Commentary by Jim Sedlak
“On behalf of Planned Parenthood airlines, you are now free to make sweet, sweet love.”
That is the closing line in a new commercial put together by Planned Parenthood Golden Gate and expected to run in the San Francisco area on such venues as MTV, VH-1, Comedy Central and TLC and on KMEL-FM, a San Francisco Clear Channel radio station.
The Planned Parenthood ad is set on an airplane and narrated by Steven, a flashy flight attendant that also plays the role of sexual health educator. The ads push the use of condoms and other birth control methods. The theme of the “Mile High Club,” which is a term referring to having sex on an airplane a mile up in the air, makes the ads an outright promotion of sex. During the commercial, the flight attendant, Steven, plays the role of a Planned Parenthood sex educator, asks a couple if they have the pill, patch, or condoms and then condoms and other contraceptives fall from the emergency compartment into the laps of the man and woman. According to Planned Parenthood, this commercial will “inspire and motivate young adults to take care of themselves and… to help them make safe, healthy, and responsible choices.” It is yet another tactic Planned Parenthood has come up with to advertise its sex products.
Planned Parenthood Golden Gate explains the purpose of this advertisement in a statement from its president:
PPGG created this campaign to stress the importance of sexual health in a creative way and one that breaks free from the old ineffective paradigm of relying on fear-mongering tactics to inspire desired behavior changes,” said Dian J. Harrison, PPGG’s President and CEO. “We want young people to take control of their sexual health and well-being by using prevention every time they have sex. This ad's message normalizes pregnancy prevention and safer sex in a healthy, cool, and humorous way.
Thus, Harrison begins by saying this advertisement is part of a campaign to “stress the importance of sexual health.” Sounds like a good thing, but what does PPGG mean by the term “sexual health.” Well, Peter Greenhouse, a sexual health consultant in the United Kingdom coined the generally accepted definition of sexual health as: “Sexual health is the enjoyment of sexual activity of one's choice, without causing or suffering physical or mental harm.”
It is clear, then, that this is but another campaign by Planned Parenthood to glorify indiscriminate sexual activity between unmarried persons ? what earlier generations referred to as fornication. In fact, Harrison admits that the ad is all about “normalizing” sex using birth control.
The problem with all of this, of course, is that it is a complete corruption of the sexual faculties as created by God. “God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth …’” (Genesis 1:27-28). “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.” (Genesis 2:24).
In the world as ordained by the Creator, sexual intimacy is an expression of spousal love between a man and woman. Intercourse is the total giving of a man to his wife and a woman to her husband. When given freely, with full understanding and respect, it forms a bond so strong that the two will become as one. Sex, as it was designed by God, is awesome and right.
But Planned Parenthood takes this awesome gift and debases it. Planned Parenthood sells products designed to inhibit the total giving of one spouse to another for self-gratification. Planned Parenthood preaches a philosophy that enables fornication. Planned Parenthood produces television advertisements featuring super-sexed flight attendants throwing Planned Parenthood products at unmarried couples encouraging them to treat the ultimate gift as nothing more than an entry price to some mythical mile high club. And then has the audacity to refer to the subsequent sexual activity as making love.
If Planned Parenthood were doing all this as an overtly anti-God group, it would be distasteful, but expected. But, Planned Parenthood continually portrays itself as being pro-Faith. It has a national chaplain, a national clergy committee and even has a prayer breakfast at its annual conferences ? all the while doing everything in its power to convince people to use the great gift of sex in a manner totally opposed to the purpose created by God.
If Planned Parenthood was a private corporation doing all of this with its own money, we would still oppose it. But, in actuality, Planned Parenthood is an organization that relies on the United States taxpayers for one-third of its income. Nationally, it received 305 million taxpayer dollars last year and paid no taxes on its $55 million in profits. The affiliate that produced this outrageous “Mile High” advertisement, Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, received over $12 million from the taxpayer in 2006, representing 57 percent of its total income.
This “Mile High” advertisement is not the first outrageous video produced by Planned Parenthood. It joins the ranks of the “Guardian Angel of Sex,” the “Safer Sex Tool Box,” and the “Superhero for Choice,” just to name a few. But it is more evidence that Planned Parenthood is in the sex business ? making millions in profits, leading young people into broken lives and normalizing a view of sex that is completely at odds with God’s intent.
It is time for Planned Parenthood Airlines to be grounded ? for good.
Release issued: 11 Jan 08
