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by Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, Vice President for Strategic Partnerships
Late last year, Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) introduced the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011 (aka PRENDA) to ban abortions on the basis of race and sex selection (more on that later). With PRENDA coming up for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives today, anti-abortion hoax video auteur Lila Rose just happened to release a new video “sting operation” claiming to document sex selection at Planned Parenthood clinics. Because these totally-not-coordinated attacks on abortion access have nothing to do with each other, House Republicans made a last minute change to the bill – dropping “race selection” language completely*. Now, we just happen – totally a coincidence, we promise! – to have Congress voting on a “sex selection abortion ban” the day after a new “undercover sex selection abortion exposé” tries to hijack the news cycle.
Amazing.
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by Emily Bridges, Director, Public Information Services
The activist group LiveAction, working with anti-abortion activist Lila Rose, is pretty pleased with its series of “stings” on Planned Parenthood. What they "uncover" seems to be that Planned Parenthood provides abortions, which I thought anti-abortion activists were already well aware of, but which always seems shocking to them.
Today’s noise specifically is around sex-selective abortion. In the recently released Live Action video, a woman visiting a Planned Parenthood clinic tells the counselor that she plans to abort if the fetus is female.
This operation’s cover had already been blown in April. That’s because, as Amanda Marcotte pointed out, requests for sex-selective abortion are so rare that Planned Parenthood staff immediately knew something was fishy when the actors came to the clinics.
So: the video is about a theoretical medical procedure that would be highly statistically unlikely in this country.
Plus, the counselor doesn’t advise anything illegal.
Thus, having no real whistle to blow, the video uses the fictional scenario to get you to respond emotionally to the idea of sex-selective abortion and to call for it to be outlawed.
“Surely you care about female babies – surely you don’t CONDONE aborting female babies?” they ask – pressuring us as pro-choice activists to condemn this kind of abortion.
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A young gay man is constantly and violently bullied by his classmates.
He asks his school administration for help.
They say he needs to “tone down” his flamboyant behavior, and stop wearing girls’ clothes.
We saw this story in California in 2008, when Lawrence King was ultimately murdered by a classmate who had been tormenting him for months. School officials, defense attorneys, and commentators all maintained that Lawrence shouldn’t have worn high heels and lipstick – that his outrageous get-ups enraged his murderer. That he, Lawrence, held the responsibility to prevent his murder – not the boy who murdered him, or the school that failed to protect him, or the culture that made him a target. Apparently, Lawrence should have "toned it down."
In Indianapolis this month, we’re seeing another young victim of bullying: Darnell “Dynasty” Young.
Darnell is 17 and openly gay. He was frequently bullied by classmates – they hounded him, harassed him, followed him, threw rocks and bottles at him.
He told school officials at least ten times.
They told him to “tone it down.”
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by Barbara Huberman, Director, Education and Outreach
Every year, Advocates for Youth sponsors National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month (NTPPM). Observed each May by states and communities throughout the country, NTPPM seeks to involve communities in promoting and supporting effective teen pregnancy prevention initiatives. Councils and other pregnancy prevention organizations continue to initiate new and innovative ideas that work to dismantle structural barriers and help young people make informed decisions about their health.
From the work EyesOpenIowa is doing with their cutting edge ‘Txt’ program for teens in Iowa, to events held by organizations around the United States, it is clear that the momentum behind NTPPM is growing. Throughout the month we hope you continue to share your NTPPM activities with us.
We also invite you to check out our recently updated National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month (NTPPM) Planning Guidebook on our NTPPM page.
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