(CNSNews.com) - Planned Parenthood is under fire after one of its employees was recorded encouraging a student - who was posing as a pregnant minor -- to lie about her age in order to obtain an abortion without the abortion provider having to report the "statutory rape" to the police.

Lila Rose, an 18-year-old sophomore at the University of California Los Angeles, visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in the city, posing as a 15-year-old impregnated by her 23-year-old boyfriend. The visit was part of an investigation for The Advocate, a new pro-life magazine distributed on the UCLA campus.

California law requires abortion clinics to report instances of statutory rape to police. The age of consent in California is 16.

In covertly-filmed video of the meeting between Rose and an unnamed Planned Parenthood employee, the staffer is heard to tell Rose: "If you're 15, we have to report it ... If you're not, if you're older than that, then we don't need to."

"Okay, but if I just say I'm not 15, then it's different?" Rose asks.

"You could say 16," the worker replies, later adding, "Just figure out a birth date that works. And I don't know anything."

Other parts of the video clip show the manager of another Planned Parenthood clinic encouraging Rose to seek an abortion.

The woman relates that having herself given birth at the age of 17, 16 years ago, the decision had severely hindered her education and life goals. "If I would do it again, I would not continue the pregnancy," she is heard telling Rose.

Rose told Cybercast News Service that she wants to hold abortion providers accountable for how they treat women in crisis pregnancies and to ensure "that abortion is not sold like a blender at Sears."

"The public's eyes need to be opened to the fact that they're really not to be trusted as far as the way that they handle the situation with minor girls who are in trouble, or even the way they counsel in a pro-abortion way," Rose said.

Kathy Kneer, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California - the state public policy office of Planned Parenthood - criticized Rose's tactics but told Cybercast News Service that staff has been notified of its policy to follow all reporting laws.

"We believe the individuals behind this are doing this not out of motivation to protect teens but in fact to discredit Planned Parenthood," Kneer said of Rose and her male accomplice. "They went in with an objective to manipulate our staff, and they did succeed in manipulating our staff."

Rose defended her undercover methods, which she said provides "the way to find out what really goes on behind closed doors in a clinic, what really goes about to influence these life-changing decisions."

"The only way that I or anyone else is really going to make a difference in how women are influenced by either Planned Parenthood or their clinics or the health centers on their campuses or any other abortion agencies ... is to become one of those women and to really experience it themselves," she said.

While Kneer was critical of Rose's approach, she acknowledged that the staff had violated Planned Parenthood policies.

"It is against Planned Parenthood's policy to counsel clients in this fashion, period," Kneer said. "It is our policy to completely comply with all reporting laws. We regularly train and retrain our staff on all aspects of reporting laws."

"The staff gave an incorrect answer," Kneer said of the employee who suggested that Rose lie about her age. "She should have said, 'It's reportable' and ended the conversation there. But she allowed herself to be manipulated by Lila, and that's against our policy."

Kneer said Planned Parenthood "immediately notified all of our staff and reminded them that this is in violation of our policy, and we continue to do that on a regular basis."

Rose said she would continue to investigate abortion providers and that Planned Parenthood would not be the only target. "They're not the only organization promoting abortion in our society," she said. "My end goal in doing any of this is to hold any abortion provider responsible for everything that they do.

"They need to admit there's a problem and work to change it if they really want to protect women and promote true choice for women," she said.

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