When Is Rape Not Rape?

TT Note: Rape is rape is rape. All day long it is wrong. All day long this case was with a man manipulating a child for his pleasure. Excuse me, but rape is rape, and it's against the law.

/PRNewswire/ -- The defenders of film director Roman Polanski - charged with raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977 and then fleeing the country - are starting down a slippery slope by trying to redefine what rape is.

"It wasn't rape-rape," comedian and talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg said on The View on Sept. 29. The next day, Debra Tate, sister of Polanski's murdered wife, Sharon, said on the Today show that "There's rape, and then there's rape," arguing that it was consensual sex even though the victim was 13.

"There are really two perspectives here," says Shannon Gilreath, Wake Forest University Law Professor for Interdisciplinary Study and a nationally recognized scholar on issues of equality, sexual minorities, and constitutional interpretation. "One is the perspective of people who look for any reason imaginable to excuse the victimization of women and girls that is rampant: it happened long ago, she was mature for her age--she wanted it. On the other side of this are those of us who are saying that every victim matters, even those victimized by people rich enough to evade jurisdiction for many years." But Gilreath says under the law, statutory rape is a clear offense, and at 13 years old, the girl was underage.

Many in the entertainment industry have flocked to Polanski's defense, questioning whether the act was strictly rape or not and pointing to the amount of time that has passed since the case, possible judicial misconduct, and the fact that the girl, now in her forties, would prefer that the case simply go away.

But where is the outrage in the media and entertainment industry for the victim, asks Gilreath.

"Maybe the missing piece of this discussion is that what is being turned into a major media event, full of talking-head outrage because it involves Roman Polanski, is real life as it is experienced by millions of women every day. And, like it or not, it could happen to every woman. Until we face up to the pervasiveness of a culture of violence that sexualizes dominance, that turns male dominance over women into sex, then we won't be able to face it down. And women and girls will continue to be raped and worse unnoticed. Where is the outrage, where is the media blitz about that?"

Polanski, now 76, fled the country in 1978 right before his sentencing after he admitted to having sex with the girl. As part of a 1977 plea deal, he pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor while prosecutors promised to drop rape, sodomy and other charges after sentencing. A judge was to determine his sentence. He was arrested in Switzerland Sept. 26, and the extradition is being handled there.

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Undercover Student Video Shows Planned Parenthood in Alabama 'Bending The Rules' of Mandatory Reporting for Sexual Abuse

TT Note: This story is highly disturbing. How could any alleged counselor tell a minor they didn't need to report this abuse? How could any alleged counselor look at themselves in the mirror after telling a minor that it's really not a big deal to be 14 and pregnant by a 31 year old man? How far do these clinics go on a daily basis?

/PRNewswire/ -- A Planned Parenthood counselor in Birmingham was caught on hidden camera telling an alleged 14-year-old statutory rape victim that the clinic "does sometimes bend the rules a little bit" rather than report sexual abuse to state authorities. This is the seventh Planned Parenthood clinic implicated in a multi-state child abuse scandal involving the deliberate and unlawful suppression of evidence of statutory rape.

Lila Rose, 20-year-old UCLA student and Live Action president, went undercover at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Birmingham and told a counselor that she was 14-years-old, pregnant by her 31-year-old "boyfriend," and needed a secret abortion so her parents would not find out about her sexual relationship with the older man.

After telling the counselor that her "boyfriend" is 31, Rose asks, "Is it a problem about my boyfriend?" The counselor, identified as "Tanisha" in the video, responds, "As long as you consented to having sex with him, there's nothing we can truly do about that." Rose then says that her boyfriend "said he could get in big trouble," and Tanisha acknowledges that "he could, especially if your parents find out that he's 31." She then tells Rose that the clinic manager, OB/GYN Dr. Desiree Bates, "sometimes does bend the rules a little bit" and states that "whatever you tell us stays within these walls" and "we can't disclose any information to anybody."

Alabama code 26-14-3 requires health professionals to disclose suspected cases of sexual abuse to state officials immediately.

"The law is explicit about a healthcare provider's duty to report, yet Planned Parenthood pretends they cannot say anything," Rose notes of the investigation. "Planned Parenthood increases its business and influence by circumventing state reporting laws, but inflicts terrible harm upon the vulnerable young girls sent back to statutory rapists."

In the video, Tanisha also seems to tell Rose that a signature from an "older sister that's over the age of 18" or someone "with the same last name" could function as a substitute for parental consent so Planned Parenthood could perform an abortion on a minor. Alabama Code 26-21-3 specifies that the written permission of either a parent or legal guardian is necessary before a minor may obtain an abortion.

The new video is sixth in Live Action's "Mona Lisa Project," a nationwide undercover investigation that documents Planned Parenthood's repeated noncompliance with state mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse of minors. Alabama is the fourth state to be implicated in the controversy, along with Arizona, Indiana, and Tennessee. Recently, the investigation of a clinic in Memphis, TN assisted state legislators in their effort to successfully divert nearly $1 million in taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood to law-abiding local health clinics.

"When to 'bend the rules a little' means hiding a case of statutory rape from Child Protective Services and looking for ways around the parental consent requirement, then Planned Parenthood is directly responsible for ensuring that statutory rapists can continue their abuse of young girls," Rose says.

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