No teen wants to talk to their parents about sex, but is a Planned Parenthood staff member the next best thing? The Denver affiliate of the national organization seems to think so. As part of the Denver Teen Pregnancy Prevention Partnership, Planned Parenthood has launched a text-messaging program called In Case You’re Curious that will allow teens to text their questions to the organization. The texts will be intercepted by a Planned Parenthood staff member who will answer within 24 hours—using 160 characters or less.
“We always encourage youth to have conversations with their parents, but we also recognize that not everyone has that ability,” says Alison Macklin, director of community education for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. “We’re not trying to take the place of those conversations, of them providing firsthand knowledge, but rather we’re providing a way to help answer questions.”
So far, about 500 messages have been received and Macklin says they hope to double that next year.
While the idea of a young teen getting an answer to a question that could potentially be quite serious in such a short way seems a little scary to me, Macklin says it allows the organization to be of immediate assistance on some topics.
“Our goal is to arm youth with medically accurate, age-appropriate information about what might be going on with their bodies,” she said. “We’d rather have them have access to that information than wondering or relying on common myths, like ‘It’s better to use two condoms rather than one,’ when the reality is that doing so will actually increase the risk for an unplanned pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease.”
In Case You’re Curious is slated to run for a year and could potentially be expanded to other cities after that.Keith Mason, president of Denver-based Personhood USA, which aims to end abortions in Colorado, hopes that doesn’t happen. “It’s just another extension of their abortion-marketing plan. Just like restaurants use texts to give out coupons, this is their way of driving young people to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion chain in America.”
How do you feel about this idea? Is Planned Parenthood overstepping their bounds by offering this service or could it potentially be beneficial?
Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.
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