Illinois Right to Life Committee William Beckman May, 2006
The push by Planned Parenthood for “comprehensive sex education” in Illinois has generated recent media coverage. Their web site to promote this push (www.responsiblesexed.org) states, “Teaching a strong abstinence message in concert with information on contraception is considered a ‘best practice’ in teen pregnancy prevention.”
Would Planned Parenthood be willing to teach a “strong abstinence message”? It becomes clear there is no chance that Planned Parenthood would teach any convincing abstinence message. To do so would represent a serious conflict of interest for them. Any teenager who accepts abstinence will not become a customer of Planned Parenthood. Such a teenager would not need birth control supplies, pregnancy testing, STD testing and treatment, emergency contraception, or abortion. These are the services that Planned Parenthood sells. What interest do they have in convincing teenagers about behavior that makes these services totally unnecessary?
On the contrary, Planned Parenthood’s form of “comprehensive sex education” is structured to encourage teenagers to become sexually active. Then these teenagers will likely become Planned Parenthood’s customers. Any mention of abstinence is intended to immediately write that option off as totally unrealistic.
Is that what parents want in “comprehensive sex education”? On the contrary, a poll conducted by Zogby International in 2004 shows strong support by parents for conveying the abstinence message to teens in an effective manner. This survey found:
- 91 percent of parents want schools to teach that “adolescents should be expected to abstain from sexual activity during high school years.”
- 79 percent of parents want teens to be taught that they should not engage in sexual activity until they are married or at least in an adult relationship leading to marriage.
- 93 percent believe teaching about abstinence should have more emphasis than teaching about contraception.
- Only 7 percent of parents agree that teen sexual activity is okay as long as contraception is used.
It seems that Planned Parenthood is using terms (e.g. comprehensive sex education) that mean something totally different to them than these terms mean to parents. Therefore, Planned Parenthood’s claims that parents support “comprehensive sex education” are quite misleading.
The true intent of Planned Parenthood’s “comprehensive sex education” programs is reflected in the following quotes:
- “Help young people obtain sexual satisfaction before marriage”
- “Teach them to experience sexual pleasure rather than not to have sex”
- “Sex without victims is always right; the only question is what’s right for you?”
Planned Parenthood’s “comprehensive sex education” is simply a sales pitch to generate new customers. This approach is certainly not what most parents want for their children. This deception amounts to sex education bait and switch.
This article obviously gets it. The old investigators adage “follow the money” cetainly works with Planned Parenthood. Or as Jesus spoke ” where you treasure is….”
This article is a perfect example of why I don’t trust anything from any right-wing source.
For example, the article says that “The true intent of Planned Parenthood’s comprehensive sex education programs is reflected in the following quotes.” But isn’t it strange that there is no context for quotes, no person quoted, no date or place?
A 5-second search on the internet reveals that the first quote is from Leann Levine, described as a “Planned Parenthood staffer.” This quote is not from last week, not from last month, last year, or even from the last decade. It is from 1953.
The second and third quotations I was unable to identify, so who knows where they came from.
Was Leann Levine expressing a personal opinion? Was she stating the official position of the organization? Is she even alive today? Is her quotation the official position of Planned Parenthood today?
It is obvious why the date is not mentioned in the article, because without the date people would understand the quotation as representing the current official position of Planned Parenthood. When you find out that the quotation is from a half-century ago, it becomes much less relevant.
And this is why I don’t trust right-wing material any more. It is intentionally misleading, designed to get people upset. I can’t count how many bogus right-wing statistics and false or misleading quotations I have come across in just the last few years. I would hope that people who want to bolt the Ten Commandments on public buildings across the country would reflect on what it means to “bear false witness.”
Here are some similar and/or identical quotes to the ones I cited, now including dates and sources:
The pattern established by Planned Parenthood over more than 50 years is obvious.
This is no one-time quote from one unknown employee in 1953.
In all fairness to Planned Parenthood, their website does state: “Abstaining from sexual intercourse is the most effective method of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections” and “Uninformed or irresponsible sexual behavior poses risks. Twelve million sexually transmitted infections occur in this country every year. Sexual assault is one of the most serious and fastest growing violent crimes in America. Alcohol and other drugs impair people’s abilities to make appropriate decisions about their sexual behavior.”
I understand the concerns of parents that their children will be taught values that are not their own. However, I’m also concerned about a system of ethics such as the that of Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council who stated: “Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex”
Given the astounding fact that 1 out of 4 girls are sexually abused or assaulted by the age of 18, I find it disturbing that some would prefer a potentially life threatening disease be transmitted than that they “send the wrong values” to their children.
Note 4. “In all fairness to Planned Parenthood…”?
James, posting a quote to which you have a moral objection from an organization on the other side of the cultural divide from Planned Parenthood shows us only one thing: you don’t agree with the quote. It has no bearing on the moral legitimacy of Planned Parenthood whatsoever — a point you don’t explicitly make but one you nevertheless imply by your juxaposition of quotes in the context of this discussion.
So, for the record, let’s make one thing clear: Planned Parenthood is in the abortion business. They make a boat load of cash from it. In addition to the millions of unborn children killed through abortion, they have killed women through botched abortions and are under investigation for not reporting underage pregnancies that involve incest or statuatory rape. PP is a moral nightmare that masks their bloody work through a sophisticated public relations machine. For their efforts they receive government funding and remain largely unregulated.
(And don’t be fooled by the PR. Look inside the operation and you see how gut wrenching their dark work actually is. See: Former Abortion Providers Witness to the Power of Seeing an Abortion, The Ex-abortionists: Why they quit, The Nightmares of Choice: The psychological effects of performing abortions. Also, do you think that calling abortion a business is too cynical? Then why are 78% of PP clinics near or in minority communities? Check out: Abortion by Race.)
The Family Research Council does none of these things. The construction of your argument however, implies that a rough moral equivalency exists between FRC and PP, as if FRC rhetoric carries the same moral weight as PP’s deeds.
Further, can you cite a source for your contention that “1 out of 4 girls are sexually abused or assaulted by the age of 18”? I’ve worked with a lot of kids and if this statistic were true, I would run across it a lot more than I have. My hunch is that its drawn from one of those studies that defines something as ordinary as a catty remark as a sexual assault whenever it’s directed toward females.
As for the Mahler quote, I am not familiar with it so I can’t say much about it. However, sometimes the relief offered children does in fact promote more sexual activity. Look at condoms for example. After a push that lasted a decade, sexual activity did not decrease and skin borne STD’s shot to epidemic levels. This horribly misguided policy (PP worked hand in hand with the teen sex merchants like MTV) has in fact blunted the dangers of promiscuous sex in ways that brought greater harm to our teens. See my article Teen Sex is Killing Our Kids for more details.
If Mahler’s point is that the vaccine won’t stop this activity and perhaps even increase it, our experience with condoms shows she is probably correct.
The CDC reports that 17% of women experience an attempted or completed rape sometime in their lives. Child sexual abuse is reported 300,000 to 400,000 times a year. (My statistics were off, but the numbers are still quite high, IMO.)
I’m not a fan of Planned Parenthood, and I highly doubt they sufficiently counsel women on the emotional effects of the abortions they provide.
Nevertheless, groups like the FRC harm their own cause when they actively work against vaccines that protect women and children from diseases that they may receive from sexual assault. Even if the women are willing participants, does the FRC wish to imply that HPV is something someone deserves for engaging in such conduct? The public perception becomes that the FRC would rather see women dead than sinning, whether the perception is accurate or not.
Is there a moral equivalency between abortion and withholding vaccines? No. But there seems to be a sin of omission involved when one refuses to provide available care without considering the potential harm done.
I never held the assumption that because one is opposed the policies of one group, they must accept wholeheartedly the agendas of the opposition. Truth is truth, whether it comes from the FRC or Planned Parenthood. While I’d more likely financially support a Christian group like the PDHC than Planned Parenthood, it doesn’t mean that groups who oppose some of Planned Parenthood’s values aren’t also capable of supporting harmful policies and maintaining selfish agendas. If PP provides this vaccine, they’re providing a service as far as I’m concerned, despite the fact that I don’t like many of the other services they provide.
17% rapes or attempted rapes (need to find out what the definition of attempted is) still sounds too high. But put that aside for the moment since my point concerns the moral equivalency you posit between FRC and and PP.
You response to my point employs the same approach I critiqued but in stronger terms. For example:
What makes you think FRC works against the blocking of vaccines? Are you sure the FRC was not responding to the idea that free vaccine would diminish cervical cancers or such some thing? If so, the FRC has got the facts on its side. The greater the increase in promiscuity, the greater the emergence of STD variants and the greater the rate of infection. There is no reason to believe that unless promiscuity subsides, that the cancers would mutate into more cancers.
This is not the same thing as saying that the “FRC would rather see women dead than sinning, whether the perception is accurate or not.”
(You seem to believe that the FRC would “rather see women dead than sinning” since you are castigating them for a statement that ostensibly affirms this view. But then you say your “perception” may not be accurate. Which is it?)
So let’s get back to my main objection. PP is in the business of abortion. They make a lot of money at it. Women have died because of abortions they botched. They are under investigation for failing to report incest, statuatory rape, and abuse. In short, the abortion business is very dark work.
The FRC does none of these things. Yet you find a rhetorical point, hold it in contradistinction to PP, and then imply that the FRC is as morally culpable for taking life as PP. Put another way, you give the rhetorical point the same moral weight as an abortion.
You reveal your reason for drawing this equivalency when you write:
What you really need to ask yourself is: why do I assume that a critique of one organization might imply that I support it’s moral opposite? Put another way, if your assertion that the assumption had no bearing in your thinking, the moral equivalency would not be necessary.
I don’t want to appear that I am beating up on you. That’s not my intention. But it worries me to see the collapse of proper and necessary moral distinctions equated with intellectual sophistication. When we conflate rhetoric and action (again, in this case the FRC statement with the blood shed by PP), then we effectively say that an actual killing is no different than ideas that might lead to the death of persons.
So let’s say the FRC did indeed oppose vaccination that could prevent cancers. The moral ground for this critique is “Thou shalt not kill.” But if you argue that there is no difference in moral degree between FRC and PP (moral relativism implicitly makes this argument), you erode the ground of your critique because PP does more than talk about killing, they actually do it. In this case, FRC would deserve critique, but PP still deserves condemnation. There is a world of difference between the two.