February 15, 2011|By Tamara Dietrich
What is it with right-wing muckrakers that they like to play dress-up as pimps 'n hookers?
Then use that ruse to try to take down groups that serve low-income, minority-rich populations?
Two years ago, it was James O'Keefe, a pale young neocon who tricked himself out in fur, fedora and walking stick, then, accompanied by a sweet piece of eye candy, targeted offices of ACORN, a national network of 1,200 community groups that agitates for, among other things, better wages, housing and health care for the poor.
O'Keefe and his sweet piece, posing as a prostitute, videotaped encounters with a few ACORN workers, then heavily edited the tapes to suggest the workers were giving them advice on how to hide their illegal sex work, as well as taxes owed.
Before you can say "compassionate conservative," all of ACORN was demonized and defunded. Last November, it filed for bankruptcy and liquidation.
Now comes a pale young compatriot of O'Keefe's named Lila Rose, founder of the anti-abortion group Live Action, whose target of choice is an organization that annually provides ob/gyn exams, birth control, sexually transmitted disease testing and prenatal care to about 3 million women, most of them low-income. In our community, nearly half of them are minority.
But the group also provides abortions, so Rose organized video "stings" of Planned Parenthood offices in Virginia, New Jersey and New York.
Rose is an aspiring actress who at least had the good sense to hire decent stereotypes for her undercover work. In the Richmond clinic, the hidden camera shifts for a second and you can see her playacting pimp is black. But without O'Keefe's clownish costume.
Rose's pimp 'n hooker basically ask Planned Parenthood workers at 11 clinics how they could get 14- or 15-year-old sex workers, some of whom speak no English and may or may not be in the country legally, access to STD screening and birth control. And, if need be, to abortions.
All but one of the Planned Parenthood workers did the right thing. They told the clients what their policies and the law allow. Then, once the clients were gone, they notified their supervisors, who reported the encounters to the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI.
One clinic manager in New Jersey did absolutely the wrong thing. In the video, the woman is seen chummily advising the clients to have their 14-year-old sex workers lie. Lie about their ages, about their "boyfriends," about being "students."
At 14 and younger, she says, "we have to report. …We want to make it look as legit as possible."
Even this woman told her supervisor about the visit. But it was too little, too late. The head of Planned Parenthood of Central Jersey saw the video and called her behavior "repugnant."
The manager was fired, and rightly so. Again, Planned Parenthood did the right thing.
It's still not enough for fierce and chronic abortion critics, including Del. Bob Marshall of Prince William County, who annually submits a bill to forbid state and local governments from giving funds to Planned Parenthood. Even though they already don't.
Marshall blames Planned Parenthood for everything from teen sex to racial genocide to deformed babies (nature's "special punishment" for aborting firstborns). With an imagination like this, I'm surprised he never slapped on a fedora and hidden camera to visit a Planned Parenthood clinic, himself.
What extremists like Marshall, O'Keefe and Rose neglect to mention is what happens to low-income populations after groups that provide needed services are killed off in the name of ideology.
In its 40 years, for instance, ACORN had helped millions of the otherwise voiceless. Planned Parenthood has helped prevent more unwanted pregnancies than end them.
"These folks that attempt to discredit us," says Erin Zabel, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia, "have absolutely no contingency plan for these folks to receive care."
Contingency plans are harder to come by than costumes and digital cameras.
And, frankly, any ideology that would restrict federal abortion funds to victims of "forcible rape" — as opposed to date rape, the rape of a woman who's drugged and unconscious, who's mentally incompetent, etc. — has already lost the moral high ground.
Contact Dietrich at 757-247-7892 or tdietrich@dailypress.com.
