Planned Parenthood Manager Fired Over Video. LiveAction Still Blew It
By Art Gallagher
Amy Woodruff, the office manager of the Perth Amboy Planned Parenthood office caught on tape cooperating with people she believed to be engaged in underage prostitution and sex trafficking, by pro-life activists from LiveAction.org, has been fired, according to a report in the Star Ledger.
LiveAction has been subject to criticism for releasing an edited abridged version of their undercover video. In response, they have released the entire video which can be viewed here.
Yet releasing the full video of the Perth Amboy undercover visit does not tell the whole story. Nor does it absolve LiveAction of its well deserved criticism. LiveAction and their leader, Lila Rose, set their cause back with this stunt.
LiveAction’s undercover “reporters” visited Planned Parenthood offices in five states and the District of Columbia as part of their sting, including the Shrewsbury office which was visited on January 13. Planned Parenthood informed the FBI and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder of the suspected sex trafficking ring. They issued a statement to the effect that they had sought an FBI probe . The Associated Press ran a story on January 24 which quoted Rose implying that sex trafficking ring was indeed her undercover reporters:
Lila Rose, Live Action’s founder and president, described Planned Parenthood’s assertion as “very interesting.” She declined to confirm or deny that the clinic visits were part of a Live Action operation, but did indicate in a telephone interview that an undercover videotape project of some sort was in the works.
“The story that speaks loudest will be in the evidence,” she said. “I can’t comment until we release the visual evidence.”
The evidence is that Planned Parenthood did the right thing by reporting the suspected sex trafficking ring to the authorities. Rose’s response should not have been “very interesting.” It should have been to come clean and inform the FBI of her organization’s operation. Law enforcement resources could have (should have) been diverted from real threats to investigate Planned Parenthood’s report. Lives could have been lost or real sex traffickers could have victimized additional children or adult female slaves due to Rose’s recklessness.
Planned Parenthood will win the PR war over this stunt. That is very unfortunate, as Rose’s cause, to prevent taxpayer funding of abortions, is a good one.
Rose and LiveAction have damaged their credibility and that of other pro-life organizations that blindly accepted and promoted the stunt. Conservatives must resist the tempation to adopt left wing methods to advance our cause. To do so makes us no better than the lefties who attempted to blame the Arizonia shootings on conservative hate speech.
Undercover investigations are appropriate. But when your cover is blown and/or your target does the right thing, the battle has already been lost. In this case, the battle was lost and the cause was damaged.
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Don’t know where you are coming from or going w/this Art. Just when did PP go to the FBI? After they knew that someone was on to them?
I think I was pretty clear, Sean:
Planned Parenthood will win the PR war over this stunt. That is very unfortunate, as Rose’s cause, to prevent taxpayer funding of abortions, is a good one.
Rose and LiveAction have damaged their credibility and that of other pro-life organizations that blindly accepted and promoted the stunt. Conservatives must resist the tempation to adopt left wing methods to advance our cause. To do so makes us no better than the lefties who attempted to blame the Arizonia shootings on conservative hate speech.
Undercover investigations are appropriate. But when your cover is blown and/or your target does the right thing, the battle has already been lost. In this case, the battle was lost and the cause was damaged.
It could well be that PP knew that LiveAction was behind the visits. We may never know. We can only speculate on PP’s motives, unfortunatley. The fact is that they made their report and it was national news more than week before LiveAction released the video. PP did the right thing. Why they did the right thing is secondary.
PP gets to claim the high ground on the trafficking charges and claim they had a bad apple working for them, who they fired.
Rose knew that PP made the report. She knew that the “sex traffickers” were her people and that the FBI had been alerted. Yet there was no mention of that in her press release. If she did not immediately inform the FBI of her undercover sting, she should have. She could have put lives at risk.
What makes you think that Ms. Rose HADN’T informed the FBI or other law enforcement offices?
Just because she didn’t say it in her press release doesn’t mean that she didn’t.
Michael,
If she had informed the FBI she should have acknowledged that PP made the report and that she called off the FBI when she released the video.
Or, she should have countered PP’s claims that they did the right thing by releasing videos of the other 11 visits.
As it is, the public is left to conclude that PP had one bad apple that they fired and the employees of the other 11 centers did the right thing.
Live Action’s campaign with this video is not credible without releasing the other 11 videos.
With respect Art, where is the evidence that PP did report this to them in a timely manner, just because PP ‘said so’ isn’t evidence. You say in your post, “The evidence is that Planned Parenthood did the right thing”. Where is that evidence?
Where is a copy of the report to the FBI? Where is the FBI stating that they received a report? I’ve been looking and I can’t find either.
I’m not being facetious with these questions, I really want to know, they are questions that need to be answered.
Art, LiveAction has released the full, uncut versions of 7 of the 11 videos here: http://liveaction.org/blog/full-footage/
Also, after finding and reviewing the letter PP sent out it appears to have gone out 3-7 days later, not immediately.
Out of 7 clinic videos released, in only two places (Roanoke and Charlottesville) Planned Parenthood publicly said what local law enforcement they contacted.
In the case of Charlottesville, they claimed they contacted the local Albemarle police but they reported to the media that they have no record of a child sex abuse report coming from Planned Parenthood.
In the case of Roanoke, it looks like someone at that clinic did the right thing and contacted police the same day, i wouldn’t call 1 out of 7 good, nor would anyone else.
[…] Parenthood for alerting the FBI about a potential multistate sex trafficking ring. Amy Woodruff, the Planned Parenthood office manager, was fired. Frank Pallone was silent on the matter. The Asbury Park Press issued an inaccurate editorial […]