On Tuesday's CBS Evening News, chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford reported on the video sting operation conducted by the pro-life group Live Action: "The videos are troubling....showing Planned Parenthood staffers all too eager to help reported teenage sex workers get abortions and contraception." ABC and NBC have been silent on the controversy since the video was released on February 1.
Crawford explained: "Planned Parenthood has fired one worker in the videos and said it will retrain its staff. It reported the incidents to Attorney General Eric Holder and CBS News has learned the FBI is now investigating." A sound bite was featured from Planned Parenthood spokesman Stuart Schear, who ranted: "Live Action is a political operation. Its goal is to make abortion illegal in the United States. It's an extreme group."
At the end of her report, Crawford described the founder of Live Action: "22-year-old Lila Rose, who founded the group when she was 15. She once went to Planned Parenthood posing as a 13-year-old girl who said she was pregnant by a 31-year-old man....Rose has worked with the organization whose undercover videos helped bring down the community organizing group ACORN. She hopes her videos will end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but her ultimate goal is to see abortion outlawed."
As NewsBusters' Matthew Balan earlier reported [1], while all the networks initially ignored the video sting, both Fox News and CNN managed to cover the story. On Tuesday, prior to the Evening News report, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell admonished the media omission [2]: "The same gaggle of broadcast TV watchdogs which has mustered endless outrage over the notion that the Catholic Church would fail to alert authorities about sexual abuse of minors is utterly uninterested in the sexual abuse of minors when someone more pleasing to secular progressives - like that abortion factory Planned Parenthood - is caught on camera."
Here is a full transcript of Crawford's February 8 report:
KATIE COURIC: In Washington today, the House opened hearings on the controversial subject of abortion. House Republicans have proposed two bills that would add restrictions to federal funding of abortions. Senate Democrats today called the bills a distraction from their top priority, the economy, and they vowed to defeat the bills if they pass in the House.
Planned Parenthood has long been criticized by abortion rights opponents. The organization has more than 800 clinics across the country. Recently, activists targeted some of them with a video sting. And chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford reports the FBI is now investigating.
JAN CRAWFORD: The videos are troubling - actors portraying a pimp and a prostitute seeking abortions for young sex workers. The target: Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading provider of reproductive services, counseling, contraception, and abortion.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Okay, alright. We're involved in sex work.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN [PLANNED PARENTHOOD WORKER]: Mmhm.
ACTOR: We have some girls that are kinda young - they're like 14, 15 that they might need an abortion.
WOMAN: Mmhm.
ACTOR: And, how is the best way should they be able to go about that?
WOMAN: They just show up.
CRAWFORD: In the past week, anti-abortion group Live Action has released undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood staffers all too eager to help reported teenage sex workers get abortions and contraception.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN B [PLANNED PARENTHOOD WORKER]: Here's the thing, too. If they're minors, just tell them to put down that they are students. Just-
ACTOR: Students?
WOMAN: Yeah. Just kinda play along that they're students. We wanna to make it look as legit' as possible.
ACTOR: Yeah.
CRAWFORD: Planned Parenthood has fired one worker in the videos and said it will retrain its staff. It reported the incidents to Attorney General Eric Holder and CBS News has learned the FBI is now investigating.
STUART SCHEAR [PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA]: Live Action is a political operation. Its goal is to make abortion illegal in the United States. It's an extreme group.
CRAWFORD: Live Action's leader is 22-year-old Lila Rose, who founded the group when she was 15. She once went to Planned Parenthood posing as a 13-year-old girl who said she was pregnant by a 31-year-old man. The latest undercover sting is being made public as Congress takes up the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. Republicans in the House want to cut Planned Parenthood's $300 million in federal funding.
MIKE PENCE [REP. R-IN]: The time has come to deny all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America.
CRAWFORD: Rose has worked with the organization whose undercover videos helped bring down the community organizing group ACORN. She hopes her videos will end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but her ultimate goal is to see abortion outlawed. Katie.
COURIC: Jan Crawford in Washington. Jan, thanks so much.
- Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here. [3]