Your tax dollars at work: Abortion advocacy door to door

Dawn Eden has been reporting on what Planned Parenthood is really up to, behind its cloak of respectability. Her latest find -- a Planned Parenthood "activism camp" in Tampa training teens how to do abortion advocacy. The source is a story in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The Delray Beach, Florida, teens who are the subject of the story attended the are involved with a youth program called "Teen Education for Every Nationality". They attended the Tampa camp and are using the skills they acquired to do door-to-door canvassing back home:

The campers are using the skills they learned to register voters, educate people on women's health issues and discuss abortion in the run-up to the November election. They plan to continue their activities after the election as well.

When they canvass neighborhoods, the teens talk about sensitive issues, but they don't endorse candidates, said Nady Mesamour, 15, and a member of the group.

T.E.E.N. is a program of Planned Parenthood of South Palm Beach and Broward Counties. According to this report (see page CS-35), in 2003 the program received $551,473 in grant money from Broward County's Children's Services Administration. The purpose of the grant is listed as "Behavioral Health - Prevention", i.e. keeping kids out of trouble by involving them in constructive activities. One of the quality measurements established by Broward County is that "10% of Youth clients served will be involved in appropriate and supervised extra-curricular activities such as community service." The report indicates that 90% of youth clients met this requirement. Evidently, abortion indoctrination and door-to-door abortion advocacy is one of the ways participants in the program met the requirement.

What do you want to bet that even though they aren't endorsing candidates, they are "educating" voters about which candidates support Planned Parenthood's positions?

Planned Parenthood is usually more subtle in how they redirect your tax dollars to promote abortion. Planned Parenthood chapters often apply for government grants for innocuous programs, which helps pay operating overhead for the organization, and also enables them to shift donated funds toward controversial activities like abortion referrals and pro-abortion lobbying activities. Several years ago here in Tulsa, the local Planned Parenthood chapter tried to get Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money to fund improvements to a pediatric clinic. (CDBG money comes from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and is distributed by local government to non-profit agencies.) While such a clinic is a worthwhile cause, because money is fungible, government money for the clinic would free up private contributions for lobbying at the State Capitol. Happily, Tulsa's City Council had enough pro-life members that Planned Parenthood did not get a share of the federal grant money, and in recent years they haven't applied. (There's another reason why you should care about local government, even if your focus is on social issues.)