Planned Parenthood which has covered child rape sponsors campaign to “Start by Believing” rape victims

A campaign to bring awareness to rape and sexual assault in Austin has been sponsored by a Planned Parenthood center even though nationally the organization has been caught covering child rape.

The Start by Believing campaign is teaming up with law enforcement, medical and mental health providers, and community organizations, to change the community — and outcomes for victims — one response at a time.

From the website:

A friend or family member is typically the first person a victim confides in after an assault, and each person’s reaction is the first step in a long path toward justice and healing. Knowing how to respond is critical—a negative response can worsen the trauma and foster an environment where sexual assault predators face zero consequences for their crimes. Research documents that rapists attack an average of six times, which means that one failed response can equal, on average, five more victims. Start by Believing helps to lead the way toward stopping this cycle by creating a positive community response, informing the public, uniting allies and supporters, and improving our personal reactions.

An online pledge from the group states, “When someone tells me they were raped or sexually assaulted, I… start by believing.”

Having a sponsor like Planned Parenthood on this campaign is somewhat shocking given their overall record of covering for child sexual abuse.

Recent research has shown that Planned Parenthood has covered for child sexual abuse and although the Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas which sponsored this campaign may not have been caught doing so, other Planned Parenthood centers have.

A report published online several months ago documents actual criminal cases where Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities covered for child sexual abuse by not reporting the abuse to authorities. (read those here).

Online news sources also show that Planned Parenthood has failed the victims of abuse.

In Ohio, a 45-year-old man was convicted of repeatedly sexually abusing his daughter from the time she was 13 until she was 18.

The sexual abuse victim was taken by her father to a Planned Parenthood where she told the staff about the abuse, but Planned Parenthood did not report the abuse.

A Cincinnati Inquirer story published in 2007 revealed that Planned Parenthood apparently chose not to “believe” the victim:

In a civil suit filed today in Warren County Common Pleas Court, the teen, formerly of Mason, says she disclosed the sexual abuse to a Planned Parenthood employee when she and her father went to the agency’s Mount Auburn clinic to abort her pregnancy in November 2004.

But no police report was filed – and as a result, the abuse continued for another year and a half, the suit says.

According to the teen’s lawsuit, Planned Parenthood employees did not tell police that the Mason girl alleged her pregnancy resulted from rape, because of a “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy relating to sex abuse.

Blanks forced the girl to share his bed nightly, almost as though she were his “wife,” prosecutors have said. She didn’t even have her own bedroom.

It was NOT Planned Parenthood that reported the abuse, but rather the victim’s coach, leading to an investigation and criminal charges against the teen’s father, John Blanks Jr.

In 2002, Life Dynamics, which published the case summaries, did an undercover investigation and found that many times Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics generally failed to report abuse there as well.

Perhaps it would be good to confirm that the organizations which sponsor a campaign saying they will believe victims of rape actually practice what they preach.

Just Say’n.