Op-Ed: Thank God for an Alternative to Planned Parenthood's Sleazy Pro-Abortion App for Kids
An app marketed by Planned Parenthood promotes casual sex and identity insanity and is available to anyone of any age.
Now an app that is the exact opposite, MyMentor, will give kids and young adults accurate, healthy pro-family and pro-life information.
Three years ago, a “chatbot” app called Roo launched with this casual tweet from Planned Parenthood: “A robot that answers your sexual health questions accurately, doesn’t judge, and is freakin’ adorable? Yes please.”
The abortion giant claims the app is directed at 13- to 17-year-olds, but any child can access it 24/7. Kids can ask any question they can think of or pick from pre-written questions on topics ranging from relationships to pornography to transgender issues.
Roo makes it clear that sexual activity is perfectly fine at any age. It emphasizes that there is no “judging” on the app. It teaches about masturbation and what it terms “reproductive health care” (abortion).
Another disturbing aspect of the Roo app is that any child or young adult can easily schedule an appointment at their nearest Planned Parenthood with a simple click of a link.
Kids can also order abortion pills through the app. Many abortion providers now offer “drive-thru abortion” — pick-up of abortion pills at a drive-thru window — or abortion pill delivery without a doctor’s visit or an ultrasound, and in many states without parental consent. These pills are recommended for up to the 10th week of pregnancy, but without an ultrasound, how can a Roo user or anyone possibly know how many weeks along they are?
Planned Parenthood data says Roo saw 2.5 million users in 2021.
Theresa Barbale, executive director of Life Network of Southwest Florida, was aware of Planned Parenthood’s efforts to sell more contraception and abortion and saw the need for a pro-family, pro-life alternative. Outrage over the unhealthy and immoral app and learning that South Florida schools were referring kids to it prompted Barbale to create MyMentor.
“We know Planned Parenthood’s strategy of targeting teens and even pre-teens,” Barbale said. “Now their Roo app aims to further distance kids from their parents’ advice and involvement on issues of sex, gender, contraception and abortion.”
“Counseling centers would always refer youth to the Planned Parenthood Roo app for assistance … so we wanted to combat this with a pro-life equivalent for mentoring youth and preventing abortion,” Barbale said. “Youth who are seeking emotional support should be met with compassion and support, not an agenda.”
A crucial difference between Roo and MyMentor is the connection of kids to live, trained counselors. MyMentor uses real counselors who can look for signs of distress and connect kids to appropriate resources near them. For example, a child who talks about drug or alcohol use or a family break-up can be connected to a face-to-face counselor. If a user of the app is pregnant, the live counselor can get her scheduled at the nearest pro-life pregnancy center, where the sacredness of life can be explained to her and she can see an ultrasound.
A robot can’t recognize a kid in need who just lost a grandparent, or a teen who’s being pressured to have sex or have an abortion. It won’t discuss LGBT issues or “gender transition” in any kind of a moral framework.
The trained counselors taking MyMentor app calls are similar to sidewalk counselors in front of abortion centers, praying while guiding and encouraging abstinence. They promote talking with parents, and will not promote contraception, abortion or gender “hormone therapy.”
Planned Parenthood recently branched out into the big business of hormone therapy. With fewer surgical abortions to sell thanks to abortion pills, it had to look for ways to expand business. In 2018, former Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards said, “We’re expanding access to care — from pioneering research on self-injectable birth control to offering new services for our transgender patients.”
Abigail Schreier, author of “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” says that Planned Parenthood now offers “gender-affirming care” at 210 of its facilities.
“Everything that Planned Parenthood can offer, in a nutshell, is that they want to confuse youth about their sexuality, get them addicted to sex,” Barbale told LifeSiteNews in January. “They want them to be dependent on contraceptives, and they want them ultimately as clients for abortion, or they want their significant other as a client for abortion.”
A former Planned Parenthood employee, Monica Cline, told Breitbart News that Roo is designed to “purposely circumvent parents and steer children towards deceptive and harmful practices. They are delivering a service straight to their target market, hoping to make lifelong customers that will eventually spend a not insignificant amount of money with PP for everything from pregnancy and STD tests to abortions, sometimes multiple ones.”
I checked out Roo myself. First I was asked my age (I said 12 or under), gender (five possibilities listed plus “name your own”), race (again, “name your own” is an option) and zip code. I quickly realized the app asks for your zip code in order to almost immediately set you up with an appointment at the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic.
Asking “What is an abortion?” results in “Abortion is a legal and safe way to end a pregnancy. … There’s many reasons why someone may decide to have an abortion and only you can decide what is best for you.” In response to “How do I get birth control without my parents knowing?,” Roo says parental permission is usually unnecessary except in certain states, and that Planned Parenthood can help teens “get started on birth control.”
When I typed in “How can I tell if I’m male or female?,” I was offered information on transgenderism, with the emphasis on “people’s gender identities can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth.” A teen checking out this section could schedule an appointment at Planned Parenthood where she could be started on hormones.
Thousands of pro-lifers are praying for MyMentor’s success, and especially for the saving of babies and young people from the clutches of Planned Parenthood.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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