By Ricardo Pinedo
Granite City, IL– On August 3, a group of pro-lifer prayer warriors and sidewalk counselors were standing, as usual, outside the notorious abortion mill “Hope Clinic for Women” (HCW) when they heard a lady screaming in the parking lot.
The lady turned out to be the mother of a teenage girl who was there to have an abortion. She was yelling at the sidewalk counselors at the scene, demanding they leave her daughter “alone.” According to the sidewalk counselors, she stated that the father of the baby being aborted was18 years old, a legal adult. This man knowingly engaged in sexual activities with her daughter even though she was only 15.
The legal age of consent in Illinois is 17, and it varies from 16 to 18 in other states. This case, therefore, constitutes the crime of statutory rape.
One of the pro-lifers on scene called 911 to leave a record of what had happened to the minor. According to his eyewitness testimony, the couple in question arrived in a rental car. Therefore, it remains uncertain where the crime took place.
Statutory Rape in Illinois
What is statutory rape? Simply put, it is non-forced sexual activity with an underaged person. In many jurisdictions, this type of sexual activity is legally defined as “statutory rape” because the victim is not old enough to lawfully consent to sexual contact.
According to the Illinois statute , “A person commits criminal sexual abuse if that person commits an act of sexual penetration or sexual conduct with a victim who is at least 13 years of age but under 17 years of age [15 in this case] and the person is less than 5 years older [18 years old in this case] than the victim.” Criminal sexual abuse constitutes a Class A misdemeanor, which carries penalties of less than one year’s incarceration and a $75 to $2,500 fine.
So, in this case, a crime was definitely committed, and whether the HCW staff was aware from the beginning, they definitely became aware of it. First the clinic escorts would have undoubtedly heard the grandmother yelling in the parking lot, followed by the arrival of police at the scene to investigate the statutory rape and criminal sexual abuse of the underage girl.
When police arrived, the pro-lifer who reported the crime was questioned. From what could be observed at the scene, HCW staff did not provide a safe space for the family of this 15-year-old mother to be questioned by the police. Instead, she was questioned about this sensitive topic outside the building, surrounded by clinic escorts.
What makes this case worse is the fact that, according to information found in RAINN (Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network), the organization that operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline, any “physician, physician’s assistant, registered nurse, licensed practical nurse, medical technician, certified nursing assistant” who is aware of sexual abuse towards a minor is required to report any such case to the the Department of Children and Family Services. In other words, it is mandatory, legally demanded, obligatory – and not optional – for physicians, nurses, and staff at an abortion facility to report statutory rape.
Rape in the abortion industry
Operation Rescue President, Troy Newman said “what appears to be a cover-up of the rape of this underage girl, sadly but honestly, doesn’t come as a surprise. Although the abortion cartel claims to defend and champion women’s rights, the truth is that abortionists simply do not care about women. In our work at Operation Rescue, we have not only seen abortion staff refusing to report cases of statutory rape, but we have also seen many cases of abortionists themselves sexually abusing women while clinic staff and abortion supporters choose to look the other way.
“Unfortunately, this is also the attitude of the current presidential administration: to punish pro-lifers while murderous abortionists, when not raping and molesting women themselves, illegally cover for rapists.”
This report may be republished with inclusion of the following acknowledgement: “This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Ricardo Pinedo, writes for Operation Rescue.”
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