February 18, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Tease: A wholesome organization selling iconic cookies or an organization that (mis)leads girls down the path to immorality?
Over the past weeks, many national pro-life organizations called for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies, claiming that the Girl Scouts USA promotes a pro-abortion ideology. GSUSA emphatically denies it and especially any connections to Planned Parenthood.
However, as early as 2004, then-Girl Scout CEO Kathy Cloninger confirmed in a Today Show interview that Girl Scouts works with Planned Parenthood nationally. “We have relationships with our church communities, with YWCAs, and with Planned Parenthood organizations across the country, to bring information-based sex education programs to girls,” said Cloninger.
Cloninger reconfirmed as much in an interview at Harvard in 2007: “And I feel like we cannot be the nation’s expert on girl issues without dealing with how issues of sexuality affect the girls of this nation. We believe parents are part of the discussion, but girl scouting needs to be part of education and discussion as well.”
Politifact.com of Texas says it was asked to check the accuracy of the claim that GSUSA promotes “pro-abortion women as icons for our children to emulate.” It concluded that Girl Scouts does not simply because the Girls Scout guide does not specify “any woman’s activism per abortion as a reason for singling her out.”
That logic is nonsense. Holding up women as role models while hiding their history as abortion leaders only makes the selections dishonest, not unbiased.
American Life League—the nation’s oldest Catholic pro-life group—and other pro-life organizations did not get it wrong. Unfortunately, the bigger story may actually be worse.
ALL double-checked its own facts and found that, of the 11 women discussed with the PolitiFact writer, 80-89 percent are not just pro-abortion, but celebrated pro-abortion leaders.
GSUSA selections include Betty Friedan, the founder of NARAL Prochoice; Pauli Murray, a founding member of the radically pro-abortion NOW; Rosa Parks, a past member of Planned Parenthood’s Board of Advocates, and two women (Hillary Clinton and Dolores Huerta) who won the Margaret Sanger Award “for leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.”
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When asked about the imbalance, Kelly Parisi, spokeswoman for the New York-based Girl Scouts, said, “We’re not trying to be balanced because we’re not trying to promote a political agenda. We don’t vet these women based on their political beliefs.” She continued, “We are a nonpartisan, nonpolitical organization.”
Some critics say that is just parsing words.
“The Girl Scouts’ ‘no position’ means it is perfectly happy to promote well-known abortion rights activists as role models like Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Geraldine Ferraro (and on and on) as long as that woman has done some other good deed alongside her advocacy for the right to kill innocent children in the womb,” says Christy Volanski, a former troop leader whose two ex-scout daughters founded the website SpeakNowGirlScouts.com. She continued, “It does not mean they refrain from engaging in these issues; it means they are totally ‘indifferent’ to the sanctity of life in the womb and the dignity of marriage. And I find that very sad.”
Parisi’s also stated that the Girl Scouts “believe [abortion] is a private matter for girls and their families.” That is not only at odds with Cloninger, it does not address why local troops openly work with abortion advocates and providers.
According to the Catholic News Agency, “The Girl Scouts have filled their national leadership team and board of directors with unwavering ideologues whose careers, nonprofit work, and philanthropic choices reflect a hefty commitment to liberal causes—same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian rights, abortion rights, comprehensive sex education, and ‘girl power’ feminism.”
Parisi is an example: Prior to GSUSA, she was vice president of marketing and communications for pro-abortion Ms. Foundation for Women. MFW lists “reproductive rights and health” as a top priority. While there, Parisi reportedly channeled her outrage “at women's inequality and gender injustice” that she saw daily and was proud of her work in MFW helping Planned Parenthood to attack Susan G. Komen.
GSUSA’s current $393,000 CEO, Anna Maria Chavez, who succeeded Cloninger in 2011, has long been associated with pro-abortion politicians and policymakers.
GSUSA’s tack to the left also includes an “all inclusive” policy that contains “insistence on being a voice for all girls, regardless of their . . . sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
Deb Taft, chief development officer at GSUSA, serves on the national board of governors for the Human Rights Campaign, the biggest gay lobby in the nation. She chaired HRC’s 2010 and 2011 New England Gala Dinners.
But putting aside GSUSA leadership associations, if GSUSA is neutral on abortion, then why does it refuse “to allow pro-life advocacy to count towards badge work” but “reproductive health” advocacy is specified as meeting GSUSA leadership program objectives?
GSUSA is also the largest member and therefore a $1.4 million financial supporter to WAGGGS, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, a global organization that wants “to rapidly improve the status of the girl child… especially on sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
GSUSA dismisses the association, comparing WAGGGS to the United Nations—saying you do not have to agree with everything to have a seat at the table.
Even with the scrubbing of GSUSA and WAGGGS websites, it is perplexing how often pro-abortion and sexual diversity advocates, ideas, and organizations still mysteriously orbit around the “neutral” Girl Scouts.