Guest Post: NDSU Planned Parenthood Funding About Politics Not Science

Jane Ahlin takes great liberties with the word “scientific” in her Fargo Forum column published January 19, 2013.

In her comments regarding President Bresciani’s decision to “freeze” the $1.2 million in grant funding for a North Dakota State University (NDSU) joint venture with Planned Parenthood (PP), Ms. Ahlin takes great liberty with words and “facts” to paint North Dakotans and our elected officials as “right-wingers”. Allow me to answer her arguments and illuminate the political left’s talking points she would like for all the readers to accept.

Ms. Ahlin claims that the $1.2 million was going to be used to provide “scientifically” sound sex education. This is where she takes great liberty with a word reader’s trust. Science cannot be argued with, right? However, where is the scientific evidence in the operations and teaching of PP? I have seen none, ever, and I have been involved in the issue for over twenty years. What I have seen, over and over again, are the facts from Planned Parenthood’s annual reports, this being the most recent (2010-2011):

Nation’s largest abortion provider (abortions increasing while other services decline)

In 2011-2012 Planned Parenthood performed 333,964 abortions (1 abortion every 94 seconds)

Screening and prevention services dropped by 29 percent and contraceptive services declined by 12 percent.

Abortions make up 92 percent of Planned Parenthood’s pregnancy services; prenatal care and adoption referrals make up the other 8 percent.

In 2011-2012, Planned Parenthood received $542 million in federal funds – 45.2 percent of the group’s annual revenue.

Minority Outreach:

Blacks 3.5 times abortion rate of Whites (12 percent of population)
35% of total abortions
79% of PP clinics within walking distance of minority neighborhoods
51% of total PP clinics in minority neighborhoods

PP claims to be a health care provider, which is a blatant lie unless, of course, you buy into the false narrative that killing America’s unborn children amounts to health care. Follow the money here, and the intent is quite clear. Let me put it this way; if a teen does NOT engage in pre-marital sex, then who makes money on them? No one. However, if they do engage in pre-marital sex, as PP highly supports through their web site and instructions, then who makes a big buck on your son or daughter? Hmm, that would be PP amongst others.

Ms Ahlin claims that PP is “almost alone in having a proven record … that reduces risky behavior in young people.” No, Ms. Ahlin, factually what PP does, apart from being a financial and overtly political organization who prospers by being the nation’s largest abortion provider, PP has a history of covering up the sexual abuse of minors (statutory rape), supports sex-selective abortions and promotes deviant and unhealthy behavior. No wonder the Legislators object to a North Dakota taxpayer-funded institution engaging in business with the likes of PP. I would hardly call their stand “right wing extremism”!

Ms. Ahlin forgets to tell the readers that the grant involved is a part of the Affordable Care Act that North Dakota’s elected officials soundly rejected back in 2011. And rejected by the elected officials sort of means “we the people”, that is the taxpayers who fund this higher education institution. So, this grant from the get go was NDSU faculty members going rogue and likely outside legalities as President Bresciani has now discovered.

Ms. Ahlin refrains from mentioning that the “at-risk” students, ages 14-19, that are part of this program are “youth of color, low-income, homeless, juvenile justice and foster care youth as well as GLBTQ youth.” That begs the question of where and how some of these youth will be targeted and located. Many of these are sealed records demographics, are they not? It also brings back frightful memory of quotes by the founder of PP, Margaret Sanger, quotes that by the way has never been denounced by current PP leadership: “The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it … Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race … More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief aim of birth control.” Again, I am grateful our Legislators did not see the good for North Dakota in linking arms with such an agenda.

Why would Planned Parenthood receive more than half a billion dollars of government funds (and 1.2 million in this NDSU/PP endeavor) to promote death, crime, and deviancy? The short answer is because it can, thanks to politicians who either ignore Planned Parenthood’s actions or, worse, support them. I am personally grateful to the brave North Dakota Legislators who stood up for the rights of their constituents in this case. That is what we elected them to do!

The abortion industry has been emboldened by the recent elections, but truth and science does not change with who occupies the White House. PP might think they have a foot in the life and wallets of North Dakota now that their PAC-supported candidate Heitkamp won election to U.S. Senate but as the stir over this faulty NDSU/PP program shows, North Dakotans are not easily fooled. NDSU faculty members’ attempt to join the party by partnering with PP in a not so scientific “healthy choices” program, using taxpayers’ monies to do so, is not only disturbing; it is plainly and simply disgusting! Call me naïve, and some will, but it seems to me that the only truly scientific method of healthy choices for our teens is gained by promoting abstinence. Why are we all not putting a massive focus, effort and dollars in that direction, say like we successfully have done with tobacco usage for decades, and put the likes of PP out of business?

North Dakota parents do not stay on the sidelines. We must be very clear in understanding this: we stand in the breach. The children targeted here, the unfortunate, the disabled, the poor, and the unborn all depend on us for our attention to facts.

Ms. Ahlin is surely entitled to her opinions, but she is not entitled to her own facts.