THE WEDNESDAY STOPP REPORT

Planned Parenthood and chastity

On August 4, Planned Parenthood posted an article on its web site titled Protecting Teen Access. In the article, PP argued against restricting over-the-counter availability of Plan B, so-called emergency contraception, to girls over the age of 18. PP wants young teens to also be able to freely buy this product that kills babies by preventing implantation.

What really was intriguing was the end of the article where PP stated: “Denying teen’s access to the tools that prevent unintended pregnancy is not an effective way to keep kids chaste.”

Huh?

Planned Parenthood is saying that it wants to keep kids chaste? Wow. This would be revolutionary.

In 1922, in her book, The Pivot of Civilization, Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, wrote: "To preach a negative and colorless ideal of chastity to young men and women is to neglect the primary duty of awakening their intelligence, their responsibility, their self-reliance and independence.”

In 1986, then Planned Parenthood Federation of America president, Faye Wattleton, told the Los Angeles Times, "Planned Parenthood will not be an organization promoting celibacy or chastity."

The immediate question that occurred to us was, “What does Planned Parenthood mean by the word “chaste?”

Now, on Planned Parenthood’s web site for teens, it has a handy feature whereby teens can type in a word and get its definition. So we went there and typed in the word “chaste.” Guess what? The response we got was “Your search for “chaste” found no matches.” SO we typed in the word “chastity” and we got the same response.

So, Planned Parenthood doesn’t even define chastity for our children. It just doesn’t think it’s important.

My friend Patricia Bainbridge is a longtime fighter against Planned Parenthood. She worked with Doug Scott at Life Decisions International and currently heads a diocesan respect life effort. Patricia comments in her talks that “chastity” is a dirty word at Planned Parenthood. She even suggests that when a Planned Parenthood executive stubs her toe, the expletive she screams out is “CHASTITY!”

So we don’t know how this word “chaste” wound up in the Planned Parenthood article. But we did do a search of various definitions of the word on the web and they all agree on the following definition of “chaste.”

Chaste: Morally pure in thought or conduct; decent and modest; Not having experienced sexual intercourse; virginal; Abstaining from unlawful sexual intercourse; Abstaining from all sexual intercourse; celibate.

It is clear that if our teens want to remain “morally pure,” the first thing they need to do is stay as far away from Planned Parenthood as possible.

Planned Parenthood pushing “prevention first” bills across the country

Planned Parenthood continues to push what it calls “prevention first” legislation at the federal level and all across the country. This is Planned Parenthood’s attempt to force states into activities that will help push Planned Parenthood’s agenda.

The following are the main points of the federal legislation that is pending in Congress. State bills contain similar points. Our comments follow each point:

• Point I: Title X of the Public Health Service Act

  Increases the authorization for the national family planning program (Title X of the Public Health Service Act) to $643,000,000 for fiscal year 2006 and such sums as necessary in subsequent years. Title X was funded at $288 million for fiscal year 2005. Title X clinic services prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the number of abortions, lower rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV, and detect breast and cervical cancer at its earliest stages. The Title X statute prohibits the use of program funds to pay for abortions.

  (COMMENT: Planned Parenthood already gets $272 million in taxpayer money annually, about $65 million from Title X. In this act, PP wants to more than double the Title X program so it can tap into more federal money. In state bills, PP advocates for the states to spend more on family planning.)

• Point II: Family Planning State Empowerment

  Allows states to expand Medicaid family planning services to women with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, without having to apply to the federal government for a waiver. The provision would give states the option to expand services; states would not be required to do so. Currently, twenty-one states have been granted Medicaid family planning waivers.

  (COMMENT: The Medicaid waiver program has become the most lucrative federal program for Planned Parenthood. It receives almost $70 million a year from this source. In state bills, PP tries to get states to apply for the Medicaid waivers. In the federal bill, PP wants to do away with the necessity of waivers and have the states authorized to automatically extend coverage to PP’s customers – thus assuring more money for PP. In a number of states, PP is getting the money from these programs and advertising that contraceptives are FREE at Planned Parenthood, never mentioning that the government is paying. It does this as it tries to improve its image with the pubic.)

• Point III: Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage

  Requires private health plans to cover FDA-approved prescription contraceptives and related medical services to the same extent that they cover prescription drugs and other outpatient medical services. The provision seeks to establish parity for prescription contraception within the context of coverage already provided by health plans.

  (COMMENT: This provision will force insurance companies to pay for birth control products. PP is pushing this both at the federal and state level so it can collect its fees from insurance companies. The public pays higher premiums for insurance coverage, but PP doesn’t care because it gets its money.)

• Point IV: Emergency Contraception Education and Information

  Provides $10 million in annual funding to implement important public education initiatives about emergency contraception (EC) and its benefits and uses to both women and medical providers.

  (COMMENT: Emergency contraception (Plan B) is a drug developed by a private corporation and being sold for a profit by a private pharmaceutical company. Yet, Planned Parenthood wants the federal government to spend $10 million advertising the product and is also encouraging states to spend money doing the same thing. Since when did the federal government get in the business of paying for the advertising of for-profit products? The answer is, since Planned Parenthood decided it is “entitled” to assistance from the federal government in selling its products. To put numbers around this, Planned Parenthood sold 983,537 EC kits in 2004 at an average price of $30 each. It paid Barr Laboratories just $4.25 for each kit. So, PP made over $25 million in gross profit on this one item and wants you and me to pay $10 million to further advertise it so it can make more money. Does this sound logical?)

• Point V: Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies

  Requires that hospitals receiving federal funds promptly provide EC upon patient request, in addition to medically, factually accurate and unbiased written and oral information about EC to women who survive sexual assault.

  (COMMENT: The manufacturer of EC says it works some of the time by preventing implantation of an already created human being in his mother’s womb. This product kills human beings. Many pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for it because of the fact that it kills. Yet, Planned Parenthood is trying to get a federal government directive that would force hospitals to dispense products that kill babies. PP is truly an organization of death.)

• Point VI: Teenage Pregnancy Prevention

  Provides $20 million in annual funding for competitive grants to public and private entities to establish or expand teen pregnancy prevention programs.

  (COMMENT: This provision is an attempt to force the federal government and states to fund Planned Parenthood sex education programs. These are just the programs that ignore chastity and tell our children that all kinds of sexual activity are “normal.” The sex education programs are the backbone of PP’s business and we should never fund them.)

• Point VII: Accuracy of Contraceptive Information

  Requires information provided about the use of contraception as part of any federally-funded program to be medically accurate and include information about the health benefits and failure rates of contraception. Currently, federally-funded abstinence-only programs are precluded from discussing contraception except to talk about failure rates. A recent study found that these programs distort public health data and misrepresent the effectiveness of contraception.

  (COMMENT: Let’s look at the facts. Teen pregnancy began to rise in the United States when we started to allow Planned Parenthood into the schools. In the early 1990s, there was a backlash to the PP programs and many schools and parents began giving a clear abstinence message to our children. The result was that teen pregnancy began to drop. The effectiveness of the programs was so clear that, in the mid 90s, Congress began funding these abstinence efforts. The result, teen pregnancy has continued to drop. Planned Parenthood doesn’t like these programs because teens who do not get involved in sex provide no income to Planned Parenthood. So it is trying to force its brand of sex education on the parents of this nation. That’s what this provision in the bill is all about.)

Fight “prevention first” legislation

We encourage all of you to fight against these “prevention first” bills wherever they appear. As we’ve just pointed out, these bills are Planned Parenthood’s primary effort to force its agenda on the American people.

New York is well known for being a supporter of Planned Parenthood’s agenda. It is the state that has a pro-abortion “Catholic” governor, George Pataki (R), a former mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani (R) who is also a pro-abortion “Catholic,” and, of course, a U.S. Senator named Hillary Clinton (D).

But, even in New York, Planned Parenthood could not push through its “prevention first” bill this year. Although the bill passed the state assembly, it was bottled up in the senate. Planned Parenthood recently published a newsletter bemoaning the failure of the bill.

Make this an issue with your state legislators and you may be surprised at the positive results.

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