DV Journal

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.

“It destroyed me. It destroyed parts of my body. It destroyed my health. It’s absolutely not for kids.”

Those are the words of Chloe Cole, an outspoken “de-transitioner,” who regrets a decision she made at 13 to change her gender to male. Doctors removed her breasts when she was 15.

At a press conference Tuesday with state lawmakers, the Pennsylvania Family Institute and the Do No Harm organization talked about the dangers of “sex reassignment.” Do No Harm, a watchdog group, announced a new online database that catalogs pediatric sex change-related services, including surgeries, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers, at U.S.-based medical facilities between 2019 and 2023. The data is searchable by state and facility.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) was listed as number one on its list of “The Dirty Dozen” of what they call the “worst-offending children’s hospitals promoting sex change treatments for minors.” UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh was listed at number 11.

Rep. Paul Schemel (R-Franklin) said gender dysphoria is a “discomfort with one’s own biological sex.”  A few years ago the House heard hearings about the treatment. Legislators learned of treatment with the “Dutch Protocol.” The first stage is acceptance of the child’s desired gender; the second is puberty blocking drugs; the third is cross-sex hormones; and the fourth is surgical intervention. That entails removing healthy breast tissue from girls and changing the genitalia for both boys and girls, he said.

During the hearing, CHOP officials said they’d referred several girls for breast removal at 17, but also some as young as age 14, he said.

Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Lancaster) said, “The harm that is done to children from an industry that taxpayers support to engage in services related to sex reassignment and transition-related services and drugs is not only life-altering, but in many respects we all would agree, and certainly in my opinion, is irreparable.

“Pennsylvania taxpayer dollars were and possibly still are used in sex reassignment surgery,” said Cutler. “And transgender medicine for Pennsylvania’s children.” If very young children are treated, “the health system has certainly let them down.”

The human brain is not fully developed until 25, he said.

“It is actually impossible for a young child to consent to this life-altering treatment,” Cutler said. “It is our position that no state taxpayer dollars should be used for this.”

Beth Serio from Do No Harm said the Stop the Harm database can look up local hospitals to see what is going on. Nationally, the group identified almost 14,000 children subjected to sex changes from 2019 to 2023 and more than $120 million in insurance claims. In the same time period, there were more than 800 child sex change patients in Pennsylvania and more than 300 underwent sex change surgeries.

“The child trans industry can be a very lucrative business,” she said. “Pennsylvania hospitals submitted over $6 million in claims for these interventions during our target period.”

She said their figures are “just the tip of the iceberg since some insurance providers were not included. Those numbers are likely an undercount of how much hospitals are raking in from the suffering of children.”

Sen. Judy Ward (R-Blair) said the database is the first of its time and “it chronicles a horrific trend, that our children are under attack.”

“These choices have consequences,” said Ward. “Children taking sex change hormones have an increased risk of depression, cardiovascular disease, and decreased bone density.  Those who undergo surgical procedures often experience sexual dysfunction for the rest of their lives and may lose the ability to conceive children.

“Let’s face it. We don’t allow minors to buy cigarettes or alcohol for a reason,” said Ward. “How much longer do we wait until we step up and do something? How many more children will be butchered and allowed to make a decision they will regret the rest of their lives?”

Dan Bartkowiak with Pennsylvania Family Institute said, “This is one of the worst medical scandals in history. What this industry is doing is not health care. It’s harming children. While we should find ways to show compassion to students in grade school that face challenges like gender dysphoria, treating any student as a guinea pig with experiments like puberty-blocking drugs and removing healthy body parts is not in any child’s best interests.”

Schemel introduced a bill to allow patients of gender dysphoria treatments to sue those who provided it up until they are 30. Rep. Brad Roae (R-Crawford) introduced a bill to prohibit gender transition procedures for minors.

CHOP officials did not respond when asked to comment. A spokesperson for the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh said, “UPMC Children’s Hospital does not perform gender-affirming surgery on minors. The data collected by Do No Harm includes surgeries and services with no relation to gender-affirming care, making their methodology flawed and claims inaccurate.”

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