Sunday, January 3, 2010

My email to stayteen.org

My wife and I were watching the show The Secret Life of an American Teenager and were enjoying it quite a lot. We were happy to notice that they did not offer abortion as an option for a teen pregnancy. However, this was no surprise to me since most television shows consider abortion to be a topic that is"too hot to handle." This is why I admire the movie Juno for actually addressing abortion during teen pregnancy within the movie so honestly.

Before every commercial break, one of the actors from the show suggests the viewers (which, I suppose, are mostly teenagers) to talk to their parents about sex. Another thing that they suggested to these viewers was to make a visit to their website titled StayTeen.org. The website actually gave good reasons to be abstinent from sex. However, the website went in great length about kinds of birth control methods to use other than abstinence, all of which are not 100% effective in STD prevention or pregnancy prevention (all forms other than abstinence fail in this regard). I accept this kind of talk on these sorts of websites. It's what today's society suggests to our youth. I do not agree with it, though.

The thing that bothered me the most about the website was the numerous times it linked to Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Teen Talk website. This website is filled with half-truths and lies. This is especially true regarding abortion. This is why I decided to email StayTeen.org to see if they could oblige my offer to remove the links to this organization. I know that they probably will not agree, but the least I could do was educate! I gave them over 20 sources for them to peruse as well! The email I sent them is as follows:



stayteen.org,

My relationship reality is simple: contraception is unnecessary and abortion is the killing of unborn human beings. That being said, I have both things to say about stayteen.org that is commemorative and horrendous. Please read my list, it is very important that you understand these things.

I commemorate the website stayteen.org for...
1. Encouraging abstinence as the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy and the transmission of STDs. I knew that as a teenager and I know that now as a 24 year old Registered Nurse.
2. Encouraging teens to listen to their own voice in saying NO to having sex before they are "ready."

Those things I believe are horrendous about the website stayteen.org is...
1. Connections and links to Planned Parenthood Federation of America who has been documented time after time to pass one medical inaccurate information regarding therapeutic abortion, birth control effectiveness, and fetal development. This is the most important aspect of my email today. Please hear out my case against Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and please consider removing any and all links to this organization known to have started under the premise of eugenics.

The reasons why Planned Parenthood of America Federation should be removed from the website stayteen.org is...
1. Documented resistance of this organization to give their patients and the public accurate and unbiased information regarding therapeutic abortion. For example, PPFA states that abortion does not lead to a higher risk of premature birth or low birth weight babies. However, this is untrue! Time after time, therapeutic abortions have been shown to lead to a higher incidence of incompetent cervix (which is one cause of premature birth and miscarraiges which have to be appropriately treated through cervical cerclage etc.) (1). PPFA states that there is no such thing as "post-abortion stress syndrome." However, there is certainly evidence that it does exist through unbiased research (2,3). Post-Abortion Stress Syndrome is certainly not proven but it is also not completely disproven, either. Many people have spoken out about their own abortion stress (4). PPFA claims unequivocally that therapeutic abortion has not chance to be displayed as increasing the chance of breast cancer. However, PPFA's claim cannot be undeniably proven. In fact, there are many scientific studies that have should some type of link or that the link is unclear at this time (5, 6, 7, 8). These discrepancies are just on PPFA's teen-talk website that you have linked your visitors to (aka teenagers). Planned Parenthood also lies about medically sound information. refer to LiveActionFilms investigation regarding this reality: "Investigation of medical lies and manipulation at Planned Parenthood of WI" and "Planned Parenthood lies about abortion images" (9, 10)

2. Planned Parenthood has been documented to repeatedly allow abuse of young girls to continue. Watch the numerous examples through videos from LiveActionFilms: "Planned Parenthood clinics across the country are contributing to the abuse of young girls" (11). The fact that some (possible most of them) are encouraging minors to continue their sexual relationships with adults is truly horrible and damaging to the girls that they should be helping.

3. An organization with their beginnings as an arm to encourage eugenics should not be linked to by secular, bipartisan groups (such as stayteen.org). Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, wished to use her organization to further encourage eugenics and euthanasia to make human genetics stronger (12, 13). Furthermore, she targetted minorities, immigrants, and the poor working class. Know that today's Planned Parenthood, as part of the abortion industry as a whole, commits abortions on black women at a much higher rate than that of whites. While blacks make up 12.8% of the United States population while 38.5% of all abortions were done on black women (14, 15). This racism should not have begun. We cannot change this. However, it should not be encouraged through PPFA. Please stop linking your website to this organization.

4. Planned Parenthood is the leading organization providing abortion services in the country. They were reported to have carried out 305,310 abortion in 2007 (that is approximately 1/3 of all abortions in this country) according to their own annual report published in April of 2009 (16). This wouldn't be worrisome to those in favor of abortion, but if you realize the truth that abortion is the killing of human beings then one would feel different. It would be best for you and everyone to know the facts regarding therapeutic abortion and the development of the unborn which these procedures destroy and kill. For more information regarding this topic, visit links below range 17 through 21 (there are certainly more sources, but this is a good start)

Planned Parenthood's lies should be rebutted and/or not allowed to be spread. My offer is the following: remove the link to Planned Parenthood Federation of America or provide a source from the opposite side of the fence, namely abort73.com, which carries more true facts about abortion than any PPFA website or clinic.

Thank you for your time. I hope that you have considered this issue as much as you can. Please consider my proposition for those in need of unbiased information regarding pregnancy altogether. I hope that you read this entire message. Have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,
Christopher Schmenk, RN



As you can see, I took my time in researching and providing evidence to my claims. This is something that is important in any important issue such as abortion. Please contact organizations and educate them regarding the truth about abortion. The truth is not as evident to people as it may seem. I will be praying that they understand my message.




(1) Schmenk, Christopher: Incompetent cervix linked with abortion, October 16, 2009. URL LINK
(2) Reardon, David, Elliot Institute, Fact Sheet, 1997. URL LINK
(3) Coleman, Priscilla: Abortion Mental Health Research: Update and Quality of Evidence, Spring 2008. PDF LINK
(4) Website Mentioned: Silent No More Awareness
(5) Xing P, Li J, Jin F. "A case-control study of reproductive factors associated with subtypes of breast cancer in Northeast China.” Humana Press, e-publication online September 2009. URL LINK (Showing increased risk)
(6) Kitchen AJ, Trivedi P, Ng D, Mokbel K. "Is there a link between breast cancer and abortion: a review of the literature." Int K Fertile Women's Med, Nov-Dec 2005. (Showing that research is unclear)
(7) Lipworth L, Katsouyanni K, Ekbom A, Michels KB, Trichopoulos D, "Abortion and the risk of breast cancer: a case-control study in Greece." Int J Cancer, Apr 1995. (Showing increased risk)
(8) Robertson C, Van Den Donk M, Primic-Zakelj M, MacFarlane T, Boyle P, "The association between induced and spontaneous abortion and risk of breast cancer in Slovenian women aged 25-54." Breast, Aug 2001. (Showing increased risk if abortion was done prior to first full-term pregnancy)
(9) LiveActionFilms: Investigation of medical lies and manipulation at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. URL LINK
(10) LiveActionFilms: Planned Parenthood lies about abortion images URL LINK
(11) LiveActionFilms: The Mona Lisa Project URL LINK
(12) Wikipedia: Information Page on Margaret Sanger. URL LINK (Even though I'm not the biggest fan of Wikipedia, the fact that this website acknowledges the true history of Margaret Sanger was notable)
(13) Green, T, "The Negro Project" URL LINK
(14) Center for Disease Control (CDC), "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Abortion Suveillance Summary" November 27, 2009. PDF LINK
(15) U.S. Census Bureau, "State and Country Quick Facts" Last revised on November 17, 2009. URL LINK
(16) Planned Parenthood Federation of America, "PPFA Annual Report" April 2009. PDF LINK
(17) Condic, Maureen. Westchester Institute, "White Paper: When Does Human Life Begin? A Scientific Perspective" October 2008. PDF LINK
(18) abort73.com, "Medical Testimony" Last updated on December 8, 2009. URL LINK (This link contains many sources at the bottom of the page that are from unbiased scientists and their findings in research)
(19) My Family Doctor, "When Does Life Begin? Medical experts debate abortion issue." Accessed on Jan 3, 2010. URL LINK (Note that the debater arguing against conception being the starting point of becoming a human being is a bioethicist and not a scientist, it should be further noted that the opinion of this person is extremely subjective and not based on scientific fact)
(20) Alcorn, Randy. Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Questions: Scientists Attest to Life Beginning at Conception, published in 2000. URL LINK of book excerpt, URL LINK of Amazon book listing
(21) Schmenk, Christopher: Right Choice, October 22, 2008. URL LINK (There are many sources on the bottom of this blog entry as well)

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