Taxpayers — through Obamacare — are funding Planned Parenthood to allow the organization to expand its sexual education and “risk reduction” program for ninth graders in places like southeastern Virginia.
Critics say the program does more to glorify and encourage sex than educate about its risks, even though Planned Parenthood has insisted the program teaches that “abstinence is the best and safest choice.”
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia has received money from a $75 million pool set aside as part of Obamacare to teach the “Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP).
The introductory lesson, written by ETR Associations, teaches ninth graders that abstinence “means choosing not to do any sexual activity that carries a risk for pregnancy or STD/HIV” instead of abstaining from sexual acts.
The lessons also teach students how to “avert pregnancy and STDs in situations ranging from drinking and going for a ride with one’s boyfriend, to being alone at your boyfriend’s house in the absence of parents for several hours, and when your ‘boyfriend begins to kiss you and tries to take off your clothes.'”
The manual instructs students to refuse or list an alternative to such scenarios but does not encourage students to avoid those situations in the first place.
LifeNews also notes the teacher’s guide also contains role-playing activities, where two students discuss condom use. In the scenario, one student plays the role of a friend who does not like using condoms because intercourse feels better without one and is scripted to say, “I just don’t like to stop what’s going on.” The student then is prompted to decide that condoms are, in the end, necessary to do “everything we’re planning to do in high school and then afterward.”
According to LifeNews, the homepage of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia promotes “Man up Monday” with “an image of a pair of men’s boxer underwear with a huge fishhook protruding from the fly, proclaiming, ‘Hook up this weekend? Make sure you didn’t catch anything.'”
After clicking on the link, “one sees a similar pair of underwear–this time with flames flashing from the fly–with the caption: ‘Hot weekend? Get checked for HIV and STDs.'”
Leigh Anne Woods, the lead educator and program manager, said the funding will allow the group to hire more educators, and the programs represent “an incredible opportunity for us to provide complete, medically-accurate information about reproductive health, family planning, healthy relationships, and communication skills to a vulnerable population with high rates of STIs and teen pregnancy.”
“Young people cannot be expected to make safe, healthy decisions if they don’t have the complete range of information,” Woods said.
Woods did not note the organization gives the least amount of information on abstinence, which would lead to fewer people coming to the organization for contraceptives and abortion services, to the ninth graders in its sexual education programs.