Tagalong Confidential: Do Girl Scout Cookies Promote Abortion?
Here's more proof we live in a crazy, mixed-up world: Some anti-abortion groups are calling for a "cookie-cott" of Girl Scout cookies not because they are duplicitously filled with decadent and depraved trans fat but because they are part of a wicked baby-killing agenda.
In 2012, reports Politico, the Family Research Council "urged its 455,000 followers to pray that cookie sales would lag so that the Girl Scouts would break off their alleged relationship with Planned Parenthood."
This year, Pro-Life Waco and Pro-Life Wisconsin are leading the charge against Thin Mints, Thank You Berry Muches, delicous Samoas (known as Caramel deLites west of the Mississippi and north of Carcosa), and all other varieties.
Dubbing their effort "cookie-cott," abortion opponents have been urging allies to refuse to purchase cookies from any girl scout this year to show their opposition to what they perceive as the Girl Scouts' increasing support of people and advocacy groups with ties, however tendentious, to abortion.
The most recent in a long line of perceived offenses, and the one that spurred the latest cookie boycott, was the organization's alleged endorsement of Texas state senator Wendy Davis, who last June famously filibustered the state's new law that will close most of the abortion providers in Texas. The Girl Scouts' Twitter account tweeted a link to a Huffington Post Live segment discussing potential candidates for woman of the year for 2013. Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis was mentioned as a contender, as were singer Beyonce, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai and even "the brave women on social media."
So is that box of Savannah Smiles (blech) a political statement of any sort? Not to the Girl Scouts, at least:
"To quote the Girl Scout promise, we are committed to serving God and our country and to helping others at all time," states Ana Maria Chavez, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA in a recent video response to the religious right's allegations. "We do not now, nor have we ever had a relationship with Planned Parenthood. Girl Scouts of the USA believes that reproductive issues are deeply private matters best left to families. I find it unsettling that anyone would use the Girl Scout brand to have very adult conversations. A box of cookies is not a political statement. It is an investment in a girl and her dreams."
More on Girls Scouts and odd bedfellows from Snopes.
