Today while riding the CyRide, I noticed an ad above the seats. I’ve seen similar ads all around campus, fliers posted in buildings, on the doors of bathroom stalls, and advertised in the Iowa State Daily. I’m talking about the Planned Parenthood advertisements featuring beautiful girls looking afraid and uneducated and pathetic because they don’t have access to birth control or the sex ed information that Planned Parenthood can provide. What am I trying to say here? To put it nicely: don’t let this supposedly “non-profit” corporation reel you in like it’s done to countless other people and organizations.

Planned Parenthood might seem like an institution devoted toward helping women, yet not many people consider the hypocritical values that this scheming corporation espouses. Let me enlighten you, or better yet, do it yourself: research online, cross-check information from opposing sides of the issues, and know the facts.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), along with its multiple independent affiliates, is supposed to be a non-profit organization, and qualifies as tax exempt under Internal Revenue Service code section 501(c)(3). So why is the corporation profiting by the millions each year? For the fiscal year of 2007, PPFA raked in a whopping $85 million profit. Quite a lot for a non-profit government-funded organization. Oh yeah, did I mention that roughly one-third of its revenue is taxpayer-funded? Lovely.

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was a purported racist supporter of eugenics and forced sterilization and segregation of the “feeble-minded.” She dubbed aboriginal Australians “the lowest-known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development;” she believed “the most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it;” charity “conceals a stupid cruelty;” and said, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the negro population,” need I go on? Interestingly enough, Planned Parenthood honors her year after year. They even have an award they present in honor of her. I believe the most recent Margaret Sanger Award went to Hillary Rodham Clinton — I don’t dare laugh.

Planned Parenthood is dangerous to the young girls and women it claims to protect. A group called Live Action Films caught a PPFA employee on film in 2008 in the midst of persuading her 13-year-old patient to lie about her 31-year-old boyfriend’s age in order to avoid reporting statutory rape. This is one of many such instances, most of which are covered up and ignored by the mainstream media. Or consider the botched abortions PP tries to keep quiet: the only partially removed baby and horrible injuries of 13-year-old Shantese Butler, or the Nebraska woman who nearly died after her uterus was perforated; Holly Patterson, who died after being given the dangerous RU 486 drug by Planned Parenthood; Diana Lopez; Vivian Tran; Nichole Williams, these women died at the hands of our friend PPFA, who actively opposes women’s “Right to Know” informed consent laws.

Planned Parenthood is also quite adamant about providing minors with the right to abortions without the need for parental consent. Planned Parenthood seems to think all underage kids are capable of making informed decisions about sex, disease, abortion and the needs of their bodies. I don’t know about you, but the last time I checked, most 13-year-olds are still running around picking their noses and going through teen angst and all that.

Not exactly the most responsible age group ever, eh? But whatever, PPFA doesn’t care, so why should we? Parents, so what if your 14-year-old wants a surgical procedure done to remove a child from her womb, get over it. It’s her right. Don’t interfere.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America not only attempts to hoodwink the general public, but its very own employees and volunteers. Many of these men and women have no idea just what type of industry they are promoting and furthering, said Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood health center in Texas. Many think they are helping women, not lining the pockets of a self-proclaimed non-profit organization. “Abortion clinic employees are not the enemy,” Johnson said.

And she’s right: we must, as a nation, stop the hypocrisy that Planned Parenthood gets away with year after year, but we will not accomplish this by condemning the volunteers and employees that have no idea of the detrimental effects Planned Parenthood has on society. I was always taught to love the sinner and hate the sin — for the non-religious out there: love the criminal, hate the crime. This is how we can make a difference and stop the damage being done by Planned Parenthood, by exposing the lies and dangers of PPFA and petitioning the corporations that support it — you’d be surprised: Nike, Wells Fargo, Walt Disney, Johnson & Johnson, AOL, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, etc. Boycott these if you must, don’t worry, Mrs. Field’s Cookies recently dropped their affiliation, the cookies are now morally digestible.

We, as American citizens and as human beings, have a responsibility to stop such a fallacy as the Planned Parenthood empire, to hold it accountable for the harm it has caused, is causing and will cause. Take a stand, know your facts, research, figure things out for yourself and then act. As dramatic as this sounds, our future depends on it.