (FPSP), a grant program that funds health departments, nonprofits and tribal governments that provide family planning services to low-income Minnesotans. The cut amounts to a 20 percent reduction.

“All women, regardless of economic status, must have the same opportunity to access health care, plan and space healthy pregnancies,” said Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota. “Strong family planning is good health care policy, good public policy and makes good sense from both a fiscal and a social perspective.”

“As more and more Minnesota families lose jobs and insurance coverage, the governor should not stand between some of the most economically challenged women in the state and the health care they need to build stronger futures,” she said.

Family planning grants total $4.2 million a year.

Pawlenty says the programs can be cut because Minnesota has qualified for a Medicaid family planning program. “With the anticipated growth in persons receiving services through [Medicaid's] Family Planning Waiver, the reduction of Family Planning Special Project grant funds is not anticipated to have an impact on unintended pregnancies.”

But the Medicaid program would place greater restrictions on who could access subsidized family planning services and which agencies would be able to serve at-risk clients.

He told police that “we are in World War III and that Jesus is coming back really soon,” according to the criminal complaint. When officers arrested him, Derosia was shouting Bible verses and saying “Close down the Auschwitz death camp.”

Anti-abortion activists commonly use Nazi or Holocaust references when discussing abortion.

The Star Tribune reports that Derosia has had a history of mental illness.

He writes:

Was the act pre-meditated? Yes.
Was it a felony? Yes…if charged with felonious assault.
Was their violence to persons or property? Yes. (property damage)
Was the act intended to “terrorize, intimidate, or coerce a considerable number of members of the public in addition to the direct victims of the act”? Yes. Intended to affect all supporters of Roe v Wade.
or
Did it significantly disrupt or interfere with the lawful exercise….of lawful commerce? Yes.

Here’s the language in state law that Mindeman cites:

“a crime is committed to ‘further terrorism’ if the crime is a felony and is a premeditated act involving violence to persons or property that is intended to: (1) terrorize, intimidate, or coerce a considerable number of members of the public in addition to the direct victims of the act; and (2) significantly disrupt or interfere with the lawful exercise, operation, or conduct of government, lawful commerce, or the right of lawful assembly”.

Gaertner is running for governor in 2010.

One place to compare notes on the line between protest and terrorism is at a 3-6 p.m. town hall meeting on Sunday, Jan. 25 at Walker Church, 3100 16th Ave. S., Minneapolis, to discuss the defense of the eight RNC protesters charged with terrorism. Speakers will include retired FBI agent and TIME Magazine 2002 Person of the Year Coleen Rowley, state Rep. Phyllis Kahn, Macalester College professor Peter Rachleff.

The group Planned Parenthood got much of the attention. Only hours after an anti-abortion activist slammed his SUV into a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, rally attendees held up signs condemning the reproductive health organization and MCCL speakers called for the defunding of the organization they called the “abortion industry.”

Also condemned at the rally was President Barack Obama, who was accused of having an “anti-life” agenda.