Q&A: Why is Planned Parenthood offering transgender services?
Q&A: Why is Planned Parenthood offering transgender services?
Or is destroying children's fertility "just good family planning"?
October Q&A
Last month, I had to opportunity to chat with EWTN’s Edie Heipel for an interview on Planned Parenthood’s expansion of its transgender services in the wake of the fall of Roe v. Wade. You can read the article with my comments at Catholic News Agency. Today, I’m sharing the full interview here.
Q: What in your view is significant about Planned Parenthood now prescribing transgender treatments (especially with how many children/youth identify as trans)?/Do you think Planned Parenthood will increase its focus on transgender procedures now that Roe has been overturned?
I think it is a telling move considering the scope of transgender treatments are well outside the purview of reproductive rights. Even recognizing that at the end of the day, Planned Parenthood is a business and must be concerned about its bottom line now that its primary revenue stream has been severely limited in half the states on the map, one would think that an organization with "reproductive rights" as the center of its concern would pivot to other revenue streams within the realm of reproductive services: sperm and egg donation, IUI, IVF, etc. Why is it that the only thing Planned Parenthood helps people to do is avoid becoming parents? Offering transgender treatments ultimately exposes this propaganda and rhetoric for what it is. Instead of enabling people to build families, these treatments rob patients of their natural abilities to do so.
This move puts them in a position to continuing driving a wedge between children and their parents by providing them with dangerous and controversial services in secret. Transgender "treatments" have nothing to do with reproductive rights; they ultimately limit human reproduction even further, as they often render the recipient permanently and irrevocably infertile. If Planned Parenthood is in favor of "choice," it certainly seems to be a limited range of choices: those which reduce the number of children being born into the world.
Q: Is Planned Parenthood's expansion of its transgender services a targeted attack on the family?
Yes, absolutely this is an attack on the family. Still, I think we need to be careful about the way we frame this discussion. It's easy to talk about Planned Parenthood in a dehumanizing way because it is an organization, but at the end of the day, an organization is comprised of people, and these people are captives. This fight is complex because it's happening at multiple levels. So, at the human level, I think we need to be praying for the conversion of the souls who work at Planned Parenthood, for their intellectual enlightenment about what it actually is that they are contributing to, for the formation of their consciences to recognize their work as moral evil, and that they have the freedom and courage to denounce this organization and expose the evils its perpetrating as many already have. It's so important that we remember who our fight is really with at the deepest level, and that are most powerful weapons are prayer, fasting, and the Rosary. If Satan can keep us convinced that our fight is with each other rather than the demonic, we will miss important opportunities to save souls.
Q: What do you want to say to Catholics specifically about this? Anything specifically to Catholic parents, especially since you write on Catholic motherhood?
We need to keep fighting. The fall of Roe is an incredible victory, and it should be the wind in our sails to keep going: keep praying, keep fasting. Now is not the time to shy away from difficult conversations. We have a prophetic call to proclaim Christ's truth by virtue of our baptism, and for most of us, that means gently but firmly standing up for the truth with our friends, colleagues, and neighbors. We need to equip ourselves in how to have those conversations, lead one another to the truth heart to heart and soul to soul. It is critical that we never underestimate the power of prayer. Imagine if every one of us took up one devotion to dedicate to this petition, be it a weekly Rosary, or Holy Hour, a Divine Mercy Chaplet, an extra Novena (I love Pray More Novenas!) or even fasting every Friday and not just during Lent. Every sacrifice made, every prayer uttered -- it all matters.
Link Roundup: What’s new in bioethics?
California joins Washington and Oregon in legalizing the composting of human remains.
Researchers create “synthetic” mouse embryos with brains and beating hearts.
As Spain considers, Colorado and France pass legislation removing anonymity of sperm and egg donors.
Reading Recs:
Why Humanae Vitae is Still Right by Janet Smith
Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing by Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis
The updated edition of The Ethics of Abortion by Christopher Kaczor, now available for preorder!
Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics by Mary Eberstadt
Wholisitic Feminism: Healing the Identity Crisis Caused by the Women’s Movement by Leah Jacobson
Books: Mama Prays | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Connect: Twitter | www.SNStephenson.com
Podcast: Brave New Us