SIOUX FALLS —The State Library service of South Dakota has removed links to Planned Parenthood from the library website. The library had refused to comply when a school librarian in Huron made the request in April that they remove links to Planned Parenthood Teenwire website and the Kaiser Family Foundation. The bishop of the Catholic diocese of Sioux Falls then asked Governor Rounds to intervene with the Library Board.
In a May 12th, letter to Rounds, Bishop Carlson wrote, “I trust that you will agree that the information found on these links are not only objectionable, but in many instances false. Undeniably, it is sending a harmful message to our valued youth. I find it extremely troubling that the State of South Dakota would encourage our young women and men to turn to Planned Parenthood for any guidance, whether it be sex education or the intrinsic evil of abortion.” Rounds had no knowledge of the problem until Bishop Carlson sent him a letter about it.
On Friday the Library Board complied with the governor's request that the links be removed. Now, Governor Rounds has also asked to have the “teen center” sections of the library website temporarily suspended until their content has been reviewed. Said Rounds, “I think that moms and dads that have got kids that are 12, 13 and 14 years old would not want items that are on that web site to be made readily available to their children on the Internet or through connections with, of all places, a web site sponsored by taxpayers of the state of South Dakota.”
The Library Board has agreed to review the suitability of web content available to children. Rounds, who is a Catholic, said that as a parent he would be “disturbed” to have his children visiting some of the websites under investigation. He also said that he was concerned with the problem of promoting one particular political position on a website funded by taxpayers. He said that Planned Parenthood is a political organization that hires lobbyists. “I'm not sure the state should be in the business of promoting a particular cause,” the governor said. “A clear pro-choice message comes through strongly.”
See also:
Rounds Urged Planned Parenthood Web Link Cut
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
