In Washington State, 13-year-old girls can get birth control and abortions without their parents knowing. Now, a public school wants to make it even easier for this to happen, promising to help refer girls out to Planned Parenthood through a proposed school-based health center (SBHC).
Recently, Katie Lodjic, Northwest Regional Coordinator for Students for Life, attended a meeting at Sedro-Woolley High School about a proposed school-based health center. Lodjic asked Trisha Bannerman, from PeaceHealth if girls could be referred out for abortions, and Bannerman said that they could be referred to Planned Parenthood for abortions. According to Lodjic, much of the presentation was biased.
“They [PeaceHealth] said that they were going to provide reproductive healthcare, and refer out to Planned Parenthood for abortions and birth control without parental notification. Also, all their statistics on their PowerPoint were way off, they took a poll of the students that was “do you think you would use an SBHC” and they had a tiny little slice for the percentage of kids who said “no” and the other was “yes” and “not sure.”
According to Lodjic, the health center would be able to prescribe powerful, psychiatric medicine without parents knowing, and refer out to a hospital that could insert IUDs, or prescribe birth control. Currently, pro-life leaders and parents are organizing in Washington to educate the community about why these are dangerous proposals.
Lodjic noted, “All parents need to make sure that their schools do not have school-based health centers that can carry out significant medical procedures and prescribe medication without their knowledge, during school hours.”
This is not the first time Students for Life of America has confronted Planned Parenthood’s plan to infiltrate public schools through on-campus health centers. In Reading, Pennsylvania, Planned Parenthood wanted to set up shop inside the district’s schools and then refer students to their abortion facility nearby.
Pro-life investigative group Live Action pointed out the obvious problems with plans like this. “Planned Parenthood would be on-site to give “confidential counseling.” If such counseling is anything like its deceptive abortion counseling, there ought to be grave concern, especially with the political agenda Planned Parenthood pushes. Reports on the proposed program in Reading mention that parents can opt out of their children receiving condoms, but the role of parents is not mentioned further. Planned Parenthood also has a history of helping teens lie to parents and helping to cover upthe sexual abuse of minors.”
