At a webinar shortly after the Nov. 5 election, Planned Parenthood officials announced they plan to endorse and fund candidates for school board in Pennsylania’s upcoming local elections.
Now pro-life supporters are sounding the alarm, asking why an organization that promotes abortion would be active in elections for offices that oversee school spending and classroom curricula?
While Planned Parenthood PA Advocates, the nonprofit’s political action committee, has previously funded various candidates, the only time it funded school board candidates in Pennsylvania was in a Lancaster County district in 2023, said Michael Geer, president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute. And those candidates won, Geer said.
“It’s a relatively new–and very troubling–venture for the abortion and sex giant,” said Geer. “What sort of back-scratching arrangement does Planned Parenthood expect if their endorsed candidates win seats on local Pennsylvania school boards? And what will this mean for our children?
“We really don’t have to guess. And I’m sure you won’t like what it would likely mean: Explicit, perverse sex ‘education’ brought into the schools, with Planned Parenthood speakers welcomed into the classroom to promote their agenda and ideology to our children.”
Also, “the promotion of LGB and transgender ideology, teaching even the littlest children they can change their sex, requiring teachers to hide ‘transitions’ from parents, abandonment of personal privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms, and more.
“Installation of school-based ‘health clinics’ where minor children can get access to contraceptives, abortion referrals, and guidance on embracing a new ‘sexual identity.’”
And “hiring of like-minded superintendents and other top staff who align with this worldview and will implement it – and resist the efforts of parents and children who are troubled by it,” said Geer.
Amanda Greenberg, who ran for the West Chester Area School District school board in 2023, called the news “horrible.”
“Abortion has nothing to do with school boards and their duties. This is just another ploy to make every election about abortion when our public schools are basically houses on fire, and the kids are stuck on the third floor. There are far more pressing issues like administrative bloat, plummeting test scores, violence and terrorism being promoted in schools, lack of transparency in curriculum and budgets, and so much more.”
Rich Booker, a tax lawyer who served on the Radnor School Board and as a township commissioner, said changes in the tax code should be made to prevent nonprofits from donating to candidates through their affiliated political action committees, as is the case with Planned Parenthood.
“More needs to be done to correct this type of activity, as we should not allow nonprofit special interest groups to unduly influence our local politics,” said Booker.
Signe Espinoza, executive director of Planned Parenthood PA Advocates, defended the organizations’ actions.
Espinoza said, “Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania PAC endorses candidates who are committed to protecting and expanding access to sexual and reproductive health care. Whether we endorse candidates running for school board or a State House seat, our goal is to ensure that we are working to elect sexual and reproductive health care advocates up and down the ballot.
“Planned Parenthood PA Advocates (PPPA), the statewide c4, does not receive funding from any school districts,” she said.
Bruce Chambers, former president of the Great Valley School Board, said, “If Planned Parenthood Action Fund intends to exert influence over school board elections in Pennsylvania, it would be just another attempt to indoctrinate school children to the left’s progressive messaging. The School Boards already seek to indoctrinate the kids with their views of culture, DEI, and LGBTQ “rights.” Look at the Great Valley School Districts “goals” and you will see that the school board has twice as many goals for “culture and well being” than they do for “academics.” They spend more time on the use of bathrooms for “transgender students” than they do on the fact that only 46 percent of Great Valley Middle School and High School students are proficient in math.
“Pennsylvania schools are no longer educational institutions. They have become indoctrination centers. So, perhaps, Planned Parenthood will seek to influence the school boards to include in their indoctrination programs the murder of unborn children and other ‘reproductive rights.’ Parents need to wake-up and pull their children out of the public schools. There are so many alternatives now for parents, and if it is true that Planned Parenthood is getting involved in school board elections, it is just another excellent reason to take their children elsewhere for a real education.”
Tina Descovich, a former school board member and co-founder of parental rights group Moms for Liberty, said, “The reason Planned Parenthood wants to endorse candidates is because they’ve been pushing radical gender ideology and comprehensive sex education. It’s profitable for them to put it in the classrooms and for schools to spend money on curriculum to put that into classrooms.
“I think it’s absurd that Planned Parenthood is endorsing school board candidates, and I think people will outright reject candidates that are endorsed by Planned Parenthood,” said Descovich.
Geer said, “Targeting our children is a growth industry for Planned Parenthood — whether through encouraging sexual experimentation that creates demand for their abortion business — or fostering gender confusion, which feeds Planned Parenthood’s exploding business of providing puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones for teens and adults.
“They even provide referrals for destructive, disfiguring surgical procedures like double mastectomies on the healthy bodies of teen girls struggling with gender dysphoria. Awful,” Geer added.
