Sometimes, there just aren't words.

When this press release from the American Life League passed by my desk this evening, I couldn't even wave my usual fist, sigh my usual sigh, or give a good barbaric yawp. Screeds like this often leave me in that space, bizarrely feeling like I've been somehow redeposited in time to the McCarthy Era, but this one was a real doozy: I feel like someone dosed my dinner.

"We're Celebrating - And Planned Parenthood Knows Why, Says American Life League

WASHINGTON, July 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is an op-ed by Jim Sedlak, American Life League:

For the last week, we here at American Life League have been celebrating the enactment of a law in Missouri that deals, in part, with human sexuality education in schools. The specific wording in the new law that has us in a joyous mood is:

No school district or charter school, or its personnel or agents, shall provide abortion⁠ (abortion: A procedure to intentionally end a pregnancy before a birth. Miscarriage is also sometimes called "spontaneous abortion," even though it is usually not intended.) services, or permit a person or entity to offer, sponsor, or furnish in any manner any course materials or instruction relating to human sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases to its students if such
person or entity is a provider of abortion services.

These words will block Planned Parenthood from being able to come into Missouri schools with its sex⁠ (sex: Different things people choose to do to actively express or enact sexuality and sexual feelings; often this involves genitals, but not always. ) education programs. It cannot even provide its pamphlets or brochures for use in the schools. Thus, this new law shuts off a major means Planned Parenthood uses to get to Missourians' children.

...

We have always maintained that the Planned Parenthood sex education programs are the supply column to the abortion centers. Children learn it is okay to have sex, as long as they use Planned Parenthood's birth control⁠ (birth control: Any number of methods people use to intentionally prevent unwanted pregnancy, including the condom, the cervical barrier, the implant, the patch, the pill, the rhythm method, the ring, the shot, the IUD, spermicide and withdrawal.) products to reduce their chances of getting pregnant, and that it's okay to have abortions when they do get pregnant. As they pass through puberty⁠ (puberty: The process of physical and sexual changes from childhood to adulthood, initiated by hormone signals from the brain to the gonads. ) and their hormones⁠ (hormones: Chemicals – via our endocrine system – that send messages across our bodies and brains. They both naturally exist and can also be made in a lab.) kick in, they begin to act on what they have learned in school. They get involved in sexual⁠ (sexual: About or relating in some way to sex or sexuality.) activity, buy Planned Parenthood products, get pregnant and have abortions. In fact, Planned Parenthood reports that a majority of those having abortions were using birth control in the month they got pregnant. This is a cycle that frequently repeats itself.

Any measure that cuts off Planned Parenthood's ability to teach its sex education programs interrupts the supply column and slows down the abortion juggernaut.

But Planned Parenthood's human sexuality education programs are not just about abortion. They are, in fact, programs specifically designed to bring new customers into Planned Parenthood's clinics.

...

Permitting a profit-based organization to come into a school and be given access to impressionable students for the purpose of pushing its ideology and its products is a clear conflict. --"

There's more to read here, full of some REALLY bizarre stuff (more bizarre and equally as stupid as going on about a profit-based organization in reference to a registered non-profit, or coming to the conclusion that somehow we've managed to grossly the planet for millennia even though, according to him, only since the dawn of sex ed in schools would any young person decide to go and have sex), but that sentence right there is what stopped me in my tracks before I could even utter a word.

Let's look at it again. Let's remember where these words are coming from.

"...to come into a school and be given access to impressionable students for the purpose of pushing its ideology and its products is a clear conflict."

I gotta say, on that senetnce -- and that one alone? I'm right there with you, Jim. I'm also wondering if there are mirrors in Mr. Sedlak's home, and if he's taken a good look in one lately.

If you've never read Sedlak before, just go ahead and do read the rest of the press release: I promise, however awful it is in terms of a total disrespect for women's rights, it's outer-limits enough that you'll laugh -- or just sit here with your jaw hanging open like me, who is still slack-jawed and thinking I've heard drunken homeless men in my neighborhood be more lucid -- more than you cry. But if you want to get REALLY creeped out⁠ (out: Short for ‘out of the closet’. When someone’s LGBTQ+ identity is known to other people.) ? Go ahead and do a blog search on Google for him, and pay attention to how very many people actually give this guy the time of day.