There’s something very sinister about an organization that uses the word “parenthood” in its name and then makes every effort to ensure that parents have absolutely no say when their minor daughters seek to use birth control or abort their grandchild.
Right now in Alaska, true to form, Planned Parenthood is using its alleged concern for minor children’s so-called privacy rights as a pathetic excuse for opposing parental rights. The Alaska Family Council has received the go-ahead to put an initiative on the ballot that would require parental notification before a minor can have an abortion.
Now that the measure has been certified by Alaska’s lieutenant governor, the signature-gathering process can begin. But PP wants it stopped. Clover Simon, president of PP in Alaska, argued,
"The Alaska constitution has very specific rules about what a citizens initiative can and can't do. And one of those rules is that it cannot create court rules. We feel like owe anyone who is going to vote on this issue… a very clear and legal law to vote on and this does not meet those requirements."
Alaska's Channel 11 (KTVA) reports on Jim Minnery, president of Alaska Family Council, who knows why PP is working to stop the initiative:
He says it was certified by the state last month and believes it will hold up in court.
"It's not a surprise," he said. "Because typically that's the response that Planned Parenthood has. It's just a desperate attempt to try to again thwart the will of the people by Planned Parenthood…”
Planned Parenthood says the initiative doesn't take into account girls who may have abusive parents or parents who aren't around at all.
This is the standard argument PP uses when any organization attempts to put a law in place that would uphold the authority God gives to parents when He blesses them with the gift of a child. PP pushes an agenda that not only portrays parents as incompetent, but does all it can to literally steal children’s souls, as Jim Sedlak, executive director of Stop Planned Parenthood International, has made perfectly clear time and time again.The headline of a brochure he wrote for American Life League always grabs the reader’s attention: “Planned Parenthood sells sex, but merely as bait to steal souls—your children’s souls. This is why we must fight Planned Parenthood!”
PP perceives any attempt by citizens to preserve or restore legal recognition of parental authority as a threat to its business—a business that revolves around brainwashing young people into believing that their sexual urges cannot be controlled, but should be expressed. As Jim makes clear, “There’s no question that as an organization, Planned Parenthood considers sexual activity between unmarried young people to be a good thing—and that society as a whole should adopt this mindset.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. American Life League does not believe that any parent should be in the position of having veto power over whether or not their grandchild lives or dies. Such proposals reek of a mentality that accepts abortion as long as the minor’s parents agree that the preborn child should die. Merely because a parent agrees to the abortion of his or her grandchild does not justify the direct murder of that child.
However, our years of experience with PP and its anti-parent philosophy lead us to conclude that PP cannot tolerate even the slightest, most ineffective recognition of parental authority. It views the best parents as being uninvolved, disinterested parents who view their children as property and welcome PP as the savior rushing in to do their job for them.
This is a huge problem in our culture today and was certainly foreseen by wise men like Pope John Paul II, who pointed out in Familiaris Consortio (1981),
[S]igns are not lacking of a disturbing degradation of some fundamental values: …serious misconceptions regarding the relationship of authority between parents and children; the concrete difficulties that the family itself experiences in the transmission of values; the growing number of divorces; the scourge of abortion; the ever more frequent recourse to sterilization; the appearance of a truly contraceptive mentality. (Section 6)
And he reiterated and clarified what the Catholic Church teaches on the right of parents to be their children’s primary educators:
The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation of married couples to participate in God's creative activity: By begetting in love and for love a new person who has within himself or herself the vocation for growth and development, parents by that very fact take the task of helping that person effectively to live a fully human life. As the Second Vatican Council recalled, "Since parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring. Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it. For it devolves on parents to create a family atmosphere so animated with love and reverence for God and others that a well-rounded personal and social development will be fostered among the children. Hence, the family is the first school of those social virtues which every society needs.”
The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others. (Section 36)
Pope John Paul II foresaw the manner in which PP would use law, courts and classrooms to drive a wedge between parents and their children, thereby usurping parental authority. This is why he defined, with absolute clarity, the difference between morally grounded parental sex education versus sex instruction by those who do, in point of fact, want to steal souls:
Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them. In this regard, the Church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity, which the school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education, by entering into the same spirit that animates the parents.
In this context education for chastity is absolutely essential, for it is a virtue that develops a person's authentic maturity and makes him or her capable of respecting and fostering the "nuptial meaning" of the body. Indeed Christian parents, discerning the signs of God's call, will devote special attention and care to education in virginity or celibacy as the supreme form of that self-giving that constitutes the very meaning of human sexuality.
In view of the close links between the sexual dimension of the person and his or her ethical values, education must bring the children to a knowledge of and respect for the moral norms as the necessary and highly valuable guarantee for responsible personal growth in human sexuality.
For this reason the Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principles. That would merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure and a stimulus leading to the loss of serenity — while still in the years of innocence — by opening the way to vice. (Section 37, emphasis added)
We agree with Pope John Paul II’s every word. He was indeed a prophet for our time. Clearly, the foundation of American society is at risk of crumbling because of the dissolution of the family, the erosion of parental authority and the divorce that has occurred between God’s truth and the fundamental meaning of the human person, including his sexuality. Man is, after all, not an animal but rather a child of God, created in His image and likeness, and capable of self-control.
PP must be stopped; it must not succeed in its ongoing war against parental authority, and this includes its current attempt to thwart the democratic process in Alaska. Every person has a duty to stand up and be counted in defense of parental rights, which begin not with parental notice prior to abortion. Their restoration requires the total removal of PP from the social landscape. That is the only way to effectively rid the culture of PP’s toxic influence.
Become an expert on effectively accomplishing this today:
- Become a recipient of Stop Planned Parenthood International’s Wednesday STOPP Report.
- Learn how to exercise the power of being a parent by reading Jim’s Parent Power!! book.
“For the sake of our children’s souls, we must protect them from any program provided or influenced by Planned Parenthood—wherever and under whatever guise it may be offered” (Planned Parenthood steals souls brochure available from American Life League’s Pro-Life Store).