Girl Scouts, “Buy Our Cookies, Or Else!”

WND

GIRL SCOUTS CHIEF THREATENS PRO-LIFE GROUPS

Warns of legal action for reporting link to Planned Parenthood

The Girl Scouts of the USA has sent threatening letters to pro-life groups that have highlighted the youth organization’s cooperation with abortion-industry giant Planned Parenthood.

The editor of the pro-life news website LifeNews, Steven Ertelt, said he has been threatened with legal action for “articles that outline alleged ties to Planned Parenthood,” reported Breitbart News.

In a letter from Girl Scout executive Brian Crawford, Ertelt was told that the Girl Scouts organization has an obligation to protect its name and insisted it “does not have a partnership or any relationship with Planned Parenthood and does not intend to initiate one.”

WND, however, has documented the links between the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood.

In an interview with NBC in 2004, for example, Kathy Cloning, CEO of the Girl Scouts, admitted the group “partners with Planned Parenthood across the country to bring information based sex education programs to girls.”

Girl Scout CEO Crawford sent a similar letter was sent to a blogger who runs MyGirlScoutCouncil.com, demanding she stop using the Girl Scout logo and reply to the organization by Feb. 7 with an assurance of her intent to comply.

Ertelt told Breitbart “the Girl Scouts are clearly threatened by LifeNews’ reporting on their multiple links to Planned Parenthood, their hiring of abortion activists to key positions and their promotion of abortion activists like Wendy Davis.”

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“Their letter is a not-so-veiled intimidation tactic designed to get LifeNews to stop our reporting and to get pro-life groups to stop boycotting them,” he said.

As WND reported, the American Life League, the nation’s oldest Catholic pro-life education and advocacy group, launched a boycott in response to the Girl Scout link to Planned Parenthood, urging people to not buy Girl Scout cookies.

The American Family Association later joined the effort, saying “buying Girl Scout cookies serves only to further facilitate a very liberal pro-abortion agenda.”

In response, a Girl Scouts spokeswoman, Kelly Parisi, said it was “preposterous that anyone would boycott the Girl Scouts in a misguided effort to score cheap political points.”

The Los Angeles Times reported the Girl Scouts of the USA has experienced a plunge in membership, from about 3 million to about 2 million in the last decade.

American Life League’s president, Judie Brown, said the Girl Scouts “was once a trusted organization dedicated to character building in young girls and women.”

“Now, GSUSA is abusing that trust,” she said “Most parents and grandparents remain painfully unaware the GSUSA has introduced so-called ‘family planning’ ideology in its curriculum and promotes groups like Planned Parenthood to our daughters and granddaughters.”

A recent LifeNews report documented the links between the scouting group and Planned Parenthood.

It said that while the Girl Scouts assures concerned members that the national organization has no partnership with Planned Parenthood, it “omits the fact that it allows every local Girl Scout council – the arm of Girl Scouts that actually connects with girl members in their local communities – to work with Planned Parenthood.”

A Girl Scouts spokeswoman, Michelle Tompkins, affirmed that the local connections are possible.

Girl Scouts of Northern California “refers ‘at risk’ girls to Planned Parenthood for help with family planning,” the LifeNews article said, and “Girl Scouts of San Diego featured a Planned Parenthood ‘Community Engagement Manager’ as a speaker.”

Girl Scouts of Western New York works with Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups in programs aimed at tween/teen girls to reduce teen pregnancy, LifeNews reported.

The group is also part of several organizations, including the coalition for Adolescent Girls and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, that advocate for abortion.

WND has reported on a variety of Girl Scout activities that have sparked protest, including including its support for a pro-abortion politician. Girl Scouts also marched in a promotion of the “gay” agenda in San Francisco and were found to be removing “God” from their “Girl Scout Promise.”

The organization also have incorporated stone labyrinths, global warming, yoga, avatars, smudging incense, Zen gardens and lesbian role models into their teachings. In a lesson called “Amaze: The Twists and Turns of Getting Along,” girls were taught that they should read Buddha and explore mazes and stone or dirt labyrinths – symbols rooted in pagan mythology and popular within the New Age movement as meditation tools.

They also were introduced to Polish poet Anna Swir, known for her feminist and erotic poems, and Jane Addams, an ardent feminist and pacifist.

WND also has reported on numerous “whistleblower” forums that expose the Girl Scouts social agenda.