Stories of children reported to be victims of sexual exploitation are so familiar these days that they have become little more than background noise in the daily news feed.
Even our legislators don’t give this exploitation a second thought. At least, that’s the impression I get from a review of HB 5239.
The bill, sponsored by Illinois State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), a lesbian married to Candace Gingrich (Newt Gingrich’s left-wing activist half-sister), would prohibit
“the State from providing any information or expending or using any time, money, facilities, property, equipment, personnel, or other resources in furtherance of any interstate investigation or proceeding seeking to impose civil or criminal liability upon a person or entity for:
(1) the provision, receipt, or seeking of or inquiring or responding to an inquiry about reproductive health care products or services that are lawful in Illinois; or
(2) assisting, advising, aiding, abetting, facilitating, soliciting, or conspiring with any person or entity providing, receiving, seeking, or inquiring or responding to an inquiry about reproductive health care products or services that are lawful in Illinois. Exempts any investigation or proceeding if the conduct subject to potential liability under the investigation or proceeding would be subject to criminal or civil liability under the laws of Illinois.”
This law invites predators to exploit young girls with little risk of being caught.
Our laws in Illinois allow minors to get an abortion without parental consent since the Parental Notification Act was repealed in 2021. What this means is that an adult predator who impregnates a child, here or in any state that has a parental notification law or prohibition on abortion, can bring the child to an Illinois abortion provider for a no-questions-asked abortion.
Even before the Parental Notification Law was repealed, there was little problem for predators to arrange for an abortion for their victim. The predator simply claimed to be the child’s parent. There are multiple examples of this.
Look at the recent case involving Chicago Public Schools Dean of Students Brian Crowder of Little Village High School. He allegedly was able to secure two abortions in 2013 and 2014 for one of his victims by claiming he was the victim’s father.
What if the abuser was the father?
The result would be the same. No police. No DCFS involvement.
While it is true that if the state the child came from initiates an investigation for child sexual abuse, those investigators may be able to get some cooperation. However, there would be no information forthcoming since no valuable information for documenting abuse would have been sought by the abortion provider.
Moreover, how is the originating State to know the child was pregnant in the first place? No report of an underage pregnancy is sent back to any agency that might provide oversight. There is no oversight by any agency in Illinois either.
What is the purpose of this bill?
The purpose most certainly is not to protect children. Nor was that the purpose for the repeal of the Parental Notification Act.
Like many bills we have seen over the past several years, this bill has been more focused on advancing a left-wing agenda than on solving a problem. Children have a “right” to engage in sexual activity whenever and with whomever they want, they say.
And if they get pregnant and want an abortion, nobody can tell them differently, and nobody can second guess them, so the left believes.
I wonder, have there been legions of 12-year-old girls from other states clamoring for abortions?
In the 1950s, I lived in a mid-sized town in Michigan. I went to school there from kindergarten through 9th grade, and those of us in the neighborhood all knew each other. There was one girl—very tall, very shy—who was a friend.
We attended the same school from kindergarten to 7th grade. From K through 6th we were in the same classroom and even in 7th grade, we still had a couple of classes together—English and one other, I think.
Toward the end of 7th grade my friend suddenly stopped attending classes and disappeared. A couple of weeks later, I learned she had transferred to another school in another town in another state. She went to live with her grandmother. There was no explanation.
Several months later, there was a small article in the local newspaper that the girl’s father had been arrested for incest. I had to look up that word. I never heard it used before.
Over the next few days, the story came out in full, through the papers and neighborhood word of mouth. The father, a brilliant scientist for a local corporation, had gotten his daughter pregnant. There was no abortion in those days, so the only option when an underage child became pregnant was to have the baby.
The grandmother initially thought my friend had become pregnant from another student, so she was willing to take her in, sparing her the embarrassment of having the baby in her hometown. Through conversations with my friend, eventually the grandmother discovered that the father of her baby was the girl’s dad. The grandmother could not tolerate that and called the police.
It turned out the mother, also a scientist at the local corporation, was in on it too. It was best, she said, for the girl’s father to teach her about sex. That’s what parents are for, according to the mother.
They must have been right. Both were scientists with PhD’s. Right?
The dad went to prison. Nothing happened to the mom.
Had they lived in Illinois today or in a state that prohibits abortions, these genius parents could have shown up at an Illinois Planned Parenthood Clinic and secured an abortion for their daughter—end of story.
That was my first encounter with the sexual exploitation of a child. Sixty-plus years later, it’s become very clear that such exploitation is far from rare. Incest is common. As are other forms of sexual abuse of children. Twenty percent of adults, today, have been victims of childhood sexual abuse.
And it’s getting worse.
House Bill 5239 does nothing to protect children. It does the opposite. It would fuel their exploitation.
What’s wrong with these people in Springfield? What’s wrong with us for electing them?
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator to ask him/her to oppose HB 5239. Make sure that your state senator understands that this proposal not only usurps parental rights and is dangerously anti-family, but it will facilitate trafficking young girls by giving cover to their sexual perpetrators.
Please note: This horrific bill passed in the Illinois House by a vote of 72 to 37 on April 18th and is pending in the Illinois Senate. Please make sure you let your local state senator know what you think of this legislation before it is too late.
