A Kansas man is facing sexual assault charges this week after he allegedly raped a 13-year-old girl and then tried to get her an abortion when she became pregnant with his child.
The Sentinel-Record reports Joel Clark Wilt, 26, of Wichita, Kansas allegedly had a months-long sexual relationship with the young teen that began in March.
Arkansas State Police said they learned of the alleged abuse after the young teen became pregnant and went to a Planned Parenthood for an abortion. The teen lives in Arkansas and now is 14, according to Arkansas Online.
According to police, the teen said she and Wilt met in late 2016 and began a sexual relationship several months later. She said she knew how old Wilt was, and she was in love with him.
Police said they received a Child Abuse Hotline report about the suspected abuse in early July.
Several weeks later, police said they also received a fax from the Planned Parenthood abortion chain’s Arizona branch that listed concerns about the young teen having a sexual relationship with an adult man, according to the report. Though Planned Parenthood has a long record of hiding sexual abuse, in this case, it appears its employees did the right thing.
The teen later aborted her unborn baby in California, though the report does not mention if she had it at a Planned Parenthood, according to police. She was about three months pregnant when her unborn child was aborted.
Police said both Wilt and the teen initially denied having a sexual relationship, but the teen later admitted that they did.
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Here’s more from the report:
[Hot Springs police Detective Kenny] May received the victim’s pregnancy results from her grandmother on Sept. 26, which showed the estimated date of conception was May 5.
On Aug. 9, May received a fax from the Department of Children and Family Services in Los Angeles. The fax stated the victim had received an abortion at a clinic within the county. She also disclosed that she had begun dating Wilt five months beforehand, and her pregnancy was the result of their relationship.
On Aug. 14, the victim’s mother showed May conversations between Wilt and the victim on the victim’s cellphone, including numerous Facebook messages between the two from July where Wilt reportedly called the victim “cute and sexy baby” and told her “I love you so much too baby.”
On Sept. 13, May reviewed a disk provided by state police that included a phone conversation between Arkansas State Police Investigator Kathy Finnegan and the victim recorded Aug. 10. In the phone conversation, the victim informed Finnegan she had an abortion the day before, and Wilt was the father. She said Wilt had told her to take 6,000 mg of vitamin C each day to induce a miscarriage.
It is not clear if the teen wanted to abort her unborn baby. Victims of sexual abuse often are pressured to have abortions. Many face threats and sometimes physical violence if they refuse to give into their abuser’s demands. There are no indications of the reasons for the abortion in the Arkansas teen’s case, but, being so young, it is difficult to believe she would understand the harmful impact of an abortion on her life and her unborn baby’s. Many sexual abuse victims who become pregnant say the abortion only added to their trauma, according to research by the Elliot Institute.
Planned Parenthood has been caught covering up sexual abuse in the past.
In an Ohio case, a 22-year-old soccer coach was convicted of sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on his team, LifeNews reported. According to reports, he statutorily raped the girl; and when she became pregnant, he took her to Planned Parenthood to abort their unborn baby and cover up what he had done. The Ohio Planned Parenthood also faced a lawsuit for failing to report the sexual abuse of the young girl.
In an Arizona case, officials said another Planned Parenthood center failed to provide the proper report to authorities about a victim of a young man accused of being a serial rapist. Not only did Planned Parenthood fail to report the rape but, in so doing, the rapist was able to continue abusing 18 or more teenage girls, authorities said.
Undercover investigators with Live Action also exposed the abortion chain’s willingness to help cover up sexual abuse. In 2008, the pro-life group released an undercover video showing a Planned Parenthood in Bloomington, Indiana agreeing to help cover up the sexual abuse of a minor.
