Had Unprotected Sex? Planned Parenthood Will Pay You $70...And You Could Win $500!

   Although Planned Parenthood's most recent controversy revolves around "fetal tissue" trafficking, the organization is no stranger to eyebrow-raising activities. A recent solicitation for participants for Planned Parenthood's Sexual Health Evaluation (SHE) study promised at least $70 with a chance to win up to $500. Interested parties who had had unprotected sex were encouraged to visit the website to "get the deal on what the study is all about, the gift cards you'll earn, and how you can win additional big prizes — then sign up and get started!"
     Although enrollment for the study is now over (2,317 participants signed up), Planned Parenthood used the following page to invite site visitors to learn more about the study:

    Clicking through to learn more presented potential participants with a video explaining the study and the various incentives, including cash prizes and gift cards for retailers such as Apple, Starbucks, Target and H&M.

     The entire video can be seen here:

     The study, as the acronym SHE indicates, is targeted at women. Although the solicitation refers to "unprotected sex", the scope of the study covers all of Planned Parenthood's online resources and seeks to learn through four 10-minute surveys over three months how women use those resources:

     Planned Parenthood assures participants that the organization will keep "personal health information... 100% private", promising to "do everything we can to keep others from learning about your participation in this study" through the use of identifying code numbers.

     The study is a joint project of Planned Parenthood and New York University Silver School of Social Work. Two drawings were planned for the contest portion of the study, one in the Spring/Summer of 2015 and the second for Fall/Winter 2015.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

State Dept. Partners With 'Condom Pledge' Campaign for Youth, Children in Africa

    The banner, featuring a cartoon condom with a smiling face, reads "I am Mr. Condom. Use me whenever you want to have sex. I will protect you from STDs, early pergnancy [sic], and unwanted pregnancy." Across the top of the banner are the words "I took the condom pledge," the slogan from which the non-profit organization responsible for the banner takes its name. And while the stated goal of the group, which recently conducted a fund raising campaign in partnership with the US State Department for a project in Sierra Leone, is "normalizing condom use in youth populations around the globe," the photos shared by the group make clear that "youth" includes some very young children indeed.

    The Condom Pledge organization is careful to utilize the word "youth" on its website (the word appears more than a dozen times) and avoid "child" and "children" altogether. However, a video produced for the Pledge and the group's Facebook page include images of young children holding signs, children such as these young girls and boys, clearly well below the target ages of sixteen to twenty-six:

    While the U.S. State Department usually makes headlines for its role in negotiating political treaties and mediating military conflicts, the agency also plays a less visible role working to bring about social change throughout the world. One such effort is a program described in a recent blog post on State's website as "the Alumni Engagement and Innovation Fund (AEIF) 2.0, an initiative created in partnership by the U.S. Department of State and Rockethub, an online crowdfunding platform." Currently thirty-three AEIF projects are underway, run by alumni of the State Department's international exchange program. Projects range from providing business opportunities and training for low-income women in Nicaragua to training English teachers in Vietnam to eco-tourism in Bangledesh.
    The Condom Pledge project has already reached its goal of raising $3,000 as part of the State Department-Rockethub partnership. The State Department blog article mentions the program just in passing as "turning The Condom Pledge into a nationwide initiative in Sierra Leone." The Condom Pledge organization, however, prominently features the State Department partnership and official seal on its website announcing the fund raising effort.

    The full stated goal of the organization is "normalizing condom use in youth populations around the globe [to] counteract [religious/moral anti-condom] beliefs and ultimately stop the spread of HIV." Few details are available on the organization's website about what is involved in the Pledge campaigns other than a brief note that participants "first craft individualized signs that read, 'I took the condom pledge,'" and then "publicize their signs through social networks[.]" Unsurprisingly, condoms are in plentiful supply at Pledge events, literally distributed by the box.

Other participants are more creative in displaying their acquisitions:

    Not only are condoms distributed freely without regard to gender, the distribution of condoms is conducted in mixed-sex settings, rather than with women for girls and with men for boys:

   When asked to comment on the age appropriateness of the Condom Pledge campaign and whether or not any abstinence advice or other guidance is provided by this group, a US State Department spokesperson deferred to the Pledge organization for specifics on the group's activities. The spokesperson did note that "[s]ince the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, the project has also included an ebola education component, which includes important information on safeguarding yourself from the disease."

    The state department response further said, in part:

The department does not fund AEIF 2.0 projects. Projects must be funded by the public, and project leaders are responsible for promoting their projects...
Projects were selected by embassies (for foreign alumni-led projects) and program offices (for American alumni-led projects). All foreign alumni-led project leaders are past Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) winners. Americans are not permitted to lead AEIF projects, which is why program offices needed to nominate individuals with potential. After being vetted and cleared by the relevant posts, program offices, and PASC, those project leaders were asked to join AEIF 2.0. 

    While the state department is not directly funding The Condom Pledge or other AEIF projects, the agency is lending its promotional support to the projects as noted above, allowing the official State Department seal to be used in fund raising efforts, and describing the cooperation as a "partnership."
    Although the US government has promoted condom use in the past to stop the spread of AIDS, the ABC (Abstinence, Be Faithful, and correct and consistent Condom use) approach prioritized Abstinence and Faithfulness first. The Condom Pledge, on the other hand, appears to have a rather myopic approach perhaps best expressed by the banner with the cartoon figure mentioned earlier: "I am Mr. Condom. Use me whenever you want to have sex."
    When asked to comment about the ages of the children present at Pledge events and the appropriateness of mixing males and females at the events (even in the distribution of condoms) and whether that might prove an abuse-risk, a Condom Pledge spokesperson replied via email:

While our goal is to target individuals aged 16 to 26, we acknowledge the importance of providing sex education to not only older but also younger individuals as well.
In Sierra Leone, an estimated 5,000 youth aged 14 and under are currently infected with HIV, and of the youth aged 15 to 24, 24.6% of females and 11.0% of males had sexual intercourse before age 15.
The public health literature also demonstrates that in addition to its many benefits, sex education does not lower the age of sexual debut or increase sexual activity thereafter.
Condoms are distributed to youth regardless of their gender as The Condom Pledge supports female empowerment.
The Condom Pledge seeks to uphold the highest ethical standards. Any suspected abuse will be immediately reported to the relevant village chief, school director, or governmental authority. 

    Even accepting the premise that "sex education does not lower the age of sexual debut or increase sexual activity," the message "use me whenever you want to have sex" hardly seems a comprehensive or balanced approach. And this message, being delivered by The Condom Pledge with the backing of the US State Department, is in many cases, at least in Africa, reaching a disturbingly young audience.

    Only time will tell what the ultimate impact of this message will be.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Diversity for Me, But Not For Thee

    Andrea Mitchell recently reported about internal Obama adminstration reaction to Susan Rice's withdrawal from consideration for Secretary of State:

ANDREA MITCHELL: A lot of Democrats are saying that the president did not show enough loyalty. A lot of women in the administration are very angry tonight, and I'm saying this at a very high level. Angry because they feel that she was not treated with respect, she was not given the support she needed and she was left to twist in the wind.

    Are the men in the administration angry too?  Just the women?  Why?  Because this president, who doesn’t need binders to pick qualified women, decided to accept the decision of a women to withdraw her name?  Should he have refused and nominated her against her wishes?  Or do these “angry women” think she was told to remove herself from consideration?  Are these women saying that if Rice was a man, Obama would have stood behind her?  After all this time of telling us Republicans are the ones waging a war on women, are they accusing their own president of waging a war on Susan Rice?

    Instead, why aren’t these women saying, “This President has shown great leadership in putting both men and women of all races in places in his administration on the basis of their qualifications for the job.  It’s ridiculous to say that Barack Obama treated Susan Rice differently because she’s a woman. Susan Rice made her decision to withdraw, and the president treated her like an adult and accepted it.”  Can these “angry women” not say that because they don’t believe it? Because they are so used to reacting to everything in terms of sex and/or race?  They’ve spent weeks accusing Republicans of sexism and racism for opposing Rice and criticizing her for her now infamous Benghazi comments on those Sunday talk shows. Is it possible – is it just remotely possible – that neither the Republicans criticism nor the president’s decision to accept Rice’s choice to withdraw have NOTHING TO DO with her sex or race?

    The Republicans have a long history of criticizing Democrats of both sexes and all races, and those Barack Obama has thrown under the bus are also the picture of diversity (Obama’s own grandmother, Van Jones, Tony Rezko, Rod Blagojevich, and Ludacris, to name a few – someone has compiled a helpful if somewhat outdated list here.)  Have we lost the ability to look at political issues without resorting to a demographic analysis of all the individuals involved?  

    Or can we blame the media - like Andrea Mitchell - for introducing this element.  Here's another example.  At the White House Press Briefing Friday, the following exchange took place between Jay Carney and an unidentified reporter:

Q    Now that Susan Rice is out of the running, the President's -- 

MR. CARNEY:  Do you want to know who is in the running? 

Q    Well, yes, if you care to respond to that.  But the President is losing someone who would have brought diversity to his Cabinet.  So how important is it to the President now that his Cabinet with her out of the running reflects the sort of diversity that we see throughout the rest of the country?  

    “[T]he President is losing someone who would have brought diversity to his Cabinet”? Is someone’s race and sex the most important factor in determining diversity?  Would not John Kerry, now the presumptive nominee, bring diversity to the Cabinet?  John Kerry’s background is certainly quite diverse: married to an extremely wealthy woman; Vietnam veteran and harsh, vocal critic of the same war; long-time Senator; former presidential candidate.  How many other people in America can match that demographic?

    For all the left's talk about Republicans and conservatives being sexist and racist, more often than not it is they who focus on the external.  But on the other hand, maybe this incident shows progress of a sort.  In addition to the "good ole boys" network of old white men we hear so much about, this may be evidence of the emergence of a "good ole girls" network who look out for each other.  As the saying goes, you've come a long way...

Defining Definitions

    For those who do not believe the definition of marriage matters comes this from Argentina:

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentina's president personally delivered the nation's first identity cards on Monday to people who legally switched their genders under a law that sets a global precedent.
President Cristina Fernandez said she's proud of setting a new global standard with the gender identity law, which overwhelmingly passed congress, enabling anyone to change their gender without first having to win approval from judges or doctors.
Argentina is showing the world that equality is just as important as liberty, she said.

Our country's Declaration of Independence famously declares, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."  Now Argentina can't even affirm that all men are created men.  How will such a culture ever hold onto the definitions of "equality" and "liberty", the very concepts they purport to be championing?