American Life League's STOPP International expressed its outrage at the appointment of Beverly Todd Nolte, former vice president of Marketing at Planned Parenthood of Nebraska and Council Bluffs, as the new executive director of the Girls Scouts-Great Plains Council in Omaha, Nebraska.
“It would be naïve to believe that Nolte's appointment is a coincidence, or that it won't translate into a stronger Planned Parenthood influence over the young girls who are a part of this council,” said Jim Sedlak, executive director of STOPP International. “For the past three years, Ms. Nolte has been focused on marketing Planned Parenthood's message, as well as serving as one of its lobbyists to local government. It is only natural to connect the dots and realize that this is the same message she will now try to sell to the children involved in the Great Plains Council.”
In January 2004, Nolte defended a program that informed teens on how they could bypass Nebraska's parental notification law. She was quoted in an article published by the Omaha World-Herald on January 11, stating: “We see it as a issue of information teens need to have, we're standing up for teens' rights.”
Knowing such a stated position would be of great concern to parents in Nebraska, Sedlak warned, “Now that Nolte is head of a Girl Scout council, there is little question that she will seek to undermine parental authority and underhandedly teach these young girls how to get abortions behind their parents' backs.”
Since March of this year, STOPP has been conducting research to determine how many of the 315 Girl Scout councils in the United States have some sort of relationship with Planned Parenthood. To date, STOPP has been able to classify 108 of the councils. “On March 19,” Sedlak revealed, “we received an e-mail from the Great Plains Council informing us that they had no relationship with Planned Parenthood. Obviously, that has now changed.” As of today, 25 of the 108 councils STOPP has classified (23%) do have a relationship with Planned Parenthood. You can view the results of their efforts online.
“It is time parents in Omaha and elsewhere investigate the real motives of this once wholesome organization,” concluded Sedlak.
(This update courtesy of the STOPP, STamp Out Planned Parenthood.)
