National and local pro-life organizations have joined in calling for a boycott of the Girls Scouts’ annual cookie drive over the Girl Scouts USA’s support for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Among the groups supporting the boycott are the Pro-Life Action League, American Life League, the Radiance Foundation, LifeNews, Operation Rescue, the National Black Pro-Life Union, Life Coalition International, Texas-based Pro-Life Waco, Glendale, and California-based Shield of Roses.
The boycott organizers have named their campaign CookieCott 2014 and have set up at website at http://cookiecott.com/ The pro-life websites such as LifeNews.com and LifeSiteNews.com are giving the boycott extensive coverage.
An early leader of the cookie boycott is John Pisciotta of Pro-Life Waco, in Waco, Texas, who has been opposing the Girl Scouts’ increasingly feminist agenda for years. A report written 10 years ago by Paul Nowak, a LifeNews.com staff writer, noted that local pro-life groups had criticized the Bluebonnet Council of the Girl Scouts for its sponsorship of Planned Parenthood’s “Nobody’s Fool” sex education program for Waco-area children entering grade five through nine. The “education,” Donna Coody of Brownie Troop 7087 told the Waco Tribune-Herald at the time, included literature saying that abortion is an acceptable practice.
Pisciotta’s Pro-Life Waco organized a boycott of the Girl Scouts’ cookie sale in 2004 and that boycott continues 10 years later.
Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, issued a statement after the first boycott: “I applaud the local pro-lifers for taking on this issue because Planned Parenthood of Central Texas is such an aggressive promoter of abortion in Waco.”
The CookieCott 2014 website recounted past successes and stated its reasons why the boycott started 10 years ago should continue. It noted that one incident prompting the 2004 boycott occurred in May of 2003 when the Bluebonnet Girl Scout Council bestowed the honor of “Woman of Distinction” on Pam Smallwood, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Central Texas. The boycott had an effect, however. The following year, reported the Waco Tribune Herald of February 24, 2004, the Bluebonnet Council dropped its co-sponsorship of Planned Parenthood’s Nobody’s Fool program.
Moving on to 2014, CookieCott 2014 reported that Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) “recently promoted pro-abortion politicians [Texas state] Senator Wendy Davis and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, as women to be honored for their accomplishments in 2013.
Davis received national attention when she staged a filibuster in the Texas legislature that delayed, but did not block, passage of a law that placed some relatively moderate restrictions on abortion, notably that all abortion providers must have admitting privileges at a local hospital. She immediately became the darling of the pro-abortion crowd.
Sebelius has had a long history of support for abortion, and once hosted a party honoring the infamous late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart while she was governor of Kansas. As HHS Secretary, she is responsible for implementing the ObamaCare provisions that include forcing employers to provide abortion-inducing drugs in their health plans.
Among other concerns that CookieCott 2014 has with the Girl Scouts is that GSUSA maintains relationships with many pro-abortion advocacy groups, including:
• The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), which “promotes, specifically on behalf of its 10 million members, youth sexual and reproductive/abortion rights.”
• The Coalition for Adolescent Girls, “whose international and national agenda specifically supports abortion related care for adolescent girls.”
• The National Council for Research on Women, “which supports abortion rights and comprehensive sex ed.”
The website features a link to a downloadable flyer that supporters of the boycott can print out and distribute locally. The flyer notes, among other things:
• Girl Scouts’ curriculum for girls, sold and promoted by every local Girl Scout council, recommends pro-abortion role models/organizations such as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton, Amnesty International, Population Council, ACLU, National Organization for Women (NOW) and others.
• GSUSA and local Girl Scout councils connect girls to resources promoting abortion rights and inappropriate sexual content via official Girl Scout social media accounts.
• Across the country, local Girl Scout councils honor and promote abortion rights advocates and pro-abortion politicians; suggest girls work with organizations that fight for abortion on demand; and invite girls to attend events related to abortion rights advocacy and other controversial issues.
Another local pro-life group, Shield of Roses, a crisis pregnancy organization based in Glendale, California, is also supporting the boycott, reported CBS News in Los Angeles.
“The Girl Scouts do promote Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, as a role model to emulate. At least on some of the local levels, Planned Parenthood has come in and given talks to Girl Scout councils behind closed doors,” said Ana Maria Rivas, who heads Shield of Roses.
A spokesperson for the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles released a statement denying charges that it cooperates with Planned Parenthood, stating in part: “Girl Scouts will not tolerate special interest groups linking our name to any political issue in order to advance an agenda. Girl Scouts does not have a relationship with Planned Parenthood and does not fund Planned Parenthood.”
However, an article by Paul Rondeau, executive director of American Life League, posted by LifeSiteNews, noted that the organization MyGirlScoutCouncil.com “offers dozens of links to events hosted by or promoted by local councils connected to pro-abortion advocacy.”
As one example, Rondeau pointed to page 41 of the GSUSA publication Your Voice Your World, where girls are encouraged to visit the websites of such organizations as the Population Council, a group that works internationally to increase access to abortion.
“The Girl Scouts were once a trusted organization dedicated to character building in young girls and women. Now, GSUSA is abusing that trust,” Rondeau quoted Judie Brown, American Life League’s president and co-founder, as saying. “Most parents and grandparents remain painfully unaware that GSUSA has introduced so-called ‘family planning’ ideology in its curriculum and promotes groups like Planned Parenthood to our daughters and granddaughters.”
An article by Dr. Susan Berry posted at Breitbart.com quoted a statement from Ryan Bomberger of the Radiance Foundation, who recently gave the keynote address at the March for Life Rose Dinner in Washington, D.C.
“The Girl Scouts still proclaim to be honest and courageous, while denying their continual collaboration with the nation’s largest and undeniably dishonest abortion chain,” Bomberger told Breitbart News. “Abortion doesn’t make the world a better place, unless you agree with the deeply racist and elitist pseudoscience of eugenics — the foundation of Planned Parenthood.”
Jim Sedlak of the American Life League also spoke to Breitbart News, saying: “Through their continued support of the Culture of Death, the Girl Scouts have betrayed their heritage and their future. There is nobody who should purchase Girl Scout cookies to fund this group.”
