WAVE 3 - Louisville, KYUndercover video shot by a pro-life group causes controversy

Undercover video shot by a pro-life group causes controversy

By Marisela Burgos - bio | email
Posted by Charles Gazaway - email

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - An undercover video is causing a lot of controversy. It involves a girl who claims to be a pregnant teenager, and a Louisville abortion clinic. The video was emailed to WAVE 3 by 'Live Action', which is a pro-life activist group who shot the video.

Under Kentucky law, it is a person's duty to report child abuse or child neglect in the Commonwealth. 'Live Action' Media Director, David Schmidt believes EMW Women's Surgical center broke the law, but a representative with the center told WAVE 3, 'Live Action' got it wrong.

The undercover video shot by Live Action in 2008 shows a conversation between an employee of EMW Women's Surgical Center and a girl, claiming to be 14-years-old and pregnant by a 31-year-old boyfriend. In the video, the EMW employee asked: "Um, what's your name sweetie?" The EMW employee also asked: "Does he know how old you are? He knows how old you are." The person posing as a 14-year-old girl responded with "yeah."

Schmidt said the conversation lasted about 35 minutes. Live Action claims EMW violated the law by not reporting a clear case of sexual abuse. Kentucky law considers it 3rd degree rape if a girl under the age of 16 has sex with someone over the age of 21.

"She had time to think about the situation. She had time to understand. She had time to say, ‘hey, we may have a situation here.' Another counselor with more knowledge, higher up that could talk to this girl and that never happened," Schmidt said.

EMW Women's Surgical Center Counselor, Anne, told us over the phone, the person the girls talked to was Wendy, a receptionist, not a counselor. Anne said girls come into their lobby all the time to get information. The video shows the EMW employee asking: "Was this something consensual or something that happened against your will?" The person posing as a 14-year-old girl responded with "very consensual."

Anne said at that stage they did not have enough information to report it to authorities. Anne said Wendy did nothing wrong because the girl was not a patient of theirs and this was not a counseling session. 

"The questions necessary to be able to file a sexual abuse report or abuse of a child report is not a lot of information. You need to know things like first and last name, address, a little information about who the perpetrator is and those sort of questions were not asked," Schmidt said.

Anne said she is the only certified counselor in that facility. If that information would have become available to her - that a 14-year-old girl was supposedly pregnant by a 31-year-old man - she said she absolutely would have reported it. But Anne said it never got to that point and that the bottom line is the girl was not a patient of theirs.

"I would say that the responsibility to report child abuse under Kentucky law isn't dependent on whether it's a patient or not," said Schmidt.

When I asked Schmidt if the video was unethical because it was taken under false pretenses and the girls were not underage or pregnant, he replied, "This is probably the most ethical way we can recreate what actually happens at abortion centers across the U.S."

WAVE 3 contacted the Jefferson County Attorney's office to find out if the center should have reported the case to authorities. A spokesman said it is clearly a duty to report child abuse or neglect, but it is unclear whether this situation fits that requirement because they do not have all the facts.

Schmidt said 'Live Action' is going to contact police to determine whether this should be investigated.

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