Planned Parenthood has been banned from schools in one Canadian province after parents complained about a sexually graphic resource ending up in the hands of a high schooler.
Minister of Education Dustin Duncan on Thursday suspended the Planned Parenthood in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, from presenting information in schools.
“I believe, as Minister of Education [and] frankly, as a parent, it is completely inappropriate to be in a classroom,” Duncan said of the controversial resource.
Duncan promised a review over the summer of all school materials as well as the process of informing parents about classroom content. The incident occurred when the local Planned Parenthood gave a presentation to ninth graders during a sexual health class at Lumsden High School in Saskatchewan.
The presenter brought ABC sex vocabulary cards, which graphically describe sexually explicit acts, to the high school where at least one student reportedly got their hands on them.
The graphic resource was a pamphlet titled “SEX: From A-Z,” which calls itself “a set of cards intended for gay, bi, and queer young people.”
“While the presentation itself was aligned with the Saskatchewan curriculum, the presenter brought a secondary resource which was not. This secondary resource, consisting of an A to Z sexual vocabulary, was inappropriate for students,” the school division said.
Planned Parenthood Regina’s executive director, Julian Wotherspoon, described the ABC sexual vocabulary cards as “tongue-in-cheek” and said it was not part of the presentation to students.
“It wasn’t part of what we were there to present,” Wotherspoon said. “But when we bring secondary resources with us, none of the educators know everything and often times we will have youth come up to us after and ask us about their own experience or things that they are really curious about and it’s nice to have a box of things we can rifle through so they can get connected with the information that they need.”
Wotherspoon said Planned Parenthood was “mostly surprised” by the education ministry’s decision to suspend them from presenting at schools and complained that the ministry did not contact them beforehand.
Wotherspoon also called it “concerning” that the resource being “targeted” is intended for LGBT youth.
The local Planned Parenthood also apologized for the incident.
“A resource the school did not approve ended up in the hands of a student,” Planned Parenthood Regina said in a statement Friday. “Planned Parenthood Regina apologizes for the difficult position that our Prairie Valley School Division partners have been put in as a result of this incident.”
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the U.S. and Canada and has invested heavily in sex education for youth.
“Planned Parenthood also reaches young people online to ensure they can access sex education and information, even if they aren’t getting that in school,” Planned Parenthood’s political arm states on its website.