By Jim Sedlak
Last week, the interim president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Alexis McGill Johnson, tweeted: “Yesterday, (Planned Parenthood Los Angeles) announced the opening of the first five of 50 High School Wellbeing Centers. This groundbreaking program means that students don’t have to worry about missing school just to access the quality health care, education, and resources they need.”
In our numerous trips working with people in California, we heard this was going to happen, but now the first details are coming out. The initiative is funded by the LA County departments of public health and mental health and Planned Parenthood Los Angeles.
Over 30 years ago, Planned Parenthood was at the forefront of a national effort to put school-based clinics in the schools. In fact, then-PPFA president Faye Wattleton announced in 1986 that Planned Parenthood had a goal of establishing a school-based clinic in every school district in the nation.
The SBC movement eventually fizzled—in large part due to the fact that it became clear that it was an attack on minority populations and was vigorously opposed by the black community.
Now, it is back with a new name (Wellbeing Centers) and the same old target—minority communities. According to the Los Angeles Unified statistics released at the beginning of this school year, the student population is 73.4 percent Latino, 10.5 percent white, and 8.2 percent African-American.
The Washington Post posted an article last week revealing the extent of Planned Parenthood’s involvement. Los Angeles city agencies are giving Planned Parenthood $10 million to eventually open “Wellbeing Centers” (clinics) in 50 city high schools. According to the article:
Five of the Planned Parenthood centers opened a few weeks into the school year. The rest are to be added before June. Officials involved in the project said the selected schools—in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest—were targeted because they are largely low-income and have no similar medical providers in the vicinity. Two public health officials, trained by Planned Parenthood, will be stationed full time at each school to provide education and counseling, and a Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner or other medical provider will come once a week.
A Los Angeles Times article from last week gave further information on this Planned Parenthood scheme and included this description:
A high school senior decided recently that she wants to become sexually active with her boyfriend. But she is not yet comfortable talking to her mom about birth control and would be unable to get to a doctor’s appointment on her own. Instead, she walked over to the new well-being center at school during a free period.
It was easy. Planned Parenthood runs a sexual healthcare clinic at Esteban Torres High School in East L.A. once a week. Other days educators are available for stress management and students’ other health concerns, including substance abuse. (emphasis added)
This effort by Planned Parenthood is a direct attack on the Latino families in Los Angeles. It is as racist as the old school-based clinics, as Planned Parenthood will now deliver its message of choice to the students inside the schools. What is that message? It’s that the values of chastity, purity, and self-control that your parents have was good for the countries they used to live in, but you are in America now, and you must adopt the uninhibited sexuality norms of your new country.
American Life League president, Judie Brown, published a commentary [Tuesday] reacting to this announcement in Los Angeles and discussing what parents can do. We encourage you to read it here.
Jim Sedlak is executive director of American Life League, founder of STOPP International, and host of a weekly talk show on the Radio Maria Network. He has been successfully fighting Planned Parenthood since 1985.