Planned Parenthood’s Assault on the Public Health

Opinion   |   Gerard Nadal   |   Mar 22, 2011   |   6:38PM   |   Washington, DC

In the Congressional battle to defund Planned Parenthood, the predictable narrative of abortion, Roe v. Wade, women’s rights, and the separation of church and state has given way to a new web of lies. According to Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards:

“In attacking Planned Parenthood, the House Republican leadership has launched an outrageous assault on the millions of Americans who rely on Planned Parenthood for primary and preventive health care, including lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screenings, annual exams, family planning visits, birth control, HIV testing, and more.”

In truth, Planned Parenthood’s disastrous targeting of children leads to the very diseases for which they test.

To begin, all of Planned Parenthood’s sex literature for youth, young adults, and young people is aimed at children beginning at age ten. This is from their own publication “Stand and Deliver: Sex, Health and Young People in the 21st Century”:

“The World Health Organization defines young people as those from 10 to 24 years of age, including adolescents (10–19 years) and youth (15–24 years). IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) uses the terms young people, youth and adolescents interchangeably to refer to people who are between 10 and 24 years.”

The booklet adds: “Culture, religion and traditions are some of the biggest obstacles in implementing sexual and reproductive health programmes for young people.”

In that light, consider the booklet made available to Girl Scouts in a no-adults allowed meeting at a United Nations conference on women. The booklet is Planned Parenthood’s publication aimed at young people with HIV, called “Healthy, Happy, and Hot.” It contains such advice as:

“You have the right to decide if, when, and how to disclose your HIV status.”

“There are many reasons that people do not share their HIV status. They may not want people to know they are living with HIV because of stigma and discrimination within their community. They may worry that people will find out something else they have kept secret, like they are using injecting drugs, having sex outside of a marriage or having sex with people of the same gender. People in long-term relationships who find out they are living with HIV sometimes fear that their partner will react violently or end the relationship.”

“Some people have sex when they have been drinking alcohol or using drugs. This is your choice.”

Evidently Planned Parenthood has forgotten the public health campaigns of the ‘80s and ‘90s that admonished, “Get high, get stupid, get AIDS.”

Culture, religion and traditions are the glue that bind civilizations together and enable them to flourish. They are indispensable in helping adults guide children past the treacherous shoals of sexually transmitted disease and single parenthood, and into the safe harbor of marriage. In other words, they are indispensable tools in maintaining the public health and welfare, and have been identified by Planned Parenthood as obstacles to their “programme.”

Targeting children with sex education, with condoms at age ten is unconscionable. We place common-sense age restrictions on a host of activities that are grounded in a child’s ability to choose wisely and prudently, choices that affect the public well-being and not just the young person. Such restrictions include minimum ages for driving, owning firearms, enlisting in the military, voting, marrying and consuming alcohol.

So it is outrageous that Planned Parenthood should target children as young as ten, telling them that it is their “choice” whether or not they consume alcohol, use drugs and then have sex. It may be a choice, but it is one that is illegal, immoral and a public health disaster. So is the “choice” of cheating on one’s “partner,” using IV drugs behind their back and then reserving the right not to tell that person one has contracted HIV. Such advice from an organization that receives $360 million annually in taxpayer funding from Congress alone and holds itself out as the premier women’s health organization is nothing short of criminal.

Planned Parenthood doesn’t bother to tell our young people that their own statistician, the Guttmacher Institute, related the following failure rates for contraceptive methods under typical use:

• Pill (Combined) 8.7%


• Three-Month Injectable 6.7%


• Withdrawal 18.4%


• Male Condom 17.4%

They don’t tell that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) teaches that condoms are practically worthless in protecting against most STDs and that abstinence and long-term mutual monogamy are the surest ways to avoid STD transmission. They don’t share the CDC data that indicate a steady rise in almost all STDs since the 1960s, as well as a steady, uninterrupted rise in the prevalence of HIV since its advent in the early 1980s. (Click here for an article showing all of the data.)

I’ve recently constructed a new website as a comprehensive parent’s guide to Planned Parenthood and the resources we need to regain the upper hand in determining our children’s fate (click here). There are plenty of great pro-life resources and key, informative articles there.

The time has come to put an end to the taxpayer subsidization of our children’s predators and to demand that they obey the standards of care in public health medicine. The momentum has shifted in our favor.  Our children’s lives depend on our response.