I doubt a mole, ElleBeMe. I work for Planned Parenthood and know the screening process that take place. I also know the conversations take place, and have trouble imagining that even the most determined wingnut could sit through and participate in them– particularly if they’re nutty enough about abortion to want to try this sort of thing in the first place. I suppose that anything is possible, but I consider it exceedingly unlikely.

I hope you are right. But considering Scheidler has admitted that he has “moles” working in clinics….and I happen to know of an anti-choicer who has also claimed contact with a clinic worker who is anti-choice….HEY, there is always the possibility. Now I have no evidence, and my lack of evidence does not equate proof of anything…..it just seems to me rather convenient that all of a sudden…so close to opening this is discovered.

I don’t know where you live, but construction workers in my area don’t speak much english and their citizenship status is rather questionable. But it is possible a foreman could have suspected and been nosy.

I guess I’m still pondering the idea an insider tipped them off….

If certain intelligence agencies can place moles in strategic locations accross the globe, why can’t anti-choice advocates be positioned in PP? Remember, these people will stop at nothing. And it is quite easy to cheat a lie detector and weasel your way thorugh interrogative questioning. Spies are trained to do this…and frankly, I wuldn’t put it past the pro-forcers to do this.

But I’ll leave my tin-foil hat ideas on the side.

And I know that you place your lives on the line each day. The only thing I can think of that would be comparable would be working in a US embassy in an “unfriendly” part of the world…..

Oh, and rape victims? Don’t you fret! You won’t get pregnant unless you liked it

I almost spit out my coffee when I read that. Funny.

My guess is that a wingnut or two did a bit of research and looked up the company that PP used in the permits and saw that it had been used previously to build PP buildings. We’re more likely dealing with a nosy construction worker, like the reports suggest.

Also, as someone who works for PP, the stories like the one above are absolutely terrifying. Even more so than you would expect.

I really like all the points you made, especially since I have no clue as to the process for development and such.

Do you think it possible that perhaps (not to sound like a conspiracy nut, but knowing full well my next statement will make me look like one) there is a mole in PP who leaked this at an opportune time to inflict monetary dammage on PP and generate all the bad press possible for PP?

The reports I read were of construction workers being suspicious of the rooms they were making in the building…”WHY would they need x small rooms and one big recovery room” I would assume that a contractor would not make such a distinction if they routinely built medical offices/hospitals/outpatient care centers….and where would they get the idea to research the company for whom they’re constructing this building?

Am I the only one who smells a rat?

Anything, that is, except actually try to prevent unwanted pregnancies altogether by improving women’s education about and access to all forms of contraception, including emergency contraception. Because all that would, you know, help women, which isn’t their mission.

For example, if a developer builds a strip mall, and that strip mall might, at the time of the development, include a bank, a manicure shop and a short order restaurant, the developer isn’t going to apply for permits to do only those three things — the developer will apply for permits to develop the space for a variety of commercial uses, which would include a laundry list of pretty much everything under the sun, and then they’d wait for the city to come back and preclude, say, using it for a dry cleaners if the area near the strip mall would be in danger for ground water contamination. And, for the most part, the city has no idea what deep pockets sit behind the thinly capitalized single purpose entity called something like “NE Chicago Strip Mall LLC.”

So while I see how this whole mess is playing out in the press and the political process, every whiff of it disgusts me. What the anti-choice side is arguing has no basis in the way that real estate development works day in day out for all sorts of businesses. That PP used the name Gemini and applied as a health care clinic is all that would have been required if they provided outpatient orthopaedic surgery and physical therapy. It’s all that would have been required if they provided pediatric care, including minor childhood surgeries like tonsillectomies. But because they provide, in addition to all of their other services, surgical abortions, they need to call themselves Abortions R Us and note that they provide abortions? Bullshit. Total bullshit.