By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Planned Parenthood has launched a program in rural Ecuador that trains teens aged 11-19 to inject other teens of Depo-Provera, a contraceptive that prevents ovulation and is known to cause dangerous and irreversible bone density damage.
CNSNews.com is reporting on the new program that was revealed in a Dec. 15 article appearing in Global Health Magazine. In this article, Planned Parenthood officials called the program a “peer-to-peer model” that uses youth to hand out contraceptives to other young people.
The article describes how 30 young people receive training, including “introduction to injections in general, training in Depo Provera in particular” and bio-safety procedures. The teens also hand out other contraceptives, including birth control pills and condoms.
Besides being a less invasive way to reach indigenous people and introduce them to birth control,
“Add to that the confidentiality (no pill pack laying around), the accessibility (outside clinic walls), and the convenience (a promoter comes to you every 12 weeks),” the article states.
Thus far it is not known if Planned Parenthood uses any of the $349.6 million it receives from U.S. taxpayers to fund the program.
Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, called the program “dangerous.”
“We know Ecuador has a left-wing government,” Mosher told CNSNews.com, “but to allow this kind of program to go forward, I mean, just think of the emotional and the medical consequences of allowing teenagers – you can’t even get teenagers to make up their bed – and you are going to allow them to go out and inject their peers with a powerful, steroid-based drug without a medical examination, without awareness of any counter indication of taking the drug? This is a dangerous prescription for young people in Ecuador.”
Depo-Provera, an injectable contraceptive that is administered by a qualified health care provider or doctor in the U.S. carries a “black box warning” by the FDA listing a variety of dangerous side effects including a warning that prolonged use may result in an irreversible loss in bone density.
Jim Sedlak, vice president of the American Life League, told CNSNews.com that the reason Planned Parenthood uses programs such as this one outside of the U.S. is because they would be illegal here.
Aside from the physical risks of such programs, “It is an assault on parental authority,” Sedlak said. “Certainly, Planned Parenthood has used these peer-to-peer programs frequently all over the United States, but they’ve carried it to a horrible extreme in Ecuador where they have 15-year-old kids going out and giving birth control shots to other 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kids.”
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