042097 Christe and fellow activist  Giardina launch an attack on Planned Parenthood 

By Lanning Tallaferro
Staff Writer

A Bedford pro-life activist who says Planned Parenthood has a bad influence on schools is sponsoring a forum on sex education Wednesday in Mount Kisco.

Philip Christe, the forum's organizer, said Bedford's middleschool health curriculum appeared to be "consistent" with what he said were Planned Parenthood's recommendations on sex education.

"It's my opinion that parents are not aware of what's in the sexeducation curriculum in the Bedford schools, that the Board of Education is not aware," Christe said. "What are the teachers doing behind closed doors? ... All I'm saying is: 'Let's look at it.' "

The public forum is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Mount Kisco Public Library on Main Street. The speaker will be Helen Westover of Mid-Hudson Stop Planned Parenthood.

Christe said Bedford's Fox Lane Middle School had subscribed to a Planned Parenthood video service.

Bedford schools Superintendent Bruce Dennis confirmed the subscription, but said the district had used neither videos nor print materials from the organization in its classrooms.

Christe and fellow activist Joseph Giardina, a Bedford Board of Education candidate, have launched an attack on Planned Parenthood recently.

"The organization has a liberal agenda," Giardina said. "I think (my campaign) will raise concern about Planned Parenthood practices."

One of Giardina's opponents in the school board race is Martha States, development director for Planned Parenthood of Westchester and Rockland Inc.

But theirs is not a classic conservative-liberal duel. States is an ally of three fiscal conservatives on the school board, who have also been aligned with Christe and Giardina.

But Christe said he had broken ranks with the board members over States' candidacy.

"I almost think (her job) is a conflict of interest," he said, adding Planned Parenthood is linked to' organizations with a leftist agenda on issues that affect schools.

States said her work was irrelevant except that it had provided her with leadership and collegial skills that would be assets as: a trustee.

Giardina and Christe said Planned Parenthood undermines parental authority. They objected to the explicit sex education information the organization publishes and recommends giving to children. They also objected to what they called the group's confidentiality policy.

Francine Stein, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood, said the group encourages adolescents to inv4ve parents or other responsible adults when they make decisions about reproductive issues, but does not refuse minors essential health services because parental consent is denied.

Suzanne Witzenburg, director of education for Planned Parenthood in Hawthorne, said the group faced a growing number of attacks across the country.

"As extremists have been gathering energies on the anti-abortion issue, they have been getting involved in education," she said. "It's much more than anti-choice, it's anti-sex education, it's anti-family planning. In many respects the movement is going on in every state and has expanded to stop sexual education in its entirety."

Witzenburg said the inadequacy of sex education programs was one reason the United States has the largest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world.

Planned Parenthood's Internet site lists what the organization thinks children should know about human sexuality at various ages.

For instance, it says that children should know where babies come from by age 5; that elementary schoolers should be aware that sexual identity includes sexual orientation; and that 9- to 13-yearolds should be informed about the basics of contraception, including the names of contraceptive devices and where to get them.