Douglas Administration Praised for Closing Down The Man Phone

After discovering that Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s (PPNNE) Man Phone web site was linked to adult pornographic material and was accessible through the VT Department of Health, the Douglas Administration closed the site down. (Rutland Herald/Times Argus, 12/15/05, State Shuts Down Sex Info Site for Young Men)

This link to adult material was also found on Planned Parenthood’s web site For Teens!

“Finally, PPNNE is coming under scrutiny after years of enjoying protection under both the Kunin and Dean administrations,” stated Mary Hahn Beerworth. “The Douglas administration did the right thing by moving quickly to denounce any government promotion of pornography and to prevent any further use by teenagers of a site that contains adult materials.”

Planned Parenthood, working in partnership with the Vermont Department of Health, applied for and received an additional $125,000.00 annually in federal taxpayer dollars to develop a project geared toward reaching sexually active, single Vermont men, age 18 to 24 with targeted messages about sexual health and responsibility. The directive from the federal government can be found at:

http://opa.osophs.dhhs.gov/titlex/ofp-male-grantees.html:

PPNNE’s web site for teens featured a link to The Man Phone despite the fact that the federal funds were specifically to be used to reach men. The link on the For Teens! site has since been removed.

One of the questions now becomes, “Does Planned Parenthood owe the taxpayers a refund?”

Planned Parenthood has been sharply criticized in the past for inappropriate activities involving young teens. In April of 1989, Planned Parenthood sponsored a “Safety Dance” for high school students, and the evening program involved the blatant encouragement of teen sex. Planned Parenthood came under heavy fire once the details of the dance were made public – activities such as: putting a human sized condom over a teenager’s body to run a relay race and a competition for putting condoms over bananas repeatedly and as fast as possible, all while listening to what PPNNE called four hours of sexuality-explicit dance music. PPNNE advertised the dance as an educational event featuring games, crazy condoms, and hot music with sexual messages. The strong public outrage caused PPNNE to cancel the dance. Copies of the entire program are available through the VRLC office.

Items of related interest:

Planned Parenthood Federation of America joined a lawsuit 2001 to block enactment of the Children’s Internet Protection Act. They were unsuccessful.

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England has brought a challenge to the US Supreme Court in order to block New Hampshire’s recently passed parental notification law from going into effect. (Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England)

Planned Parenthood of VT plans to launch a Teen Mentoring program in February of 2006. An article in the UVM newspaper, the Vermont Cynic (10/18/05), announced the formation of a new program sponsored by Planned Parenthood to match college age students with high school students in order to “mentor” younger teens on issues of sexuality.

Planned Parenthood, the largest single provider of abortion in the State of VT, is also an outspoken opponent of abstinence-only programs and parental involvement.

There is no mention on VT Health Department website regarding an article in Consumer Reports (February 2005) ranking Planned Parenthood’s own manufactured brand of condoms dead last in a test of 23 brands of condoms -- the condoms that failed are the ones Planned Parenthood distributes for free to young people.