Imagine this scenario for a moment. On the Archdiocese of Chicago Web page reads a testimonial from an 11-year-old girl who was raped (her words) by an older man. She states that the Catholic Church helped her out by keeping the information from her parents and from the authorities so she could cope “her own way.” Righteous indignation would follow, would it not? Undoubtedly, groups and the press would carp on covering up sex abuse.

Now, here’s a twist. This testimonial did not appear on the Archdiocese’s Web site, but on Planned Parenthood’s Golden Gate , Calif., Web site where not only did Planned Parenthood not get the parents or the authorities involved in a clear case where the law requires it, but they also sold the girl services to keep the rape a secret. When big business rides on the back of a tragedy to make money, they call it profiteering. When the acolytes of abortion do it, they call it pro-choice.

California, according to one study, had between 25 and 28 thousand cases of actual child rape covered up by sex trade organizations such as Planned Parenthood in the year 2000 alone. For reference, according to the John Jay study, there were less than 11,000 cases of alleged child abuse by priests in all 50 states in over 50 years. While that is about 11,000 cases too many as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the silence on the far more frequent problem of child rape being covered up by the abortion industry is deafening.

The Kansas attorney general, when discovering this problem, tried to obtain the medical records of girls in Kansas who were victims of rape. Planned Parenthood argued that the girls’ privacy was of paramount concern and that apparently Planned Parenthood’s need to make money enabling child rapists surpasses the need of these girls to not be abused by serial pedophiles. Then the abortion lobby turns around and says that parental notification is harmful because only abortion providers who are charging fees to girls in desperate situations has the best interest of the girls in mind.

While these instances of the willingness to cover up child sexual assault are from other states, the willingness to break the law and sacrifice the innocence of young women on the altar of abortion has come to Champaign too. Nov. 5, 2005, Planned Parenthood sponsored a marginally legal emergency contraceptive giveaway. McKinley staff physician Kathryn Waldyke prescribed EC to a minor too young to consent to sex and encouraged that minor to share the prescription with her friends. There’s another catch, the prescription was solicited not by the minor but by the older sister. There’s yet another catch, the minor in question does not exist.

This doctor, in apparent contravention of several regulations and arguably some laws, prescribed a drug that has use for people who are sexually active to a minor who she never had contact with who was also too young to legally consent to sex. Further, she advocated sharing the medicine, which is also apparently against the law. It isn’t a problem that minors are being abused and raped. It isn’t a problem that the law makes doctors mandatory reporters of child abuse. The problem is that 11-year-olds aren’t having enough abortions.

The irony of women’s groups such as the Feminist Majority protesting the sexual abuse of women is no small thing, when they cruelly make jokes about women who defend themselves by auctioning off water guns in protest. Rape, all rape, is an extreme violation that should be opposed by all means possible, not made into a partisan punch line from those who apparently don’t have the best interests of others at heart. It is heartless indeed to insist that women be left defenseless against rapists, no matter what age.

So while the media is demanding investigations and prosecutions for the Catholic Church situation, ask yourself why isn’t the attorney general of Illinois looking into these cases of child rape. Oh yeah, it’s because she’s too busy shaking down crisis pregnancy centers for blaspheming the sacrament of abortion.

John Bambenek is a graduate student and academic professional at the University. His column appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached at [email protected].