Planned Parenthood lobbyists may have killed a California bill that would help protect young women from sexual abuse.
California Assembly Bill 1030 received bipartisan support when it passed the state Assembly earlier this year. It was written in response to sexual abuse allegations against a University of Southern California (USC) gynecologist who is accused of abusing at least 700 patients in the past 30 years.
The bill is informed consent legislation. It would ensure first-time gynecological patients understand what is supposed to happen during a pelvic examination and provide contact information to report abuses.
Despite seemingly strong support, the bill suddenly stalled – right after the billion-dollar abortion chain Planned Parenthood announced its opposition to it, the National Catholic Register reports.
In a press release, California Majority Leader Ian Calderon, a pro-abortion Democrat who supports Planned Parenthood, said he introduced the legislation to protect women from abuse.
His constituent Christy Leach is one of about 700 women who recently accused Dr. George Tyndall at USC of abusing them during a gynecological examination, according to the Register. Tyndall allegedly abused his role as a doctor while conducting exams on students who often were seeing a gynecologist for the first time and did not know what to expect. He is facing 29 sexual assault charges, the report states.
Some of the patients said Tyndall touched them inappropriately during pelvic exams and made sexually suggestive remarks about their bodies. He also is accused of photographing students’ genitals, according to the press release from Calderon’s office.
“A.B. 1030 will empower patients by giving them much needed information,” Calderon said in April. “I am thankful to my constituent Christy Leach who met with our office last year to share this bill idea. Given recent horrific incidents of abuse during these exams, it has become apparent that patients would benefit from advance information about what to expect during a gynecological pelvic exam.”
The bill requires the California Medical Board and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to develop an informational pamphlet for gynecological patients explaining what to expect during a typical pelvic examination. The pamphlet also would include contact information to report abuse. Doctors would be required to provide the pamphlet to patients before their first pelvic examination.
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Both Democrats and Republican lawmakers supported the legislation, and controversy appeared to be minimal. Then, Planned Parenthood started lobbying against it, according to the Register.
The abortion chain claimed the bill would create “additional barriers for patients to access reproductive health care. … Based on the number of gynecological exams Planned Parenthood conducts, we believe this requirement will increase the length of patient visits and thus unintentionally cause patient volume to decrease.”
Now the bill is filed as “inactive,” according to the report.
Dr. Patrick Marmion, a OB-GYN and professor at Washington State University’s College of Medicine, told the Register that he believes money is the real reason for Planned Parenthood’s opposition.
“Time is money, and anything that slows down client interaction hurts the bottom line,” Marmion said.
Here’s more:
Marmion thinks that Planned Parenthood is afraid of its patients being empowered to identify and report abuse. “Considering that the abortion industry has chosen to ignore the tens of thousands of women who have been mutilated and even killed by abortionists, it hardly should come as a surprise to anyone that ‘big abortion’ also chooses to ignore women who are sexually assaulted and raped by the same individuals so carefully protected within this flailing and deeply corrupt industry.”
Planned Parenthood has opposed other bills to help sexual abuse victims as well. In 2016, it lobbied against a Missouri bill that would have prohibiting anyone from taking a minor across state lines for an abortion without a parent’s consent. The purpose was to protect young girls from human trafficking and abuse, but the abortion chain opposed it.
Several times, Planned Parenthood facilities have been caught covering up or failing to report the sexual abuse of minors. In Ohio, Planned Parenthood faced a lawsuit after it failed to report the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl. The girl’s soccer coach got her pregnant and then took her to the abortion clinic to cover up his crime, LifeNews reported.
In another case in Arizona, officials said a Planned Parenthood center failed to provide the proper report to authorities about a victim of a young man accused of being a serial rapist. Planned Parenthood failed to report the rape, and the young man allegedly raped 18 or more teenage girls before he was caught, according to authorities.
In 2008, a Planned Parenthood in Bloomington, Indiana was exposed for agreeing to help cover up the sexual abuse of a minor in an undercover sting.
Former Planned Parenthood abortionist Ian Hardy also was accused of sexually abusing patients in Massachusetts. He was forced to surrender his medical license in 2014, after 18 witnesses came forward in 2004 to accuse him of inappropriate sexual behavior with patients and staff. In 2016, the Boston Globe reported Hardy fled the country after two more women came forward accusing him of sexual abuse.
