“No one has ever told us that before,” said a 13-year-old girl sitting in a sex education class at an alternative school. I had just asked her and a roomful of teenagers if they knew it was okay to not engage in sexual activity if they didn’t want to.

It was a simple concept but apparently not to these teens, who were considered at a higher risk of unplanned pregnancies, STDs, drug use, and violent behavior. I was a comprehensive sexual health educator, an instrument of Planned Parenthood’s vast sex-ed programs that infiltrate schools and seek to cut out parents from the lives of their kids.

My job was to meet kids where they were and teach them prevention measures to decrease risks. It wasn’t necessarily to stop them from having sex — just to help them along and answer questions, and of course, send them to Planned Parenthood when all that failed. But now Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has developed an even trickier way to snag teens and embed their terrible sex-ed views into the lives of teens: through a chatbot, which responds to any questions these kids have without the knowledge or consent of their parents or guardians.

Planned Parenthood’s Sex Ed Isn’t Pretty

I taught sex-ed for Planned Parenthood for over 15 years and it wasn’t pretty. Comprehensive sex education (CSE) assertively breaks down our children’s bashful feelings about sex with the goal that they will view sex, STI’s, and abortion to be as common as going to the dentist.

In my extensive experience, I found most children and teens don’t want to have sex. Of those that do become sexually active, many report that they regret it and wished they had waited. These kids become sexually active because it’s become the expectation set by CSE and the culture. They don’t even know that abstaining is an option.

Planned Parenthood’s chatbot claims to provide “evidence-based and judgement-free” answers that are personalized and immediate. A chatbot, by definition, is not personal or caring or compassionate. There is nothing personal about it other than the fact that it intrudes into the personal lives of our vulnerable youth.

Do you know what is personal? A parent teaching their children values and life skills and providing guidance and help where their kids need it most. The Planned Parenthood app, named Roo, is just a ruse meant to replace and diminish the protective voice of parents.

Click for full size image. (Credit: Screengrab)

“We Want to Know What You Want for Us.”

As parents, it is darn hard to teach kids about sex sometimes. But it’s our job to do so. It’s not Planned Parenthood’s job. It’s the not the job of the school system. Kids need to know they can speak to their parents about all topics, especially sex, without an angry or fearful response. They need to know their parents will listen and make them feel that what they are saying is important.

With my own son, I laid a foundation of good communication at an early age. If, at age five, he wanted to speak to me about a special pencil he had earned from his teacher, I made sure to give him my full attention and celebrate with him. Whether he wanted to speak about something happy or sad, I always made sure he knew I was listening and engaged. I knew that if I set this foundation of trust with him, then he would speak to me in his teen years as well. It worked.

My son is 19 years old now and he has confidence that I will listen and that my advice will always be for his best interest. I once asked him what young people his age would like to see in parent-led sex education. He said, “Mom, we don’t want videos or workbooks. We don’t want checklists or conversations based on a sex education video. We want to know your heart and expectations for us. You’ve always spoken to me from your heart and that’s what teens want. We want to know what you want for us.”

A Sex Chatbox Can’t Provide What You Can

Speak from your heart, parents. No clinic, nurse, media, or sex chatbot can replace a child’s need for their parents’ love and involvement in their lives. Parents are a child’s greatest advocate. Parents, don’t replace yourself with a sex chatbot or the neighborhood family planning clinic. Fill that void of sexual education before Planned Parenthood fills it for your kids.

Planned Parenthood wants teens to turn to them for trusted healthcare advice, especially more uncomfortable topics like sexual health. The vicious cycle at Planned Parenthood begins with recruiting clients to trust them for birth control. Then when that fails, to turn to them for money-making abortion, sometimes over and over again. Parents are thoughtfully cut out from the relationship because they hinder profits at Planned Parenthood, bottom line.

Parents are more equipped to handle sex-ed than an impersonalized, sterile, and creepy sex chatbot. Roo is a ruse, a detestable stand-in for real relationships among teens and their parents and those who love them.

Monica Cline is a former Planned Parenthood HIV health educator and Title X training manager who now works as a national speaker exposing the lies and true agenda behind sexual risk reduction education.