A controversial video released by an anti-abortion group was shot by 22-year-old Lila Rose. Abortion sting hits Planned Parenthood

Anti-abortion groups released a video Tuesday that they allege shows a Planned Parenthood employee advising minors to provide false information in order to obtain an abortion.

The FBI investigation launched an investigation into the issue after Planned Parenthood reported a series of strange visits to their clinics in mid-January.


The video was shot by 22-year-old Lila Rose, an anti-abortion activist who has previously worked with James O’Keefe on undercover videos shot inside Planned Parenthood clinics. O’Keefe did a series of undercover sting videos on ACORN workers during the last presidential campaign.

This most recent video, involves two activists, allegedly posing as sex traffickers, seeking advice on how to get STD testing, birth control and abortions for 14- and 15-year-old girls at a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Jersey. A clinic employee seemingly advises them on how to skirt reporting requirements and provides a phone number of another clinic where girls 14 and under can more easily obtain abortions.

Anti-abortion groups have seized on the video, widely circulating it Tuesday afternoon, calling on Congress to defund Planned Parenthood.

“The exploitive roots and track record of Planned Parenthood is a largely untold story that now cannot be ignored,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, said. “The horror of the logic behind Planned Parenthood’s founding has come to roost in this modern form: it is the primary partner of those who degrade and exploit women.”

The Susan B. Anthony List has been an ardent advocate for legislation introduced by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), which would strip Planned Parenthood of the federal funding it receives through the Title X program.

Planned Parenthood has pushed back against the footage, arguing that the videos are “edited” and shot by activists who they reported to local law enforcement shortly after the visit occured.

“The edited tape that is being publicized today by Live Action, an organization that has vowed to ‘take down’ Planned Parenthood, was shot during a visit by Live Action activists with secret cameras at Planned Parenthood health centers in New Jersey on January 13,” Stuart Schear, Vice President for Communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told POLITICO in a statement. “As soon as these visits were over, Planned Parenthood employees immediately reported to Planned Parenthood management that two highly unusual visits occurred within hours of each other by persons that claimed to be engaged in sex trafficking.

“On that same day, prior to learning that these visits had also occurred in other states, the local Planned Parenthood affiliate notified local law enforcement in New Jersey. Human trafficking has been a major issue in New Jersey and affiliate leadership was concerned that these visits were a part of this deeply troubling criminal activity.”

Planned Parenthood’s national office has been working with FBI on the issue. Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder notifying him of the visits the clinics and their suspicion that they “may be a hoax.”

“In the past, Planned Parenthood affiliates have been approached by a small, organized group of people, opposed to our mission, who have misrepresented their circumstances to gain access to our health centers,” Richards wrote in the letter dated January 18. “Once inside, these people have recorded ‘undercover’ videos of our conversations with our clinic staff and then selectively and maliciously edited these videos in an attempt to cast Planned Parenthood in a negative light. This may be happening once again. If so, this kind of activity should be firmly condemned.”

Within the anti-abortion community, Rose has been widely lauded for her undercover investigations into abortion clinics. She has filmed videos in Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Bloomington, Tucson, Phoenix and Memphis, according to a 2009 profile in the Los Angeles Times.

As the Los Angeles Times article goes on to report, “Surreptitiously videotaping their interactions, she and a friend have posed as abortion-seeking teens impregnated by older men. The videos — boiled down to five minutes, with portentous music and fast cuts to heighten the drama — are posted on Rose’s website, LiveAction.org, and YouTube.”