THE WEDNESDAY STOPP REPORT

Planned Parenthood plans to rent from a Texas school district

Planned Parenthood of Central Texas hopes to move into a building by November 1 that is owned by the Marlin, Texas Independent School District. The building was once a school and has been leased since 2005.

Since Planned Parenthood has a contract with the state to provide family planning services, PP would initially share the space with the state, without paying rent. Joe Goodson, a Southern Baptist pastor, and many other pro-lifers are challenging the school district on this decision of renting out a school building to the largest abortion chain in the country.

To contact Superintendent Ray Matthews by e-mail or call 254-883-3585.

Holy Cross still holding conference

Holy Cross still plans to hold the 2007 Teen Pregnancy Institute conference today, October 24. As we reported to you in the October 3 edition of the WSR, Planned Parenthood is one of the featured presenters at this conference. The president of the college, Fr. Michael McFarland continues to hold his decision even after Bishop Robert McManus made a public statement that Holy Cross should not take part of this event.

We’d like to thank all of you for taking an active role with informing the college and Bishop McManus about your concerns.

Planned Parenthood is charged with 107 criminal counts

Planned Parenthood of Overland Park, Kansas has been charged with 107 criminal counts. Of these 29 are charges of performing unlawful late-term abortions. Phill Kline, Johnson County’s district attorney has charged Planned Parenthood with 23 felonies and 84 misdemeanors. If Planned Parenthood is convicted, it faces more than $2.5 million in fines. Court date is scheduled for November 6.

Maine middle school provides birth control to students

Students at King Middle School in Maine will be able to receive birth control at the school’s health center. The school board approved the proposal on a 7-2 vote. The school’s health center, which is located on the school premises, had dispensed condoms since 2000, but since it could not prescribe birth control pills, nurses referred the students to Planned Parenthood.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, this is the first middle school in Maine to have a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6-8.

Schools are controlled by the state education department. Usually, under policies of the education department, schools are not allowed to give any sort of medication to students without specific instructions from the child's parents.

Health clinics in schools are generally run by health agencies that are not subject to the regulations of the state education department. Health agencies, instead, are controlled by the regulations of the state health department. Health department regulations allow the providing of medication to the students without parental knowledge if the medications fall in the realm of "reproductive health care." This includes contraception and abortion.

The Maine middle school has set up a system whereby parents need to give permission for the student to use the health center. But once that permission is given, parents cannot control what specific services are given to the students. Even if parents specifically state they don't want the children to get birth control pills, once the child goes to the health center, the center staff can give the child any "reproductive health services" including birth control pills and other contraception.

Catholic University stops running Planned Parenthood ads

President Charles J. Dougherty of Duquesne University has ordered the campus radio station WDUQ to stop running Planned Parenthood advertisements.

This decision was made due to the reality of what kind of an organization Planned Parenthood is, and that it should not be promoted on a Catholic university. This is the example that all Catholic colleges should be following.

Planned Parenthood does NOT reduce abortions

As we reported in the WSR edition of October 17, a Guttmacher Institute study pointed out a greater number of abortions occurred where contraception was made available. Below is an article by Bill Beckman that appeared in the Illinois Review:

Does Planned Parenthood reduce abortions?

A headline in the October 15th Chicago Sun-Times reads, “Planned Parenthood is not the enemy in abortion fight.” Such a statement could have come straight out of Planned Parenthood’s own marketing plan. Unfortunately, the facts do not support the perception Planned Parenthood wants to create with this marketing message.

In 2006, the Guttmacher Institute (research arm of Planned Parenthood) rated the states on the effectiveness of their state-funded birth control distribution programs. States such as New York and California were rated excellent while Nebraska was rated poor. Which of these states do you think have high abortion rates? Remember, Planned Parenthood claims that better access to birth control will reduce abortions. Well, New York and California are among the states with the highest abortion rates while Nebraska has low abortion rates. Thus, Planned Parenthood's own statistics demonstrate the failure to achieve their claimed results.

In 2005, the Guttmacher Institute, in a study on unplanned pregnancies, noted that 53 percent of women who have unintended pregnancies used a contraceptive method during the month they got pregnant. Of those unplanned pregnancies, 47 percent end in abortion, 40 percent are carried to full term, and 13 percent end in miscarriage. Whether this is due to usage failure or method failure, it shows that artificial contraception is largely ineffective in preventing unplanned pregnancy and abortion.

Planned Parenthood is pushing hard for access to the morning-after pill at every pharmacy in the nation. They consider it a national problem if even one pharmacy does not have Plan B readily available. They claim that over-the-counter access to Plan B will reduce unwanted pregnancy and abortion by 50%. However, after the FDA allowed over-the-counter sales to anyone at least 18 years old, one of the most active promoters of Plan B, James Trussell from Princeton University, co-authored a study that evaluated the results of over-the-counter sales from 10 nations.

The authors reported, “no study has shown that increased access to this method reduces unintended pregnancy or abortion rates on a population level” and “the consistency of their primary findings is hard to ignore." They concluded that the morning-after pill “is unlikely to produce a major reduction in unintended pregnancy rates no matter how often women use it” and that “previous expectations that improved access could produce a direct, substantial impact on a population level may have been overly optimistic.” They also stated the drug's effectiveness may be "substantially ... overstated." Again, reality is far different from the marketing hype.

The above evidence demonstrates that Planned Parenthood’s claims of reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions are not supported by the facts. Consider also the business perspective. Would any business really be serious about reducing use of their products? If their claims were true, why did the number of abortions provided by Planned Parenthood climb from 5% to 20% of the national total over the last 20 years, reaching 264,943 when last reported for 2005? With estimated abortion revenue over $110 million, abortion is much more than 3% of Planned Parenthood’s business. In fact, abortion revenues produce about 32% of the income its clinic facilities generate annually.

Planned Parenthood claims that abstinence education does not work. Their solution is called “comprehensive sex education.” Ironically, they claim “comprehensive sex education” provides “a strong abstinence message.” Abstinence educators have reviewed the programs advocated by Planned Parenthood. None of them emphasize abstinence so again the marketing hype does not square with reality.

Why would Planned Parenthood have any interest in promoting abstinence? Teenagers who practice abstinence will never become customers of Planned Parenthood. They do not need birth control, STD testing and treatment, pregnancy tests, and abortions. These are the services that Planned Parenthood sells.

Laura Berman (author of the Sun-Times article) can believe Planned Parenthood’s marketing hype if she wants, but the facts do not support their claims. As the largest abortion provider in the nation, Planned Parenthood certainly is the enemy in the effort to end abortion.

Back issues of the Wednesday STOPP Report.