Girl Scouts challenged to repudiate abortion leader

Planned Parenthood brochure made available to Girl Scouts

The leader of Family Watch International, which works at the United Nations and around the globe with policymakers on the central role of the family, is challenging the Girl Scouts to abandon links with Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion industry player.

"I believe the only way to clean up the Girl Scouts is for GSUSA to issue a nationwide policy instructing their councils to cut all ties with Planned Parenthood and to disassociate themselves from the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts," said a newsletter statement from Sharon Slater.

Slater was the witness who unleashed a firestorm of controversy when she documented finding Planned Parenthood's teen-sex-promoting guide "Healthy, Happy and Hot" made available to young girls at the 54th session of U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

The Girl Scouts denied her report and distanced itself from any involvement in "family planning," despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Slater said she was at the New York City event when organizers ushered all adults – except for one from each of seven sponsoring organizations – out of the room for a "girls only workshop" that the Girl Scouts of the USA reports 30 to 35 teenage girls attended.

Slater told WND when the doors opened at the conclusion of the workshop, she went back in and found the "Hot" brochure among various materials made available on the back table. The event was on the first day of the conference, she said.

The guide itself, produced by the International Planned Parenthood Federation for young people with HIV, depicts both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, contains graphic details on "exploring" sexuality and encourages casual sex in many forms.

"Many people think sex is just about vaginal or anal intercourse. But, there are lots of different ways to have sex and lots of different types of sex," the guide states. "There is no right or wrong way to have sex."

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It continues, "Improve your sex life by getting to know your own body. Play with yourself! Masturbation is a great way to find out more about your body and what you find sexually stimulating. … Mix things up by using different kinds of touch from very soft to hard. Talk about or act out your fantasies. Talk dirty to them."

Slater, whose organization was founded in 1999 and is not affiliated with religious or political groups, advocates for married parents in families "since the overwhelming preponderance of social science research shows that children fare best when raised by both their married biological parents."

Officials with the Girl Scouts told WND they had nothing to add to their previous statement that suggested the material somehow was from another organization or event in the room.

But in her newsletter statement, Slater said the "real story" is beyond a controversial booklet being made available to young girls at a U.N. conference.

"GSUSA would like you to focus on whether or not they 'distributed' the offensive booklet. I would like you to focus on (1) what the Girl Scouts were doing at the U.N.; (2) the organizations with which they were working; and (3) whether distributing or making available the booklet in question would have been consistent with the direction the current national leadership is taking the Girl Scout organization."

She said the links between Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood are abundant; even USA Today reported when some local councils partnered with Planned Parenthood "to teach explicit sex education to girls."

Further, she wrote, a "Girls' Statement" on which the organization worked demands that governments "ensure that girls have access to information and services regarding reproductive and sexual health."

"One of the most controversial topics debated by member states at the U.N. is anything related to reproductive and sexual health services. Many of us have witnessed countless debates on such language, some which have gone late into the night. Why? Because everyone knows this language is used to pressure governments to legalize abortion and provide explicit sex education to children," Slater wrote.

"Back in 2005 when it was widely reported that a Girl Scout troop in Waco, Texas, had been partnering with Planned Parenthood to provide girls with explicit sex education, American Life League's STOPP International conducted a study of Girl Scout councils throughout the United States. At the time they found that about 20 percent of the councils had some type of relationship with Planned Parenthood. Don't forget the 'Healthy, Happy, and Hot' pamphlet I picked up at the end of the Girl Scout meeting at the U.N. is published by the international arm of Planned Parenthood," she said.

"If the national leadership of the Girl Scouts were not interested in dealing with sexuality (which would include lesbianism), why did they have their research arm, The Girl Scout Research Institute, conduct a seemingly innocent study, which asks youth if they 'agree that gay and lesbian relations are OK' unless they planned to address this issue in some manner?"

Also alarming are the groups with whom the Girl Scouts were working at the U.N.

"GSUSA leadership admits they partnered with UNICEF, Girls Learn International, and The Grail," she said.

UNICEF, she said, has published a manual "on how to obtain sexual pleasure … including with a person of the same sex, with an animal, or with a non-consenting person."

Girls Learn features two "prominent radical feminists" – Gloria Steinem and Charlotte Bunch – on its board, and The Grail has developed "a feminist liberation theology that emphasized the interconnections between racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and environmental degradation," she said.

Girl Scouts even have added a patch "that girls can earn with the purpose of helping them understand their 'rights' as enumerated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a U.N. treaty that the U.S. has never ratified for many good reasons," she said.

The actual "distribution" of such a brochure is less important than the future course for the Girl Scouts group, she said.

" I believe this push to train Girl Scouts to become radical feminists is mostly emanating from leadership in the national office of the Girl Scouts."

As part of the U.N. events, WAGGGS brought together young people from more than 20 nations to draft a statement advocating for "sexual and reproductive rights."

Included in the rights, services and supplies "demanded" by the group were the following, according to the WAGGGS website:

All young people must have access to comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services, including contraception and emergency contraception, in order to avoid unintended pregnancies.
Accessible, affordable and safe abortions should be made part of the minimum packages of sexual and reproductive health services.
All young people should have access to psycho-social health services for prevention of gender-based violence and violence against women.

Girl Scouts chief Katy Cloninger defended Girl Scout links to Planned Parenthood in an interview.

"We have relationships with our church communities, with YWCAs and with Planned Parenthood organizations across the country, to bring information-based sex education programs to girls," Cloninger told "Today" show co-host Lester Holt. "It's really impossible for girls to grow up in today's society without having access to good information. And so we will continue to partner with organizations across this nation, and local community Girl Scouts will make decisions based on their local community partnerships and the local needs of both the girls and their families."