Culture: October 2004 Archives

Dawn Eden is on a roll, which is not unusual. She posts something new almost every night, most often of late posting tales of what Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion lobby are doing with the tax dollars we give them, ostensibly to provide various community services. Right now the Dawn Patrol features:

• a link to Albert Mohler's review of Beyond Choice, a book by the grandson of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. (Apparently grandson is every bit the fan of eugenics that grandma was.)
• her comments on a New York Times Magazine story glamourizing gay parenthood.
• a news story about a Planned Parenthood attorney speaking of an aborted fetus as part of a teenage girl's "medical records".

The item to which I'd most like to direct you is a lengthy post about stem cell research. She relates a conversation with a research scientist, who explains his objections with the way the stem cell debate is portrayed in the mainstream media, and she goes on to deal with the ethical realities of destroying embryos for research. The whole thing is topped off with selected comments from her readers which add more perspective to the picture. Along with the many links to other articles, it's a great resource for understanding the issue and helping you to communicate that understanding to others.

Dawn does a great job of digging out these stories and putting them into perspective. I'm too tired to explain this well, except to say that if you are concerned about our fallen culture's attacks on the dignity and sanctity of human life, of marriage, and of sex, you need to bookmark the Dawn Patrol and visit once a day, mostly so I don't have to turn BatesLine into a fan blog with a daily entry telling you to go read her site. Because you just should and you shouldn't need reminding.

(And just so you don't think there's only one side to the multifaceted Dawn Eden, click here if you've got RealPlayer, and seek about 11 minutes into the program, to hear a catchy tune she recorded a couple of years ago, and which I can't get out of my head since I first heard it a few days ago. Yes, folks, she's hip, and she's voting for President Bush. And you can learn about more of her many facets on the "Gaits of Eden" home page.)

Scott Ott of the satirical website ScrappleFace has posted the definitive obituary for the father of deconstructionism, which begins:

(2004-10-10) -- French President Jacques Chirac announced today that Jacques Derrida, the father of the intellectual movement called deconstructionism, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer, "if indeed 'death' can be said to mean anything beyond the biases of culture, language, religion and philosophy." ...

This is nice:

"Monsieur Derrida bequeathed a magnificent legacy to the global intellectual community," said Mr. Chirac. "He has provided us all with the intellectual infrastructure to prevent us from seeking after truth."

Go read the whole thing.

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.)