Planned Parenthood Aids Pimp's Underage Sex Ring

[Skeptic Ginger]

Again: it's not the first time I've heard these arguments. When I was a kid in the 1970s it was that we shouldn't outlaw child abuse because then the beaten children won't be able go to school because their parents will be afraid the wounds will be reported. Ergo: it should be legal in the name of child education.

My thought is that the argument for nonreporting becomes a very strange inverse moral universe.

The fact is, abuse gets reported and health care workers have no motive not to report except on some occasions a reluctance to believe the evidence if it involves making a serious accusation against someone, but that is not the subject of this discussion.

So let me ask you what you think a provider faced with the following entrapment scenario should do, assuming you don't know the caller is lying:

Person on the phone claims to have gonorrhea (GC) symptoms and says she is 13 and her boyfriend is 22. But she wants assurance her boyfriend won't be reported or she absolutely will not come in for treatment.

The law allows the provider to give the girl antibiotics to give her boyfriend, the boyfriend need not show up.

How do you respond? Do you think the statutory rape law in this case takes precedent over good medical judgement? Are you, as a medical provider, obligated to be a law enforcement agent or is your obligation to provide the best medical care your higher priority?

Is it not reasonable to agree on the phone to the girl's request with the goal of trying to intervene in the abuse situation after you are face to face with the girl? Or even to try to intervene to stop the abusive relationship but not doing it through the legal path of the statutory rape law?

Consider that as an experienced women's health care provider, you would likely be familiar with your community and it is common that in some communities, 13 yr old girls are streetwise, have had multiple partners, and simply are not the innocent little kids the law was intended to protect. I'm not referring to deserving the same protection, of course they do. I'm referring to the reality of life for some teens that legislators are often very naive about when they write the laws.

Also consider that as an experienced women's health care provider, you might also know that a girl like the one presenting on the phone may have multiple partners, that GC in women can have mild symptoms and unrecognized infections contribute to the spread of the disease. As a health care provider you would be obligated to report GC and by law you have an obligation to carry out certain interventions to protect potentially exposed individuals. That includes an obligation to inform exposed individuals to seek treatment. Sometimes one does that via the public health agency, sometimes health care providers get assurances from the patient the patient will do it, and sometimes the health care provider informs the exposed person directly if the patient can't or won't do it.


So when you say,

Obeying the law is not a hard decision.

I say you are not aware of the facts, such as the facts I've described above.

I'm confused, because it follows from your above reasoning that mandatory reporting for children would be a bad idea. It would follow that parents would not bring their abused children in to healthcare, lest the abuse be reported and they be held liable (see the anecdote from my childhood above).

I don't see why it would be different for children.

It doesn't follow. You've made a false assumption here with this analogy. Abusive parents already avoid bringing their injured children in to be seen. When they do bring the kids in, they also come in expecting their lie about the injury to be believed. So mandatory reporting of child abuse is not much of a factor when it comes to children getting care. The kids are not the decision maker.

And very few (probably no) abusive parents would be admitting they injured their child to the health care provider even if there wasn't a law. It's not socially acceptable to admit abuse even to friends and family.

I'm not sure where you heard the argument you are making that what you describe was ever argued as a reason not to enact mandatory child abuse reporting laws. Do you have a source? Or was it just specific to school employees being put on the mandatory reporter list?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

To be fair to Live Action, they did post what they said was unedited video from the New Jersey and Richmond videos at least. As TraneWreck has already pointed out, though, this was promptly used to show that the audio in the Richmond video was wrong. So I'm not sure whether to give them credit for being at least partially honest or just call them stupid and possibly also arrogant for thinking we're stupid.

To be fair, how about reassessing L.A.'s honesty? Had they found evidence first, supporting their phishing expedition, you might only fault them for poor study design. But as it stands, I fault them for portraying a totally false picture of PP, even with unedited tapes. See my previous posts on how this distorts the facts in ways besides editing their videos.

They're called witch-hunts for a reason.

 

[Upchurch]

To be fair, how about reassessing L.A.'s honesty? Had they found evidence first, supporting their phishing expedition, you might only fault them for poor study design. But as it stands, I fault them for portraying a totally false picture of PP, even with unedited tapes.

This.

 

[Arcade22]

Is it not reasonable to agree on the phone to the girl's request with the goal of trying to intervene in the abuse situation after you are face to face with the girl? Or even to try to intervene to stop the abusive relationship but not doing it through the legal path of the statutory rape law?

Why do you assume it's abusive?

 

[Upchurch]

Why do you assume it's abusive?

The given example was a 13 year old having sex with a 22 year old. It's abusive.

 

[Lyrandar]

To be fair, how about reassessing L.A.'s honesty? Had they found evidence first, supporting their phishing expedition, you might only fault them for poor study design. But as it stands, I fault them for portraying a totally false picture of PP, even with unedited tapes. See my previous posts on how this distorts the facts in ways besides editing their videos.

They're called witch-hunts for a reason.

I agree wholeheartedly. I just don't think accusations of editing will help without solid evidence to back them up (as the article TraneWreck cited did).

 

[Arcade22]

The given example was a 13 year old having sex with a 22 year old. It's abusive.

Now you're going to have to explain how that works out, preferably using logic.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Now you're going to have to explain how that works out, preferably using logic.

If you're going to argue against the premises for statutory rape, namely the premise that minors cannot consent, then that seems like it would be a topic for a brand new thread, no?

 

[Upchurch]

Now you're going to have to explain how that works out, preferably using logic.

Because a 13 year old does not have the capacity to give consent. A 22 year old would be taking advantage of that inability. Assuming it isn't straight out violent, the 22 year old is abusing a position of trust. Ergo, abusive.

...with logic.

If you're going to argue against the premises for statutory rape, namely the premise that minors cannot consent, then that seems like it would be a topic for a brand new thread, no?

Probably

 

[carlitos]

That guy sure seemed like he needed a lot of help with his fake underage sex ring.

I guess Snoop Dogg Ice T was right, pimpin' ain't easy.

fixed!

 

[TraneWreck]

fixed!

Go to the historical source for that bit of wisdom:

 

[tyr_13]

Just to clarify, are you stating it's a fact people believe the lie, or are you stating the people who believe the lie somehow counters the evidence?


I am very familiar with all the facts in the ACORN case from John Fund's book of voter fraud lies to Federal Prosecutor McKay being fired for refusing to participate in the Bush/Rove abuse of the Justice Department for political gain. ACORN was falsely maligned and anyone who looked past the sadly effective propaganda campaign could have easily seen the fraud.

I'm saying that some people believe the lie. That doesn't effect the evidence one way or the other as belief has no bearing on reality.

 

[johnny karate]

Never underestimate the power of propaganda.

And how about the pervasive liberal slant in that piece?

 

[Beerina]

If you're going to argue against the premises for statutory rape, namely the premise that minors cannot consent, then that seems like it would be a topic for a brand new thread, no?

We've been down that road; it's one of the skeptic movement's poster childern -- the famous study showing 14 and 15 year olds who had sex with adults (simple consent*) had no statistical increase in mental difficulties or troubles later in life, and most certainly nothing akin to "being mauled by a large dog". Indeed, many remembered it fondly.

Congress then lambasted the study, the Senate voting 99-0 that it was, umm, invalid because they said so and it outraged their voters, I guess. A long investigation by a scientific review board found nothing in error per se, with the objections and attempts to crush it being political.

There have been a number of follow-up articles over the years.



* As simple consent correlated well with a lack of issues, there was no need to try to delve into the chimera of "meaningful consent", which evaporates as a concept.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Why do you assume it's abusive?

Personally I think it depends, but I'm willing to defer to how the law defines statutory rape if the law is reasonable. The age of consent really depends on social norms as much as any kind of absolute. It is assumed that a much older person has an unequal advantage over a younger teen. In this state statutory rape is defined as sex with a teen under age 14 and with at least a 5 year older sex partner or a partner who has a position of authority over the teen. I think that is a better definition than just some arbitrary age cutoff.

My own experience gives me a much different view of what is consensual sex than a lot of people. Like I mentioned earlier, some of my friends were having sex at 12. It was younger than the norm, I'm sure, but it was most definitely consensual and not coerced. If you are going to make it illegal, it should be illegal for both in those circumstances, not somehow assumed to be the older person coercing the younger.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Now you're going to have to explain how that works out, preferably using logic.

Again, some things are decided by social norms and not personal opinion. If the law says so and it is otherwise reasonable, I don't have a problem with a social norm being used to define statutory rape. How do you decide what is and what isn't in a court of law if you don't define it?

Surely there is one end of the continuum that is clearly abuse and one end that isn't. But where the line is in the middle is probably better decided by the group (IE society) and not the individual. Of course there are exceptions. When the line is decided by religious rules rather than social norms, our secular society suggests that would not be a reasonable law.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Because a 13 year old does not have the capacity to give consent. A 22 year old would be taking advantage of that inability. Assuming it isn't straight out violent, the 22 year old is abusing a position of trust. Ergo, abusive.

...with logic.


Probably

I'd say more like, depends on the 13 yr old, than "probably". Did you happen to see that link I posted for the Frontline episode on the syphilis outbreak in Conyers, Georgia?

Young teens may make a lot of mistakes and not always use the best judgement. But the reality of some kids' lives are that at 12-13, those kids are fully responsible for their own decisions. The law in some states allow 12 yr olds to be tried as adults. If you can find a 12 yr old responsible for a decision to murder, why not for a decision to have sex?

 

[Upchurch]

I'd say more like, depends on the 13 yr old, than "probably".

The "probably" was for ALB's comment about it being a topic for another thread.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Never underestimate the power of propaganda.

And how about the pervasive liberal slant in that piece?

Care to point it out and support your conclusion? I think I've supported the problem with making calls like these and then claiming it is common for PP to not report abuse. There's no evidence teens or pimps are making these requests ever. So the entrapment makes it look like something is happening because it could happen, not because it does happen.

And I also posted many things the health care provider on the phone would be considering that the entrapment fails to show.

So what backs up your claim?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The "probably" was for ALB's comment about it being a topic for another thread.

Oh.