Two former participants in Girl Scouts say the organization enjoys a “cozy relationship” with the abortion industry, including Planned Parenthood, and now Teen Vogue, a magazine that promotes “reproductive justice” and has offered a tutorial on anal sex.
Ann Saladin, creator of MyGirlScoutCouncil.com, and co-editor Christy Volanski, have spent nearly a decade documenting Girl Scouts USA’s relationships with the abortion industry, Planned Parenthood, and political leaders who support abortion and a left-wing agenda in general.
“At the very least, it’s a cozy relationship,” Volanski told Breitbart News as she described the ties between the Girl Scouts, the abortion industry and, specifically, Planned Parenthood.
On Friday, MyGirlScoutCouncil posted to Facebook that the Girl Scouts Gold Award – its highest honor – went to a “reproductive health justice” project to “educate people about and destigmatize access to women’s healthcare”:
In December, the Girl Scouts of the Central California Coast Instagram account featured a post celebrating alumna and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, specifically because “she was a key swing vote in many important cases, including the upholding of Roe v. Wade“:
Conflicting information from the Girl Scouts and the organization’s officials about its ties to the abortion industry has stirred up further controversy about these relationships.
The organization states on its website, regarding the issues of human sexuality, birth control, and abortion, it “does not take a position or develop materials on these issues.” Similarly, Girl Scouts denies having “a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood.”
Volanski noted, however, that local Girl Scout councils and individual troops are permitted to partner with Planned Parenthood.
In the video below from October 2004 – cited by PJ Media – former Girl Scouts USA CEO Kathy Cloninger confirmed a partnership between Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood.
“We partner with many organizations,” Cloninger said. “We have relationships with our church communities, with YWCAs, and with Planned Parenthood organizations across the country, to bring information-based sex education programs to girls.”
The Girl Scouts also state that “[e]very Girl Scout and Girl Guide organization is a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts—and each Member Organization, including Girl Scouts of the USA, pays dues.”
The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), however, is an organization that advocates globally for abortion rights.
Volanski explained while some media outlets are emphasizing that Girl Scouts does not send funds specifically from cookie sales directly to Planned Parenthood, “the fact that Girl Scouts exposes girls to Planned Parenthood through their organization is much more insidious than a financial relationship.”
“Many Girl Scout critics focus primarily on the relationship between Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood, but the concerns are so much broader than this one concerning connection,” Volanski asserted. “The Girl Scout organization features many progressive pro-abortion organizations, activists, politicians and events to its girl members.”
She cited the Girl Scout organization’s recent promotion and participation in the Teen Vogue Summit as an example.
“The Teen Vogue Summit focused on ‘reproductive justice,’ and featured speakers such as former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards and manager of Youth Organizing for Planned Parenthood, Sharim Hossain,” Volanski explained.
The Girl Scouts USA is also a member organization of the Coalition for Adolescent Girls (CAG), which advocates for abortion, contraception and comprehensive sex education for girls. In addition to the Girl Scouts, CAG includes International Planned Parenthood; global abortion provider Marie Stopes International; the sexuality-focused Advocates for Youth; the Institute for Reproductive Health; the United Nations Foundation; and the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded Women Deliver organization, that focuses on access to contraception and abortion.
Saladin stressed to Breitbart News that one of Girl Scouts’ most disturbing more recent partnerships has been with the Teen Vogue Summit.
“GSUSA’s recent sponsorship, participation, and promotion of the Teen Vogue Summit, which featured ‘reproductive justice’ among its topics, is the latest example at odds with their assurance that ‘GSUSA does not take a position or develop materials on these issues [human sexuality, birth control, and abortion],’” she said. “If tweeting out the pro-abortion mantra ‘My body, my choice, my rights’ isn’t taking a position, I don’t know what is.”
Under the guise of “civic engagement,” the Girl Scouts organization appears focused on a certain brand of politics.
In 2019, Girl Scouts launched a K-12 program called the Girls’ Access to Education “civic engagement toolkit” in partnership with Global Girls Alliance.
“The Global Girls Alliance is a program developed by the Obama Foundation to empower adolescent girls around the world through education,” Girl Scouts states. “To advance these goals, the Global Girls Alliance supports grassroots leaders, like Girl Scouts of the USA, who best understand the unique challenges girls face in their communities and the strategies needed to overcome them.”
“Civic engagement” at the Girl Scouts also means participating at the Teen Vogue Summit, which features voter information and registration provided by the left-wing Rock the Vote.
“Rock the Vote was additionally featured at Girl Scouts USA’s G.I.R.L. Agenda 2018: Leading Change Through Civic Action, as well as a suggested resource for one of Girl Scouts’ voting themed badges,” Saladin observed.
In June 2018, LA Weekly described the Teen Vogue Summit as “a three-day symposium focused on the hot topics that young Gen Z women care about.”
The summit emphasized “grassroots social activism,” the report stated, and the panels “addressed a grab-bag of progressive topics,” such as “menstrual power and reproductive justice; LGBTQ+ rights; bipartisan environmentalism in the face of climate change; and humane immigration policy, among others.”
The report added the inaugural event featured “former presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, California Rep. Maxine Waters, producer Ava DuVernay, Black Lives Matter co-founder DeRey McKesson and young actresses Storm Reid and Black-ish star Yara Shahidi, among others.”
“It’s really thrilling to see,” said Jen Tolentino, director of policy and civic tech at Rock the Vote, which LA Weekly noted was “on-site to help register any freshly minted or soon-to-turn-18-year-olds — and in sync with the 20-state voter registration bus tour the Parkland survivors would announce mere days later.”
One of the Teen Vogue Summit speakers was the Girl Scouts’ own Andrea Bastiani Archibald, the organization’s developmental psychologist who, prior to Christmas, penned a post warning Girl Scout parents that encouraging their daughters to hug relatives during the holidays might plant the seed they owe sexual favors later on in life.