THE STOPP REPORT

The Planned Parenthood condom

On April 17, 2001, Planned Parenthood Federation of America announced the launch of the Planned Parenthood condom.

Available at Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide, the Planned Parenthood condoms feature "a special latex formulation and are available in a variety of styles, colors and flavors."

Each condom wrapper bears a toll-free number which will connect callers with the nearest Planned Parenthood center, where users can get "reproductive health" information or make a confidential appointment.

"The Planned Parenthood name tells you it's a condom you can trust," PPFA President Gloria Feldt said. "And the toll-free number gives users an immediate connection to the full range of services and in-formation people need to stay healthy and make their own responsible choices." [Editor: and kill babies]

According to PP, "the Planned Parenthood condom's unique latex formula was designed in response to clients' requests for the silkiest, most comfortable condom possible" that could still offer top quality protection against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (sic). Planned Parenthood condoms supposedly "meet or surpass FDA requirements and undergo six quality assurance tests: air burst, water burst, wet electric, dry electric, aging and vacuum tests."

In the upcoming year, Planned Parenthood affiliates expect to distribute more than 25 million condoms. Some PP affiliates are giving free samples for one month. Customers will then have to pay and PP profits will increase. (See related article on page 2.)

Planned Parenthood files suit against internet anti-porn law

On March 20, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute filed a lawsuit in federal court against the recently enacted Children's Internet Protection Act, which went into effect on April 20. This nationwide law requires schools and libraries that receive federal aid for Web access (called E-rate) to certify that filtering or blocking technology is in place to protect children from harmful, obscene, and pornographic material.

In the 1920s and 30s, Planned Parenthood successfully fought to repeal laws that prohibited the sending of sex information via U.S. mail - thereby opening the mail to the pornography industry. Then, in 1996, Planned Parenthood launched a successful legal challenge to the Communications Decency Act, which would have kept pornography off the Internet.

It should not surprise anyone that Planned Parenthood filed this lawsuit. Planned Parenthood's web site for kids, Teenwire.com, contains some very disgusting and graphic descriptions of deviant behavior. Obviously Planned Parenthood knows that any decent blocking software wouldn't allow kids access to this site.

The A.C.L.U. is representing Planned Parenthood, AGI and others in the lawsuit, including Planetout.com, a leading web site for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons. A three-judge panel appointed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia will hear the case. Any appeal of its decision will go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Julie Posey, the director of the watchdog group Pedowatch, says there is a real problem in our nation's libraries regarding online chat between children and pedophiles. "I have seen cases where pedophiles on the Internet use the library to talk with children and eventually lure them to have a face-to-face meeting," she said. "These children are then molested, their photos taken and [the children] further exploited when he sends the child's pictures to masses on the Internet" (Washington Times National Weekly Edition, Feb. 12-18, 2001).

By joining in this lawsuit against the Children's Internet Protection Act, Planned Parenthood has shown, once again, that it does not care about children.

Huge EC increase

Planned Parenthood's emergency contraception clients increased 56.6% from 72,024 in 1998 to 112,807 in 1999. In PPFA's 1999-2000 Annual Report, PP claims "If made available to all women who need it, emergency contraception (EC) could reduce the number of abortions in the U.S. by more than half" (p. 5). PP ignores the fact that such emergency contraception often prevents an already conceived human person from implanting in his or her mother's womb, thus killing a 5 to 7 day old living preborn child.

In PP's definition, "abortion" is a word that only refers to ending a pregnancy after implantation or any time up to and including birth (partial-birth abortion). PP's Emergency Contraception Awareness Campaign has featured several celebrities in EC ads and PP has had a 550% increase in visits to EC pages on their web site. PP is currently hard at work trying to get the FDA to give emergency contraception an over-the-counter status.

New Planned Parenthood condom is risky

When Gloria Feldt announced her latest marketing scheme, the Planned Parenthood condom, she claimed that it is a "condom you can trust," but this is far from the truth. Rigorous scientific studies have shown a high percentage of failure in condoms especially when it comes to preventing HIV/AIDS.

C.M. Roland, the editor of Rubber Chemistry and Technology, wrote "the AIDS virus is only 0.1 micron (4 millionths of an inch) in size. Since this is a factor of 50 smaller than the voids inherent in rub-ber, the virus can readily pass through the condom should it find a passage. A reluctance to stake one's life on the ability of a condom to prevent HIV infection bespeaks wisdom …" (Washington Times 4/22/92). Roland also noted that condoms have a 12 percent failure rate in preventing pregnancy.

Yet Planned Parenthood's press release claims that these condoms offer "top quality protection against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections [sic]." They also brag that the condoms are available in a variety of flavors. That's disgusting, but it should not surprise anyone. On Planned Parenthood's web site for teens Planned Parenthood provides graphic descriptions of deviant sex acts with condoms. Apparently, they are trying to create a demand among teens for these new condoms, and they don't care if the lives of teens are being put at risk.

Planned Parenthood's prom survival kit

Planned Parenthood of Minnesota has devised another despicable tactic to market condoms to teenagers - the "prom survival kit." PPM has been handing out gift type boxes which contain the following: a gift certificate for $10.00 toward any Planned Parenthood product or service, breath mints, confetti, and condoms. These prom survival kits were a big news story in the Twin Cities in April.

Writing in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Rick Shefchik said of the prom kits, "but neither is it Planned Parenthood's job to make sex seem like an innocent lark, a routine occurrence, a natural consequence of two healthy teenagers getting together for a party. I don't see it as Planned Parenthood's mission -- or right -- to undermine centuries of parental warnings that underage sex can have repercussions beyond pregnancies and STDs. There can be emotional damage as well. Even if you have all the birth control and disease prevention measures yet devised and use them properly, there is every possibility that sex between a couple of sixteen-year-olds is going to leave at least one of them feeling used, cheap, depressed, confused or misguided" (4/25/01).

Now that Planned Parenthood is marketing its own condom you can expect to see more of these despicable gimmicks being devised to lure teenagers, and younger children, into sexual activity using condoms.

Pat Robertson plugs 'Family Planning' on national TV

On April 18, the Rev. Pat Robertson, founder and president of the Christian Coalition, was interviewed by Paula Zahn on the Fox News Channel regarding his previous comments about population control in China. During this interview Robertson said, "There are ways of birth control. I'm a Protestant and Protestants don't have any problem with family planning. The Chinese government is saying basically one child a family, which seems excessive perhaps but that's their rule, and so far, it's working for them." Much of the family planning work in China is done by the Chinese Family Planning Association, an affiliate of Planned Parenthood.

Robertson's statement is shocking as it comes from one of the nation's foremost Christian leaders, especially when one considers the abortifacient nature of the drugs and devices used in "family planning" programs. If you are a Protestant who doesn't believe in using artificial birth control, please consider contacting the Rev. Pat Robertson to tell him that he does not speak for all Protestants in this matter. His address at the Christian Coalition is: 499 S. Capitol Street SW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20003. Or call 1-800-759-0700 - Pat's 24-hour prayer line at his Christian Broadcasting Network. You can call to request prayers for Pat to change his attitude regarding birth control. Finally, Pat's official web site, www.patrobertson.com provides an e-mail address.

Birth control: an open letter

The June 22, 1915 issue of The Catholic Mind reprinted a letter written by Monsignor John Ryan (for whom the Ryan Report is named). He had received a solicitation in the mail from the Birth Control League (a forerunner of Planned Parenthood Federation of America). This solicitation asked Monsignor Ryan to send in two dollars and become a member of the League. In response, Monsignor Ryan wrote a lengthy letter. We thought you would be interested in reading the following excerpt from his letter. Our thanks to STOPP supporter Bob Olson, who told us this gem could be found in the stacks of the University of San Diego.

To Clare Gruening Stillman,
Secretary, Birth Control League.

My Dear Madam: A careful searching of memory and an anxious examination of conscience have not enabled me to discover any act or utterance of mine which would justify you in expecting that I should consider favorably your invitation, which I have received, to become a member of the Birth Control League. I regard the practice which your organization desires to promote as immoral, degrading and stupid. The so-called contraceptive devices are intrinsically immoral because they involve the un-natural use, the perversion, of a human faculty. One of the most important human faculties is used in such a way as to frustrate its natural end. Such conduct is quite as immoral as self-mutilation, or the practice of solitary vice. Any person who rejects this fundamental moral principle concerning the wrongfulness of per-verting a faculty, must logically hold that there is no such thing as intrinsic immorality, that moral badness is always identical with individual disutility, and that anything is right which any individual thinks is useful for him.

The practice in question is degrading because it perverts conjugal intercourse from cooperation (potential if not actual) with the Creator into a mere means of sensual gratification. It brings husbands and wives down to the level of mutual instruments of indulgence. The disgusting calculation and repulsive artifice which characterize the various contraceptive devices, tend inevitably to diminish conjugal reverence, self-respect and mutual respect. It is doubtful whether any normal man or woman ever began such practices without suffering a severe moral shock, or continued them without serious moral degeneration. It is not surprising that men and women who thus pervert one of the highest functions of life, and the most intimate relation of marriage, should grow obtuse in their perceptions of the sacredness and exclusiveness of wedlock, and of the binding character of conjugal obligation. It is not a mere coincidence that childless marriages, and one or two-child marriages should form such a large proportion of the cases in which divorce is sought on "statutory grounds." Incidentally I would observe that, so far as I know, physicians are practi-cally unanimous in declaring that all the contraceptive practices are in some degree injurious to health.

These practices are stupid because they are so evidently subversive of the end which the Birth Control League profess to promote; namely, human welfare. And the advocates thereof are short-sighted and superficial. They have not learned the obvious lessons of human history, nor grasped the fundamental facts of human psychology. They fail to realize the inevitable by-products of the practice. It is probably true that if the poorest laborers could restrict the size of their families, they could raise their standard of living, and increase to some degree their material welfare. But this is only one of the consequences. When we take a comprehensive view of the situation, we find that any group, class, or nation that once becomes addicted to the use of contraceptives does not give it up after the immediate material ends have been attained. They are not content to take advantage of these devices merely until they have reached a level of reasonable comfort. They continue them in the interest of ease and luxury. This is what has happened and is happening in those sections of the middle and upper classes that have adopted the abominable vice, and there is no good reason to hope that the poorer classes would fail to follow their example.

Now, the restriction of the number of children to one, two or three for the sake of ease and material satisfaction, inevitably produces a disinclination to endure hardship, an inability to put forth painful effort, and a general weakening of moral fiber. This means a decline in every sort of efficiency; for the capacity to endure and the ability to do without, will forever remain the essential conditions of achievement. Talk as we will about "the joy of work," the sober fact is that every kind of labor involves painful exertion if it is carried on continuously, effectively, and up to the limit of one's capacity. There are few if any active persons who would not find it more pleasant to diminish considerably the amount of time and effort that they spend at their tasks. Now, a social practice, like the use of contraceptives, which aims at a life of ease and a shirking of unpleasant duties, reduces fatally the power of endurance, and the ability to carry on sus-tained and effective labor. It affects the few children that are born even more than the parents; for it deprives them of the necessary training in endurance, and keeps before them the bad example of their luxury-loving elders. They are not only small in quantity, but poor in quality; that is, in moral quality, which is the supreme human quality. The social group that has thus weakened its moral fiber inevitably declines in social power and importance. Witness the decadence of the New England strain in our own population; the condition of the French nation, as described and deplored by such authorities as the great economist, P. Leroy-Beaulieu; and the imminent degeneration that threatens certain sections of the English-speaking peoples in more than one country, as set forth in detail by Mr. Beale in his "Racial Decay."

I have no intention of denying that large sections of the laboring class have only too much opportunity to cultivate their capacity for endurance. They would be not only more comfortable but more efficient if this opportunity were considerably diminished. But the only safe way to bring about this result is by bettering their condition economically. The remedy advocated by the Birth Control League is futile and disastrous, inasmuch as, in the long run, and sometimes in the "short run," it impels its votaries to the other extreme, to the pursuit of ease and luxury, and to the adoption of ideals and practices which inevitably produce moral deterioration and a serious decline in efficiency. Wherever the small family cult is practiced, it is both the effect and the cause of a conception of life which regards an indefinite increase of material satisfaction and sensations as the highest good. It involves the most far-reaching exemplification that the world has ever known of what Carlyle called "pig-philosophy." Why should we be in haste to fasten this curse upon the laboring classes? Until such time as the poorest laborers are put in possession of living wages, they have within their power an entirely innocent means of keeping down the number of their offspring, namely, conjugal abstinence. Those parents who have sufficient moral strength to adopt this means will be in no danger of character-degeneration through the presence of a small instead of a large family. Those who do not feel equal to this sacrifice can not afford to run the risk of the moral deterioration which follows the use of contraceptives. They need that natural and compulsory form of self-denial which a large family involves. I am well aware that it is easy to find exceptions to the dire consequences that I have attributed to the practice of the small family cult; but my statements apply to large social groups, and assume that the practice is maintained through two or three generations. In these conditions experience has shown, and continues to show, that the thing is socially disastrous…

I am invited to send two dollars for membership in the Birth Control League. I must respectfully decline, with the observation that I would much rather give the money to an organization for the training of prize fighters. It would aid in the development of at least some manly and human qualities.

Yours, "more in sorrow than in anger,"
JOHN A. RYAN, D.D.
St. Paul