The Girl Scouts Threaten LifeNews For Reporting Its Links to Planned Parenthood

Feb, 2014

Instead of cutting its ties to left-wing organizations, the Girl Scouts is attempting to silence one of the new organizations that’s reporting on its activities. That’s not very smart and it’s working about as well as you’d expect — which is to say that it’s backfiring in a major way by drawing even more attention to the story..

During the last two weeks, LifeNews has brought international attention to the link between the Girl Scouts and the Planned Parenthood abortion business and the national boycott of Girl Scouts cookies sponsored by pro-life groups.

….After a series of articles on the boycott and the Girl Scouts-Planned Parenthood link, that featured the Girl Scouts logo to identify the organization, Brian Crawford, an executive with Girl Scouts USA, wrote LifeNews a scathing letter attempting to intimidate us into stopping our reporting on their link and to no longer use their logo or image to identify them as we bring attention to their support for the nation’s biggest abortion business.

In his letter Crawford again denied any connection to Planned Parenthood and he complained about LifeNews.com “articles that outline alleged ties to Planned Parenthood,” saying “GSUSA has an obligation to protect the Girl Scout name.”

“Girl Scouts of the USA does not have a partnership or any relationship with Planned Parenthood and does not plan to initiate one,” he claimed.

The letter “demands” that LifeNews no longer identify the Girl Scouts using Girl Scout logos as we report on its link to the abortion company that does approximately one-third of the abortions in the United States. The GSUSA letter lists a date by which LifeNews must guarantee the Girl Scouts it “will comply with our demand.”

However, the links between the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood are longstanding, with a Girl Scouts CEO and individual troops admitting as much.

…The ties between the two groups have been questioned ever since former Girl Scouts CEO Kathy Cloninger admitted on NBC’s The Today Show: “We partner with many organizations. We have relationships with…Planned Parenthood organizations across the country.” See the video here.

Then, in a national survey, seventeen Girl Scouts councils admit to partnering with Planned Parenthood; many other councils refuse to answer the survey question. Of the 315 Girl Scout councils in the U.S., 17 councils reported having a relationship with Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, and 49 reported they do not. The other 249 refused to disclose any relationship.

In 2010-2011 Girls Scouts in New York partnered with Planned Parenthood for a sex-ed program, “Real Life. Real Talk.” The program website touts their partners (link has since been removed): “Real Life. Real Talk. is proud to count the following organizations, faith communities and companies as partners: …Girl Scouts of NYPENN Pathways.”

For fourteen years, the Girls Scouts in Waco, TX co-sponsored a sex ed conference with Planned Parenthood. “It’s Perfectly Normal” a book written by a Planned Parenthood executive was given to all children in attendance says abortion can be “a positive experience.” And in January 2012, Girl Scouts employee Renise Rodriguez wore a “Pray to End Abortion” t-shirt during off-duty visit to her Tucson Girl Scout office and was ordered to her to turn the shirt inside out or leave.

As LifeNews reported in 2012, the Girl Scouts joined with Planned Parenthood to head a UN conference and LifeNews reported on the investigation the Catholic Church is undertaking into the ties between the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups.

If you listen to the Girl Scouts, you’d think that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately, it’s being deliberately deceptive. It’s true that the national organization doesn’t have any sort of formal relationship with Planned Parenthood, but it does allow individual chapters to push abortion and many of them do. In other words, at the same time the Girl Scouts is telling parents that it’s not working with Planned Parenthood, its girls may be getting told how wonderful abortion is at a Girl Scouts meeting. Is that happening in every Girl Scouts chapter? No, it is happening in more than a few of them and obviously, the Girl Scouts is just fine with that or it would have put a stop to it a long time ago.