Writers reflect on Planned Parenthood impact

Interim Special

A number of voices over the years have described the International Planned Parenthood Federation in terms not likely to be found in the organization’s self-serving literature.

Many of these sources cite Planned Parenthood’s participation in attempts to undermine the traditional family as a means of promoting its new vision.

In her 1988 work, The War Against Population, Dr. Jacqueline Kasun described how efforts to promote widespread sex education in schools in the mid-1960s often put young people at odds with their parents.

“For years,” writes Dr. Kasun, “leading promoters of government population control programs, such as Planned Parenthood and the American Public Health Association, have understood that sex education is vital to their goals. In its five year plan for 1976-1980, the Planned Parenthood and the American Public Health Association have understood that sex education is vital to their goals. In its five-year plan for 1976-1980, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. called for a ‘zero rate of natural population increase’ hand-in-hand with the requisite sex education to ‘raise the level of awareness among all persons of family planning, human sexuality, population growth, and health in general.”

Kasun concludes that one of the central thrusts of this push of intrusive sex education is to undermine the normal-functioning family. “Not only do the sex education programs encourage students to opt for lifestyle opposed to the traditional monogamous marriage with children, but they discredit the students’ own parents’ wisdom and authority,” Kasun says. “The determined assault in the family serves the double purpose of lessening its attractiveness and discrediting its moral authority.” To this end, Planned Parenthood is at the forefront of voices heralding the breakdown of the nuclear family, despite evidence that the family remains strong and that it is still the best vehicle for nurturing stable, well-adjusted individuals.

Similarly in his 1992 book The War Against the Family, Professor William Gairdner described Planned Parenthood and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) as the major player in the abortion/ contraception effort: “They are together the world’s largest providers of contraception, sex-ed, and abortion services. Planned Parenthood has a budget of $380 million, most of it from government, about 30,000 employees and volunteers, and 172 affiliates in the United States (and about 50 in Canada). It operates 879 clinics that counsel about four million people, mostly youngsters, every year. It is a highly ideological organization. It pushes open, non-exploitive sex, whether in or out of marriage (it is pan-sexualist); it promotes only contraception-model sex-ed classes, even for the very young; and it tries to normalize homosexuality.”

Gairdner goes on to point out how Planned Parenthood lobbies diligently against parental consent and informed consent legislation, there-by allowing young women and teenagers to obtain abortions without parents’ knowledge, and usually without full knowledge, and usually without full knowledge of the procedure’s implications. In connection with this attitude, Planned Parenthood has become one of the largest abortion referral services in North America.

In his discussion of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, Gairdner describes how the origins of the organization were interwoven with eugenics. And while the federation today has downplayed the eugenic language, there is little doubt its anti-population efforts are aimed largely at the Third World countries and the domestic poor.

Another author, Father Paul Marx of Human Life International, sprinkles his 1989 autobiography Fighting for Life with allusions to Planned Parenthood’s anti-family activity.

He is particularly distressed by Planned Parenthood’s motives in promoting values-free sex education. “(Planned Parenthood) invited two John Hopkins University sociologists to study the effects of classroom sex ed., only to discover that such programs actually increased sexual experimentation and promiscuity among unmarried young people.

“For years in fact UNESCO and the International Planned Parenthood Federation have tried to inject sex-ed into every public school in the world. They know from universal experience that this is the best way to plant their vicious contraceptive/ sterilizing/ aborting/ anti-life/ anti-family philosophy into the lives of young people. It was Dr. Alan Guttmacher, the founder of PP of the USA who declared ‘the answer to winning the battle for elective abortion once and for all is sex education.’”

Two respected voices in defence of the family –Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Gary Bauer of Washington- based Family Research Council, point to the crass financial interests that motivate Planned Parenthood.

In their 1990 work, Children At Risk: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Our Kids, Dobson and Bauer say “multiplied millions of dollars” are generated each year in direct response to teenage sexual irresponsibility.

“At the top of the list of those who profit from adolescent irresponsibility are those who are purportedly working to fight it. Planned Parenthood and similar organizations would simply fade away if they were ever fully successful in eliminating teen pregnancies…” Dobson and Bauer point out.

Self-preservation?

“Imagine how many jobs would be lost if kids quit playing musical beds with one another. This is why professionals who advise young people about sex are so emotional about the word abstinence. If that idea ever caught on, who would need the services of Planned Parenthood and their ilk? It’s a matter of self-preservation.”

The authors reveal Planned Parenthood’s four-point plan which emphasizes “value-free” counseling on sexuality, unlimited supplies of contraceptives, keeping parental involvement to an absolute minimum, and providing wide-open access to abortion for women who become pregnant. Dobson and Bauer bemoan the fact that the North American public seems to have bought into this anti-family orientation.

Perhaps it is not surprising that despite that despite the growth and influence of Planned Parenthood and similar organizations, abortion and unplanned pregnancy rates continue to climb. Dobson and Bauer cite studies by the Institute for Research and Evaluation showing that the Planned Parenthood approach actually worsens the problem of teenage sexuality.

The authors offer their own four-point plan as a remedy to the inroads made by abortion/ contraception peddlers. Central to the plan is re-emphasizing the parental role in nurturing children. “We must not permit the state or its self-appointed saviours to undermine parents and weaken their authority.

As well, parents should strive to promote sexual abstinence, and remove any incentives for teens to become pregnant. And lastly, the author suggests a renewed emphasis on Judeo-Christian values as a means of promoting a healthy respect for human sexuality and the family.