Planned Parenthood Targets Teens at School-Based Clinic in L.A.

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 5, 2012   |   7:00PM   |   Los Angeles, CA

The Los Angeles Times has a new profile of a school-based health clinic the Planned Parenthood abortion business runs in partnership with the Los Angeles public school district. These kinds of clinics have long been a concern for pro-life advocates, worried they have taxpayer-funded public schools obtaining more customers for the abortion business and preying on teenagers potentially without parental knowledge or permission.

As the Times reports:

Throughout the school year, students visit the on-campus clinic to get birth control, pregnancy tests, counseling and screening for sexually transmitted diseases. The services, which are free and confidential, are offered through a unique collaboration between Planned Parenthood and the Los Angeles Unified School District designed to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies among teenagers at the Boyle Heights high school.

Although nonprofit groups frequently offer reproductive healthcare on school campuses around the nation, the partnership involving Planned Parenthood — long a target of antiabortion lawmakers in Washington — is the only one of its kind.

The Times indicates students can visit the Planned Parenthood school clinic without their parents’ knowing, because California is one of about 20 states that still do not have any type of parental involvement law on abortion. Sherry Medrano, who facilitates the Roosevelt health clinic, made it clear to the Times that having the Planned Parenthood clinic inside the school makes it easier for the abortion business to target students because they are allegedly “more comfortable.”

Planned Parenthood also gives girls birth control and long-term devices — all without a girl’s parents having any idea.

Once in the student was in exam room, Medrano explained how birth control worked and gave her the options: a patch, a ring, pills or a shot. The girl chose the shot, which lasts for 12 weeks. “I’m gonna forget the patch or the pill,” she said.

A few minutes later, a 15-year-old girl brought her friend to see Medrano and helped her fill out a questionnaire. The girl said she watched her older sister drop out of school after becoming a teenage mother. Now she receives birth control pills from the clinic and urges her friends to visit Medrano too.

Leading pro-life groups, like the American Center for Law and Justice, have been concerned about Planned Parenthood qualifying for Obamacare funds to operate more of these clinics preying on teenagers. As Matthew Clark has written:

This pro-abortion law also opens the door to Planned Parenthood-run clinics in public middle schools and high schools, and specifically provides federal tax dollars to establish these clinics. ObamaCare provides grants for establishing “School-based Health Centers,” which could be run by abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood. While the law prevents these clinics from being used to “provide” abortions, it encourages groups like Planned Parenthood to make abortion referrals. The law’s stated purpose for these clinics is to provide “counseling” and “referrals,” which could include abortions and abortion related services.

Victor Medina, writing in an opinion column for the Dallas Republican Examiner, was worried about that before passage of the bill.

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“Such broad wording outlining the qualifications for government funds and access to schoolchildren could open the door for groups like Planned Parenthood to operate the clinics in schools with no oversight and full federal government support,” he says.

“The clinics would be funded by federal grants awarded by the Obama administration, which has made it clear that they expect Planned Parenthood to play an active role in their proposed health care system,” he says.