Talking Points Memo has a piece about anti-abortion protesters collecting the license plate numbers of people entering clinics.
What interests me about that story is the photo they used to illustrate it. It’s an AP photo credited to Duane A Laverty, and it shows people wearing huge red stop sign-shaped signs that read
STOP Planned Promiscuity
What?? That’s a thing? I’d never heard of that before.
But I still haven’t, apart from that photo. I can’t find it via Google, including via News or Images.
I’m very curious about it, as well as very disgusted by it. Does anybody know anything? Who uses this slogan? Is it an anti-abortion slogan or an anti-contraception slogan?
Yup, nothing like showing that it’s not abortion that they’re truly against but human sexuality.
They are feebly attempting to criticize Planned Parenthood, an excellent organization in the US that provides a variety of health-care services, including contraception, pre-natal care, and abortion.
Jon, yes, I know that much. I’m in the US myself. (A lot of people think I’m in the UK, I guess because I post a lot about UK news etc.) But I don’t know why, or who they are, or how common this is – and I’m very curious.
The group appears to be Pro-Life Waco. The man in the photo looks like John Pisciotta. The slogan appears to be part of a protest against a sex education program run by Planned Parenthood aimed at students from grades 5 through 9, which the group believes promotes promiscuity.
You can see the red stop signs in this clip from a local news channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyicBlk7Bjc
Here’s their website, with images of the red stop-sign posters and of John Pisciotta:
http://www.prolifewaco.com/Nobody_s_Fool.php
Hey, thank you, arty. Your Googlefu is better than mine.
“Planned Promiscuity” is likely just a new catchy alliterative bumper sticker phrase on the old BS about family planning being about sex with no restraints. They like to pretend that responsible sex for fun outside of marriage is a terrible thing because there is still enough social sensitivity to that position in government, media, and a good part of society. The emotional babble that they use to characterize issues is kind of predictable when you have had as much exposure to it as I have.
It’s an anti-woman slogan.
Yeah we all get that much.
Brony @6,
Plus, it’s well-known that only promiscuous sex leads to pregnancy. Nobody in a monogamous relationship needs birth control. Babies are God’s little miracles, and so He only bestows these beautiful gifts on those who have displeased him by slutting it up. (Hey, mysterious ways and all that!)
I have never heard anyone use the words “planned promiscuity” together. And now that I’ve read it on stop signs, I think it’s stupid and offensive. Also ignorant. Pro Life Waco has now received my negative attention.
That Christian lady with the bare shoulders and the tight jeans needs to change her clothing before she arouses my uncontrollable lust. After all, it is HER fault if I try to have ‘fornication’ with her, right? I’m just a dude with glands full of testosterone and no self-control.
Is unplanned promiscuity still ok with them?
Yes, most objective observers have long suspected that the anti-abortion folk were really more focused on keeping people away from contraception as a step toward controlling sexual behavior and female bodies. But it is also nice to see that they have finally given up front so we can openly debate the real issue.
Of course the whole right-to-life movement and ‘moral majority’ were a direct result of the establishment of segregated private schools offered as a for-profit alternative to integrated public schools. Religion was only added as an afterthought as a ploy to maintain state funding and tax exemptions because the for-profit schools couldn’t extract a profit and maintain financial viability without them. Once the private schools, commercial religion in the form of evangelical mega churches and right-wing politics were joined at the hip the demand for state control over women’s bodies, the one issue all the parts could agree on but previously not an issue at all, was added to cement the coalition together.
So, in the end, it was all about racism and money. Their finally explicitly admitting that the anti-abortion thing was ploy for deeper motives is a start.
@screechymonkey
Unless you are Catholic* then you have precisely as many babies ad God intends.
On a serious note I have shifted my stance in this area. I’m over whatever cultural BS was making me respect that default of no sex before marriage and I don’t try to moderate my language anymore when it comes to just believing that men and women get to have sex for fun. It gets into conversation about as often as something like politics, and the horrified reactions have not been all that over-the top yet.
*Like they actually listen to the Vatican on that one XD
I’m a big fan of planning promiscuity: some degree of planning is pretty much necessary to ensure all parties are consenting and to mitigate risks of spreading or contracting STIs.
@12 Jaffa
Well, the opposite corner of that word matrix would be “unplanned chastity”, which I assume is acceptable to them, even if more internally sinful than the “planned chastity” of a pure Christian heart.
@Ophelia OP
Seems like the phrase has less to do with literal meaning than just a rather pathetic attempt to play on the “Planned Parenthood” name at the same time as trying to shame those who use their services. It is ironic that “planned promiscuity”, if you take the “planned” part as “safe, informed, and consented”, with multiple partners, isn’t immoral at all.
I’m guessing ‘planned promiscuity’ means deciding to use contraception when you’re having sex and not married, as opposed to the right way, doing sex in ignorance and then having a quick marriage and an equally quick divorce.
But yeah, they now hate sex for pleasure and are actually being honest.
the problem with their campaign is that they are relying on everyone thinking “promiscuity” is bad.
I for one never have. Most people I know never have. Everyone I know understands the difference between promiscuity and adultery/cheating. Everyone I know understands what consent means.
The real problem with these people, is their ignorance. Of everything. Including the English language.
Taking responsible preparations for sex means you are PLANNING to have sex and that = promiscuity, even if you are in a monogamous relationship.