Biden HHS urges pro-abortion groups to counsel minors without parents’ knowledge

By Calvin Freiburger

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – The Biden administration is promoting sex education materials that offer staff for organizations like Planned Parenthood tips on speaking to teenagers about sex behind their parents’ backs, according to a bombshell report.

May is National Adolescent Health Month, for which the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ (HHS’s) Office of Population Affairs is promoting a variety of resources ostensibly geared toward “building on young people’s strengths and potential, encouraging meaningful youth engagement in adolescent health activities, and highlighting key topics in adolescent health.”

The Washington Stand reported on one such resource, a document from the Reproductive Health National Training Center (RHNTC) offering “tips and strategies” for “ways to adapt your family planning project’s services to meet young people’s emerging needs” during “uncertain times” such as pandemics.

One section focuses on the “unique confidentiality issues” with speaking to teenage clients via telecommuting rather than in-person office visits.

It advises “reproductive health” workers to, among other things, confirm that they are using a minor’s own phone number rather than their parents’, reassure them they will not share the minors’ personal information, offer “flexibility and expanded hours for scheduling of virtual visits,” begin meetings by asking if the minor is alone in the room or if other family members are within earshot, explaining to parents that “just as with visits at the clinic, part of the visit is devoted to one-on-one time with the young person”; and suggest that minors use vague yes/no answers or type comments in chat boxers rather than speak them aloud.

The document then shares several suggestions from minors themselves, such as having them take calls in bathrooms or cars and use headphones so others in the house cannot hear what the “health” worker is saying.

It also offers “creative” ideas for delivering contraceptives to minors, such as mail delivery in unmarked packaging, curbside pickup at clinics or other community locations, or mobile vans for delivery to neighborhoods.

Deputy assistant secretary for Population Affairs and director of the Office of Adolescent Health Jessica Marcella suggested that all this is simply part of “amplifying the important role of youth-serving professionals and other caring adults in their interactions with young people.” But critics call it the latest in left-wing radicals’ efforts to circumvent parents in imposing their radical values on children.

The idea that “it takes a village to raise a child,” which Marcella also invoked, is “simply an attempt to replace parents. It takes a family to raise a child — not a village,” said Family Research Council Center for Human Dignity director Mary Szoch. “It takes a loving mother and father who work together to teach their child to strive for the good, true, and beautiful. Since day one, the Biden administration has worked to replace mothers and fathers with a village — and not just any village, but one that is only made up of people intent on leading teenagers down the path of self-destruction and death.”

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre have all recently articulated variations of the sentiment that children ultimately belong to society as a whole, which critics say is indicative of disrespect for parents’ right to have the primary and final say over significant impacts on their children’s development, and a preference for the government to supersede their authority.

Top of Form

That bias is particularly concerning to many Americans in light of the Biden administration’s full-throated support for abortion on demand and the surgical and chemical “transitioning” of children suffering from gender dysphoria.