Kathryn Jean Lopez believes that Planned Parenthood steers pregnant teens towards abortion:
Browse on over to their web magazine for minors, www.teenwire.com, and you’ll find, among the question-and-answer, a question from a teen who says she had an abortion “a little over a month ago,” is pregnant again, and wondering if a second abortion is safe. Not only does the teenwire.com staff cavalierly tell the girl (who, I remind you, got pregnant again a month after her first abortion) that abortion is “very safe” the first or second time around, but that abortion “is much safer than giving birth.” While they do throw in a line about preventing pregnancy by using birth control, there’s no talk about adoption or other alternatives — such as raising the child, and getting help to do so — that a desperate girl could afford to hear.
Out of thousands of questions and answers, she picks out this one, which shockingly tells the truth about abortion. It is “very safe” and “much safer than birth.”
The girl (I’m assuming she’s a minor, since the site is aimed at teens, but she could be older) didn’t ask about adoption or parenting, she asked “what are the risks of a second abortion.” She steered herself towards abortion!
If she had wanted information about parenting or adoption, though, there’s plenty of it on the teenwire.com site. (And if you follow that link, you’ll notice that the archives about pregnancy, parenting and adoption are fifth from the top, while the archives about abortion are at the very bottom of the list, further proof of their aggressive marketing of abortion.) For example:
“I’m pregnant. What options do I have?” The teenwire.com staff shamelessly reply that she has three options:
- She can choose to have a baby and raise her child.
- She can choose to have a baby and place her child for adoption.
- She can have an abortion.
Then they have the nerve to tell her that only she can decide which option is right for her! They suggest that she consider what she can live with, her plans for the future, her moral and spiritual beliefs, her future well-being and so on. Then they suggest talking to family, friends or a counselor.
“I’m pregnant. Everyone wants me to get an abortion, but I don’t want to! What do I do?” The teenwire.com staff brazenly tell the girl that only she can decide what is right for her. They tell her that she has three options: “raise the child, place the child for adoption, or have an abortion.” They then suggest talking to a teacher, religious adviser or trained counselor, and go through a list of things to consider before becoming a parent!
And if you do a search for “pregnancy” or “adoption” you’ll find articles like these:
“Prenatal Care for Pregnant Teens.” An article on the importance of seeing a doctor, not smoking, not drinking and eating right during pregnancy.
“Adoption: An Act of Love.” An article about open adoption, including a sweet letter from a birth mother to her baby, and her reflections on how wonderful she feels about her choice.
“Questions and Answers About Adoption.” An “FAQ” about adoption, including a link and phone number to adoptionhelp.org.
“The Rights of Teen Parents.” A positive story of a successful teen mom who won the right to take college prep classes, and a list of all the rights teen parents have, such as the right to get a GED, go to school, participate in extracurricular activities and school functions, receive extra help or tutoring, miss school for medical appointments, take a leave of absence for pregnancy, join honor societies, and so on.
I found all this stuff in a matter of minutes. Sure, they’re not shoving adoption and parenthood down the throat of every girl who asks about abortion, but they do tell girls that they have those options, and they do have information on those options for girls who are interested.
And that’s just the teenwire.com site. If a teen is capable of finding teenwire.com, she’s also capable of finding all the other websites out there about adoption and teen parenting. And if she does a Google search for abortion, the first hit is Wikipedia, the second hit is a pro-life site called “abortionfacts.com,” and Planned Parenthood is sixth on the list. Teenwire.com doesn’t even show up!
There’s no reason to think that teenagers don’t have information about adoption and parenting, as well as ample exposure to the pro-life point of view. Anti-abortion pregnancy centers outnumber abortion clinics and anti-abortion ads dominate on TV, radio, billboards and buses. Nearly 60% of teen pregnancies end in birth!
Planned Parenthood focuses on preventing unwanted pregnancy. If not for Planned Parenthood, I wouldn’t have my IUD, which has kept me pregnancy-free for the past six years. (I also used the pill for two years, for a total of eight pregnancy-free years.) I could’ve had dozens of abortions in that time, if not for Planned Parenthood’s clever “marketing ploy.”
What’s so bad about that? What’s so bad about Planned Parenthood helping people who refuse to abstain (like me) avoid pregnancy and abortion? Seems pretty pro-life to me… that is, if your personal definition of “pro-life” is about avoiding abortion, and not controlling women.
Similar Posts:
- 4parents.gov sucks by Trailer Park Feminist July 13, 2007
- No sex for the poor by Trailer Park Feminist July 9, 2007
- Now, if you’ll just get the father of your fetus to sign on the line here by evil fizz August 1, 2007
- Pre-Turkey Day Round Up by Jill November 23, 2005
- How can you have sex when you don’t even know what sex is? by Erica June 24, 2010
I have to remind myself that abortion is legal in this country, because listening to people like Lopez, you’d think it wasn’t (ok, obviously, they want it to be illegal).
Those shameless hussies! Don’t they know they can only tell her what I think is right for her?! I demand to know who these people are….
So I can thank them profusely.
Wow, I really like that website. I just wish we could somehow ensure that all young women would be given accurate information about their options for dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.
Haven’t you heard? They’re evil eugenicists who make a profit from killing the babeez!!!!111!!!eleven!
/sarcasm
What’s bad about Planned Parenthood?! Oh my God! Do you have to ask?! They make money off of young vulnerable teenage girls, by telling them to have sex, so they can come to PP to get abortions! Cause if they don’t, they can’t make money. More girls having sex=more abortions=profit to PP!
/sarcasm
All jokes aside, I really hate how people make PP out to be this horrible evil organization who just wants girls to get abortions just so they can make money.
You know, I am never going to know WHY they want it to be illegal. I mean, making it illegal certainly isn’t going to stop abortions at all. All such will do will put the lives at risk of thousands of women that need abortions, as is evidenced already in the states that abortion services have been all but shut down.
Do they not think this thing through?
I have no doubt that there are a lot of the anti-choice whack-jobs that for them the language of illegality is merely a cover for their slut-shaming and racism (need more white babies!), and that there are large numbers of them that are such. But are ALL of the anti-choice whack-jobs like this? Are these other whack-jobs just ignorant? Have they put their brains in neutral? Have they got so frothed up regarding “OMG!!! TEH BABIEZZZZ!!!!” that some connection in their brains has been severed?
Because anyone with even just a passing grasp on reality knows that making abortion illegal doesn’t stop abortion, all it does is make it dangerous and underground. You stop abortion through comprehensive sex-education, post-natal provisions, pre-natal assistance, and cheap if not free contraception.
(and before some moron brings up the example of murder, and never being able to stop that, let me just point out that that argument means jack to me, because I honestly don’t want to stop abortions … seriously, I don’t. People can have abortion parties for all I care … whereas murder, yeah, there I am concerned)
So, WHY? It doesn’t make any sense.
Sarah, because they don’t give a shit about the women affected by unwanted pregnancies. Hell, they don’t even care about the children born to mothers who were unable to procure abortions. (Not to say they always live unfortunate lives, but it’s certainly not a great advantage to start out with a mom that doesn’t want or can’t afford you.) In short, they don’t care about “life”; your assertion that they’re (barely) covering their slut-shaming is a correct one.
I know very few people who are actually pro-life as opposed to just anti-choice. My mother is one. She doesn’t necessarily agree with abortion, but definitely does not want any legislation against it. She’s one of the few sane ones who actually does advocate easily accessible birth control and efficient and comprehensive sex ed. When I was in high school, she told me that if I got pregnant, she would prefer I had the baby (which she would then assist me with) but that should I decide to get an abortion, she and my father would be behind me 100%. To prevent me from having to make such a decision in the first place, she offered to take me to get birth control when I was ready. Oh, why can’t they all be like that? You know, reasonable? Sigh…
Because that’s not what she asked for. DUH.
However, if this is the standard the pro-lifers are now holding Planned Parenthood to, I am waiting eagerly to hear that they mention the alternative of abortion to every young woman that comes into their crisis pregnancy centers looking for help.
I love TeenWire. I discovered it about 6 years ago and sent my daughter to it. She was 9 then. She became ill late last year and through her reading on Teen Wire asked her GYN to check for endometriosis as she had a lot of similar symptoms. She did have it and was treated and is now on contraception to control the endometriosis and “in case” she decides to have sex. In fact, she was the one who told me that hormonal contraception can aid sufferers of endometriosis which she learned from TeenWire.
We also support Planned Parenthood but they have been rendered largely ineffectual in our area. I used Planned Parenthood for years before I started getting jobs with medical insurance. I have never understood what the objection was to planning when you have children. That’s exactly what I told my daughter. Decide when, where, how and with who you want to have children and I taught her the best way (no sex) but I also made sure she was knowledgable and safe if she chose to have sex but wasn’t ready to have children.
“Sometimes, I just want to wake up at home, with Auntie Em…”
It’s more complicated than just Teh Baybeez… it has a lot to do with the commodification of pregnancy. We aren’t interested in taking care of babies once poor women birth them precisely because those dirty whores had the gall to actually keep their babies. Had they been good little sluts they would have handed their issue off to a sufficiently monied couple. But while the fetus is still baking, it’s still up in the air, which is why so much attention is focussed on it.
(drift)
I would like to see adoption be a more viable option for more women, but I know the only way to do that would be through a massive sea change in how society treats women who are pregnant, and I don’t see that.
You know, the funny thing about this is that K-Lo is projecting. She wants teenage girls to be coerced into bad decisions like having a baby when they don’t want to. And she’s pretending that PP is doing that.
The emphasis on adoption frankly makes me uneasy, not because I think women should have abortions if they don’t want to, but because the history of adoption is a long line of coercion. By hook or crook, few women can give up babies of their own free will. Roe didn’t change the abortion rate so much as it changed the rate of women who kept their babies. Once women realized they had a choice, they chose, in overwhelming numbers, to refuse to give babies up for adoption.
So you guys are all fine with Planned Parenthood covering child rapes by not reporting a pregnant little girl who obviously can not consent to sex due to her age? Then, after the abortion gets rid of all the “evidence”, the little girl goes back to the perp, thanks to all those caring PP folks? It’s all good?
Adoption was not on the table for me. I am a responsible adult. There is no way I could ever give someone else that precious responsibility. The guilt would be too overwhelming for someone like me.
I don’t regret my abortion. It was the best decision for me. I want it available for my girls, should they find they need it.
I’m uneasy about adoption, myself. I know I could never go through with it. I would miss my baby.
As well you should be. Adoption is devistating for the birth mother and the outcomes for adopted children and adoptive parents aren’t always exactly stellar either. I’ll provide links to back up the above statements if anyone is interested.
Amanda, Loosely, Trailer–you rock. I’m a happy adoptee in a loving family, and I hate how adoption is portrayed as the most wonderful thing you can do for your child and a decision that is somehow equivalent to an abortion. As more women decide to keep their kids, more money gets pumped into the adoption industry, which perforce gets more and more corrupted. I don’t think many women are told the whole truth about relinquishing kids for adoption, and that means they’re not really making a choice. But the public seems to buy into the notion that adoption, alone of all social institutions/social engineering tactics, is one hundred per cent Good. It also buys into the notion that an institution that originated as a way to find homes for children who needed them is really all about providing healthy infants for couples/singles who want them (and can afford to purchase them).
Like most women, I went through the “oh my gawd what if…” scenario in my head. I have absolutely no desire to be a parent or raise children, but I am curious about what it is like to be physically pregnant (especially since it looks like women in my family bear kids pretty well). So my theoretical plan was adoption… esp. if I could find a couple who might have difficulty in the system otherwise, and who I could get to know as the pregnancy progresses so that they could answer any questions about me to their kid while understanding that I absolutely did not want to be contacted later in life. (I’ve talked to women who seriously were considering adoption — the problem wasn’t giving up the baby so much as the baby coming back 18 years down the road — that’s such a huge impediment for women who want to get on with their lives)
The cracks in the plan for me were thinking about what a horrible time I would have during the 9 months of pregnancy: not the morning sickness, not the swollen ankles or any of that–but dealing with friends, coworkers, and family who would be all up in my business and giving me nonstop grief because “they couldn’t do what I was doing.” (At the time I worked at a place that had a few people who liked to stage surprise parties for everything so a baby shower was inevitable). Some offices can be just this side of a puritan village when the gossip is juicy enough.
Laurel: as a fellow adoptee, word. I was adopted by two wonderful folks, and was very lucky in so many ways. But even in the 70s, the whole “healthy infants for people who can afford them” thing was there. My mom had to lie about her age because “40 was too old to have a baby”, among other things.
Worse for me, since the adoption was through Goodwill (yeah, i know) there isn’t any easy way for me to find out any medical info. Goodwill isn’t in the baby business anymore, DYFS *might* have their paperwork, but NJ and NY (where i was born) seal adoption records.
The only things I’m sure of is that I was “given up” at birth by my 19 year old birth mother, put into foster care and then adopted. ^^;
Adoption is a wierd thing. Even when it works out great, and you’re raised by people who love you dearly, there’s always been for me a certain disconnect. The spouse’s family gets together and look at photos, and you can see their faces, their children’s faces, in their ancestors. I don’t have that. And when my folks died, many of their (I can’t think of them as mine anymore) relatives made sure to remind me that I wasn’t “really one of the family” and I didn’t belong.
Judging by women I know in their late 20s, many childless couples in the 70s went as far away as Korea to get newborns to adopt, so the number of babies available for adoption in the US must have been low for a long time. On another note:
Although I support the right to abortion, I believe the name “Planned Parenthood” is a bit mendacious. As far as I know they don’t offer infertility treatments or even prenatal care. “Birth Prevention” would seem a more accurate name.
Yes, because there are so many people out there just DYING to adopt little black and brown babies! As a black woman, I could never give birth and put my child into the system because chances are very high he or she would languish there and go through god knows what in god knows how many foster homes. Most decent people who adopt don’t even do so in the US any more because it’s such a crapshoot. You never know when mom or dad will change their minds and you’d have to give the kid back.
Planned Parenthood is a great name. They help you plan your parenthood. Seems perfect to me. Maternal Support would be the name for a place that does all the pre-natal care, which PP doesn’t claim to do.
And there are lots of children to adopt in the US, but they aren’t all healthy white or Asian newborns, so very few people are interested in them.
At least some PPs offer prenatal care, and a few offer well child care and primary care as well.
Actually Hector B, a woman I’m close to recently went to Planned Parenthood because she was having trouble conceiving, didn’t have a lot of money, and wanted advice from an actual OB/GYN. She was heckled on her way in by anti-choicers (nice, huh?). Similarly, women go to Planned Parenthood for their yearly Gyn exams which is very important should they decide to become pregnant. So Flowers is right. Planned Parenthood is the most appropriate name.
JoAsakura, I’m sorry your “relatives” turned into such rats when you needed them most.
You certainly have a right to non-ID info. I was born in 1965 in NC and adopted in SC; records are still sealed in both, but SC ponied up my non-ID info, and via it I was able to get my mother’s name. Sounds like the trail is cold what with Goodwill having gotten out of the biz, but if you want this info you might try Googling “search angel” and the name/s of the state/s where your birth/adoption took place. You might also see if there’s a “green ribbon” group for either state.
You’re so right about that disconnect. In spite of my wonderful upbringing and understanding parents, I’ve always felt like a stranger on this planet, and I’ve never even considered having kids of my own.
What exactly would you have them do?
::sigh:: Okay. I’m feeding the ‘troll.’ But this one pissed me off:
LV: So, it would be better to have a child go through the pain and physical dangers of childbirth, to have nine months (or a lifetime) of reminders of her rape?
Seriously, what do you suggest? That abortions not be performed on “children” so statutory rape charges be pursued? Charges that have a snowball’s chance of going anywhere? You’re tossing out a strawwoman argument and offer no suggestions yourself.
In short, put up or shut up.
LV, you’re way off. First, “teen” can mean 17, 18, or 19, which in many states are legal ages to consent. Second, what if she was sleeping, consensually, with her same-age teen boyfriend? There’s currently a case in GA where a young man (17) who had consensual oral sex with his 15 yr-old girlfriend is serving a ten year prison sentence. Is that what you would like to see happen with the boy who is likely a teen or minor himself? All good now?
Umm…so you’re for forcing women to confront their rapist? (Jen’s perfectly valid argument aside for the moment.) Do you know anything about the child molestation statistics in our country? Or any concept of what it is like for the average teen who is raped? Of the 6 friends I had in high school who were raped…not one single one came forward. Should we have forced them to tell everyone their story, have their names plastered all over as a “slut”, and have everyone in creation trying to justify their relative safety by searching for reasons why she is to blame?
Hell, of my DV clients (many of whom have experience partner rape) I’ve only had one or two actually even talk to me about their rape. They say things like “he forced me, but I don’t want to talk about that.” Am I covering up her rape by not forcing her to include that in her petition for a CPO?
Get real. Life is more complicated than you think it is.
YES. It’s not the only reason I don’t want kids, but it’s definitely part of it, something that my in-laws refuse to grok.
I appreciate the info, though. I’m definitely going to take a look. ^_^
How do you know that the girl didn’t have consensual sex with a boy her own age? You could call the police, but if everytime a girl under 16 came into PP then no girls under 16 would come in, and what would they do instead? Maybe try a home abortion that may or may not work and fuck herself up in the process? Maybe try just hiding the pregnancy, because that always works out sooo well for teenage girls.
The only thing they can do is just do the abortion. If the girl needs/wants to report a rape, she can go to the police, but if she doesn’t want to we shouldn’t prevent her from getting an abortion.
Depending on the location, many centers offer both of the above, plus menopause care, well-baby visits and various other women’s health issue. I know that I saw at least one visibly pregnant woman at the location I got my Pill from and, no, it was not a location that does abortions. She was there for prenatal care.
That’s one of the reasons the forced-birthers hate PP so much — it allows poor women to get the healthcare that they need throughout their reproductive lives. Because if women get the idea that their lives and health is important, who knows what else they might think is important, like leaving an abusive marriage or insisting on getting paid the same as a man who has the same job. It’ll be anarchy! Anarchy!
Jo, best of luck. Have you read any books on adoptees, reunion,etc., or visited any websites on the subject?
Jesus, what assholes. Three of my brothers are not biologically related to me (they’re my stepmother’s kids from her first marriage), but that doesn’t make them any less my brothers than the one who came from the same womb that I did.
Lauredhel, Mighty Ponygirl, and (I keep wanting to call you “Captain Mnemo”), thanks for the information. I see now they do indeed deserve their name.
Laurel: I did a while ago, but my parents were still alive then… I had a bunch of hangups that i’d be betraying them to look for my birth parents. ^^;;;;; So, my info’s all rusty. That said, last night, I looked at the adoption info at NJ’s DYFS page and it looks like they’re now able to release non-id information (this was not the case before.) So I called them to see what’ll happen – maybe i’ll get lucky and Goodwill’s lost paperwork might be somewhere.
Mnemosyne: It was like a punch to the gut. These were people who I’d grown up with, who I thought loved me. There’s one I stay in touch with, because he didn’t pull that shit, but the others? God. The frosting was when I got told that I couldn’t possibly understand how much they were grieving. :sigh:
I’m an adoptee too. Laurel and JoAsakura are spot on. There is a disconnect that is difficult to explain to those who have been raised by their biological parents. Even though I was adopted in infancy, and I am the same race as my parents, the differences are still there.
JoAsakura: Some of my relatives did that to me, too. i.e. “made the distinction.” Like getting hit in the face with a brick, really. Fortunately, my mom (adoptive mom, natch) went all “mama bear” on them. I hadn’t seen her that angry in years. (First thought: Yay, mom!. Second thought: Wow, I’m glad it’s not me she’s mad at.)
I get angry at the facile way in which forced birthers refer to adoption. As if being pregnant (which is ALWAYS a health risk), then giving up your baby, is no big deal. How dare they! It sounds like they are saying that I and other adoptees are easy to give up. (Yeah, thanks for that.) They also forget the primary purpose of adoption. Adoption systems were established to find stable homes for needy children, not to procure perfect white babies for affluent couples.
maatnofret: **’zactly.**
and to quote my (adoptive) dad (who grew up in the 1930s): “I just don’t get what the big deal is. It’s the woman’s body, she should be able to do whatever she wants with it.”
word, dad. word.