Things I like/ don't like:

A summary of my day:

Things I like:

Good confessors

Cherry tree blossoms blowing in the wind

Running into the guy who protests outside Planned Parenthood on his way to Mass

Free vegetarian food in the break room

Beautiful muslim girls from Saudi Arabia who love GU Right to Life


Things I don't like:

Learning about how Planned Parenthood and SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) have even shadier pasts than I ever imagined. (See below for more detail)

DC weather (45 degrees and raining when I leave in the morning; 70 degrees and sunny by the time I leave work).


So, my current project at work is to research the history of abstinence education in the U.S. In the process, I am learning a lot about the history of sex education in the U.S. It is amazing how hush hush the whole thing is and how hard it is to find the facts. At any rate, here are some of the scary things I found:

1. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, created a journal in which she wrote some gems including, "Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921), "The purpose of Eugenics" (December 1924), "Birth Control and Positive Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" (August 1928), and others. She even wrote a whole book, called the Pivot of Civilization, developing these ideas, and included a postscript entitled "Breeding Out The Unfit," in her book, What Every Boy and Girl Should Know.

2. SIECUS was co-founded by Mary Calderone, former Director of Planned Parenthood's National Medical Committee. Another founding board member was Wardell Pomeroy, co-author of the Kinsey Reports (which, have come under fire for their poor research methods and the failure to report known pedophiles to the authorities, among other things).

3. SIECUS advocates showing pornography as a de-sensitizing technique. SIECUS advocates for sex education programs for children as young as five years old!!

4. Although abstinence education opponents claim that comprehensive sex education gets no funding, Planned Parenthood sex education programs have been funded under Title X since 1970. Title X was renewed in 1978 and continues to provide funding. In the 2001 fiscal year, congress released data showing that pro-promiscuity groups (including PP, SIECUS, Youth Advocacy, and the Guttmacher Institute) received federal funding to the tune of $170 million. The majority of that went to PP. The Heritage Foundation estimates that for every single federal dollar spent on abstinence education, twelve are spent on
promoting contraceptives. That's hardly a lack of funding.


This stuff scares me. These people are crazy. I wish this were an April Fool's day joke.