Okay, maybe Joyce Palmer should have identified every place the group was going to visit on the field trip, but she didn't and no harm came to anyone on the trip.  But, great jumpin' Jesus, one of those places was Planned Parenthood and that's where they perform baby killings.  Except, that's not what happened.  According to the Planned Parenthood staffer, the "a" word was never mentioned and I'll bet it wasn't because a). nobody in the group refuted what the PP staffer said, and b). I'm sure if PP took the time to lobby for abortions they'd realize it would most definitely bring down the shitstorm on everyone.  But because a bunch of abortion protesters decide it's appropriate to get in the face of teenagers and harass and harangue them on the street, somehow it becomes Joyce Palmer and PP's fault.  Where is the parental outrage about the asinine behavior of the abortion protesters and, by extension the New Hampshire Right to Life organization which organized the protest?  Even one of the school principals was clued into what was happening and yet the school superintendent felt the need to demand the scalp of Joyce Palmer.  And Hal Jordan, who's supposed to stick up for his people ends up giving them her scalp.

Just a casual review at Ms. Palmer's resume provided in the links tells me that the YMCA lost the services of a bright, innovative person who was primarily concerned about what the YMCA should have been primarily concerned with -- young kids in their community.  Instead, Mr. Jordan decided to take the easy way out and cave to the worst kind of social paranoia.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

It is an interesting commentary on the state of America that there are still so many people who believe (or at least pretend) that teenagers are not going to have sex, at least not unless they smoke pot and lose all their normal capacity for self-control.  There is no pre-marital sex because decent, God-fearing Christians don't think about (and perhaps don't even know about) sex until after they get married (to a person of the opposite sex, naturally) at which time they get to suddenly blossom into sexual beings within the sanctity of the marriage bed, while angels sing on high.

The idea that a group such as Planned Parenthood is too controversial for the YMCA is truly nuts.  I can think of no more benign and helpful organization on the face of the Earth than Planned Parenthood.

As for the anti-abortion protesters whom the students encountered outside of Planned Parenthood, those people need to read Christopher Hitchens' book, "God Is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything".  But first they need to obtain parental consent to read a controversial book.  If their parents are already deceased, no doubt they can still be contacted by means of some suitable psychic.

Didn't South Park already do this episode?

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

..did they take them to the methadone clinic too?  I mean, just because you tell kids not to do some smack, doesn't mean they aren't going to do it.

Didn't some UC prof just go into a school in Colorado and tell the kids to have sex and take drugs safely and everybody flipped out? Or maybe that was the south park episode. Eh, I just can't get worked up over these things anymore.

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

Does anyone else see the irony in a Planned Parenthood statement about the goal of "break[ing] down the silence between adults and teens," when the issue at hand involves parents being kept uninformed?