Sad Anniversary: Two years since Ballard HS teen abortion scandal

This is the week the Ballard High School teen abortion scandal broke.
Here's a round-up of the stories from that date.

Here's our coverage of the scandal and stories related to teen clinics, Hopelink/Medicaid Transports to abortion appointments, Planned Parenthood in the schools.

These teen clinics serve as surrogates for Planned Parenthood in the schools. Slowly and steadily they've been able to worm their way in -- from the pre-schools to the high schools.

And no one's done anything to stop it.

Secret Teen Abortions a Worldwide Problem

This was posted on the Drudge Report today.

"New Zealand parents are outraged after learning some schools are helping to keep teenage girls’ abortions a secret, the Sunday Star-Times reports.

One mom is angry that her 16-year-old daughter had a secret abortion allegedly arranged by a school counselor."

Parents must not believe that what happened at Ballard High School a year ago was an aberration or rare occurance that won't happen to their kid.

The counselors are arranging the abortions and calling the taxis. There is nothing these people won't do to sell an abortion.

Our advice: Parents may want to consider restraining orders or Do Not Contact orders against school nurses, counselors and other "health care" personnel prior enrolling a child in a junior high or senior high school.

Parents Frustrated By Lack of Answers on Seattle Schools' Secret Abortion System

As the Seattle City Council considers doubling the Education Levy used to fund in-school "health clinics", they are coming under fire from parents and activists for continuing to undermine parental authority because of their role in secretly putting girls on birth control and even helping setup abortions behind the parents' backs.

Some critics have even called the clinics the first station in an "underground railroad from hell" where the last stop is one of Seattle's unregulated abortion mills.

Defiant in Face of National Scandal
Last year there was a national scandal after it was revealed that a Ballard High School teenager was taken for an abortion during school hours without her parents' knowledge, all arranged by the Ballard "Teen Health Clinic".

The clinic is run under an extremely complicated arrangement that seems almost designed to diffuse blame and obfuscate responsibility. The clinic is at the school, but the school says it has nothing to do with them. The nursing staff are employees of Swedish Hospital, but Swedish refused to answer any questions, saying policy is set by Seattle and King County Public Health (SKCPH).

Parents are left wondering who exactly to go to in order to protest this devious scheme.

We recently spoke with Gary Reynolds, one local parent who, while not a pro-life activist, was outraged by the Public Health's deliberate setup within the schools designed to facilitate secret abortions. He eventually got in touch with James Apa, a senior spokesman for King County Public Health.

One of the main things he wanted to know was whether or not the consent forms parents sign had been fixed. In the Ballard High School scandal, the mother indicated that she had no idea she was consenting to her child being shuttled off to an abortion clinic. Nowhere was that explicitly stated.

DSHS Knowingly Violating Hyde Amendment, Using Federal Tax Dollars to Fund Abortions

In this exclusive report, AIW can now reveal the results of an investigation into Washington and other states in which we have learned that they are routinely violating federal law.

Since 1976, it has been illegal to use federal Medicaid money to pay for abortions. States that opted to subsidize the abortion industry through Medicaid had to make sure to carefully segregate funds so that abortions were only paid for out of state Medicaid dollars. (Medicaid is a federal program with a complicated funding formula, but in brief, it's funded from a mix of federal and state monies.)

But the Medicaid program also includes a relatively little-known program called "Medicaid Transportation". This program pays for the travel costs to and from medical appointments that are covered by Medicaid. The rationale is, apparently, that a doctor appointment is no good if you can't get to it.

Since states like Washington (and California and New York) pay for abortions under Medicaid, the travel to and from the abortion clinic is also picked up by the Medicaid program.

Readers may remember our coverage of the scandal last year in which a Ballard High School student was taken from school for an abortion without her parents' knowledge, all arranged by the schools' "Health Clinic" (run by Swedish Hospital). During this investigation we also discovered that Hopelink, an organization that milks unwitting churches and other groups into partnership to help feed the hungry, is running secret "Abortion Taxis" that shuttle girls and women to and from abortion clinic appointments, often without their parents' knowledge.

Seattle Area 'Megachurch' Reconsidering Ties to HopeLink Over 'Secret Abortion Taxis'

This blog's exposing of HopeLink's involvement in taking girls to and from abortion clinics -- at taxpayers' expense -- is having some fallout.

The King County organization is best known for food drives and arranging rides for the elderly. But they make the majority of their revenue -- tens of millions of dollars -- as Medicaid Transportation contractors for the state of Washington's Department of Health and Human Services (DSHS).

Part of that work involves taking women and girls getting abortions on the taxpayers' dime to abortion clinics. As reported by AIW earlier this year, nurses at the school health clinics and Hopelink dispatchers revealed that this can even include secret abortions for high school students during school hours, like the Ballard Teen Abortion Scandal earlier this year.

Time to End Tax Funding of Abortions for 'Poor Little Rich Girls'

One of the most interesting revelations from the coverage of the Ballard High School 'Secret Abortion Program' by KIRO Radio's Dori Monson came when an employee of DSHS called in. The caller, who identified herself as Randi, said that not only are we one of the few states where minors can get abortions without parental notification or consent, and not only are we one of the few states where the government -- her department, to be specific -- gladly pays for abortions for low income girls and women, but in fact the taxpayer is picking up the tab for abortions even for 'poor little rich girls' from Mercer Island.

"So if a girl comes in," asked Mr. Monson, "and her family's got money, but she obviously doesn't have access to that money, and she says I can't pay for it, I don't want my parents to know, what does DSHS do?"

KIRO's Dori Monson Confirms Our Reporting on Secret Abortions

If you haven't already, make sure to listen to KIRO's Dori Monson's interview with Jim Stevenson, spokesman for the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), in Olympia. Monson confirms many of the facts we revealed about how our schools and government participate in helping high school students get secret abortions off-campus during the school day, at government expense, behind their parent's backs.

Make sure you're sitting down.

Also listen to his interview with AIW's Mary E.

Our thanks to Monson for his attention to this very important story.

AIW on the Radio Today

I’m going to be on the radio today -- NewsTalk 97.3 KIRO FM – the Dori Monson show between 2pm and 2:30pm.

I'll be discussing the recent controversy over how the state, non-profits, and the school districts work to facilitate secret teen abortions.

Ballard High School 'Secret Abortion Program' Creates National Firestorm

Here's a quick summary of links to some of the coverage of this story from around the nation...

KOMO News 1350 comments

Seattle Times 360 comments

Seattle PI 700 comments

Ken Schram (KOMO News) (323 comments)

FoxNews (Dan Springer Blog) 29 comments

FoxNews (LiveShots) 61 comments

FoxNews (Shep Smith)

FoxNews (Megyn Kelly)

Bill O'Reilly 100 pages of comments

ABC News 307 comments

Clinic that Performed Abortion on Ballard High Teen Remains Unnamed

Fox News has issued a correction to their story naming the abortion center that performed the abortion on the 15-year old Ballard High School student who was taken out of school without parental permission.

AIW's initial look at the story is here.

Hopelink Coordinates Abortion Taxi Service for Seattle Area Teens

Komo News broke a story late Tuesday about a 15-year-old Ballard High School student who was taken for an abortion in Seattle with neither her parents' knowledge nor consent.

Alas, in Washington, secret abortions on high school students are nothing new. What comes as a shock to parents like "Jill', the mother other of the aborted teen, is the seamless end-to-end system that has been set up to facilitate these abortions. This system includes the school districts, abortion industry, public health officials, the state legislature, and certain non-profits that leave nothing to chance.

One part of this story that went almost unnoticed was the fact that this girl was taken to the abortion center in a taxi.

Who paid for the taxi? How did it get to the school? Who dispatched it? Which abortion provider did it take her to? AIW has learned that taxi services to "contracting school districts throughout King County" are provided by the Redmond-based non-profit Hopelink.

Can that be right? Can an organization supported by churches and police departments be secretly operating a shuttle service to take girls from their high school classrooms in the middle of the school day to an abortion clinic, and then back to school, all without Mom and Dad finding out?