In Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s latest end-of-year appeal, Cecile Richards wrote, “It seems like every day the attacks on women’s health get louder and more extreme. … Women and men across the country are beginning to realize just how dangerous our opponents are, just how extreme their agenda truly is.”

Extreme?  Please.

We’re not the ones aiding and abetting child rapists by telling their victims to lie about their age so they can get an abortion.  In 2008, Live Action exposed your staff’s rampant sexual abuse cover-ups and blatant medical misinformation — in fourteen different states!

We’re not the ones aiding and abetting sex traffickers. In February 2011, Live Action caught your Planned Parenthood of New Jersey manager side-stepping the law by coaching a man and woman who were posing as sex traffickers on how to be as “legit as possible” in obtaining secret abortions and contraception for their underage female sex slaves.

And we’re not the ones encouraging women to have an abortion based on the sex of the child.  ProtectOurGirls.com recently exposed a Planned Parenthood Chapel Hill clinician supporting a mother seeking sex-selective abortion of baby girls in the hopes of having a baby boy instead.

And yet, we’re extreme? No, that’s YOU, Miss Richards. That’s YOUR Planned Parenthood.  We’re not extreme; YOU are.

Our guest blogger today is Christian Shelby, a volunteer with Concerned Women for America.

Few people have had such a profound influence on American culture, yet Judith Wallerstein was not a household name.  When her book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce (2000), was published, it prompted a national debate over the effect on children when their parents divorced.  Beginning in 1971, Mrs. Wallerstein interviewed 131 children from 60 divorced families every 5 years for 25 years.  She found, not surprisingly, that the children were “extremely distressed” after their parents’ divorce; she also found that the children’s problems continued for 10 to 15 years with half of them suffering permanent damage.  She found that the grown children of divorced parents often become “worried, underachieving, self-deprecating, and sometimes angry young men and women.”

More recent research by Elizabeth Marquette and others has corroborated Wallerstein’s analyses. In addition, Wallerstein continued to write about the affect of divorce on children, publishing 70 articles in professional journals and five books. In a PBS interview in 2000, she said, “It’s hard for me to believe that 45 percent of marriages are so bad that they really need to divorce, and that’s what’s happening in this country.” Among her findings: children of divorce have a harder time forming intimate relationships (half the rate of those in the general population) and were more likely to divorce than are children from intact families.  In her second book about divorce, Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce (1989),  Wallerstein offered advice to couples who divorced, including ensuring that custody arrangements were beneficial to the children rather than convenient for the parents.

With divorce rates relatively stable, but still too high and no-fault divorce still an option in many states, Wallerstein’s research (and that of numerous others corroborating her findings) needs to be introduced to a new generation who have grown up hearing that divorce is better than living in an unhappy family.  Wallerstein showed, through her careful longitudinal research, that casual divorce is not always the best solution for children.

Former First Lady Laura Bush will receive the Alice Award in September from the Sewall-Belmont House, which is a museum “committed to sharing the untold stories of women’s history.” The Alice Award “honors a distinguished woman who has made an outstanding contribution in breaking barriers and setting new precedents for women. Through Mrs. Bush’s commitment to education, health care and human rights, she has made an impact on women’s lives both at home and abroad.”

Isn’t it nice that the Sewall-Belmont House is honoring Mrs. Bush, a former first lady who used her position to enhance the well-being of women around the world?

No, say twenty-two women, including Sonia Pressman-Fuentes, the co-founder of the National Organization for Women. Declaring she is not partisan, Fuentes said, “I’m not complaining that she’s a Republican. I’m complaining that she’s never done anything for women to get this award.”

So, Mrs. Bush has “never done anything for women,” huh?

So, why did the Sewall-Belmont House award Mrs. Bush the Alice Award?

According to the museum’s website, Mrs. Bush:

• traveled to more than seventy-six countries, including historic trips to Afghanistan and helped launch groundbreaking educational and healthcare programs for women
• is an advocate for women’s health
• has been an active participant in campaigns to raise awareness of breast cancer and heart disease, both in the U.S. and around the world
• partnered with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in The Heart Truth campaign and the Red Dress project
• traveled to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Panama to help launch international partnerships for breast cancer awareness and research

Perhaps the letter writers were not aware of all of Mrs. Bush’s efforts to aid women because the liberal media rarely portrays the efforts of those with whom they disagree? Maybe the Sewall-Belmont House recognized Mrs. Bush’s “untold” story?

Fuentes, who served on the museum’s board, said she would not give the award to President or Mrs. Obama either because they have, “disappointed me in terms of women’s rights.” She suggested Senator Barbara Mikulski and Eleanor Smeal as replacements for Mrs. Bush or as additional recipients to Mrs. Bush.  Mikulski and Smeal?

In an interview with Larry King, Mrs. Bush said she does not wish to see Roe v. Wade overturned, a position with which it is safe to say Fuentes would agree. So is Fuentes upset that Mrs. Bush didn’t contradict her husband’s position while they were in the White House? Is that what she means when she mentions her disappointment about women’s rights? Is it that Mrs. Bush didn’t abort her twin girls? With feminists it seems to come down to abortion more often than not.

Fuentes said she cannot recall any major controversies with other recipients, who include Olympia Snowe, Katie Couric, Hilary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Hmmm, what do those ladies have in common that Laura Bush doesn’t share?

No, the letter from the women blasting the choice of Laura Bush for the award couldn’t possibly be about ideology or partisanship.

A new study published in Psychology Today helps explain why some students who should not be successful end up doing quite well in their chosen fields. Two psychologists — Timothy Judge and Charlice Hurst ­­— partnered with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to study 12,000 people for more than two decades.  Some of their findings were typical: teens from well-educated families who made good grades were more successful than blue-collar kids who didn’t do well in school.  Other findings were unexpected.  Some blue-collar students who had good grades ended up making 30-60 percent more than the privileged students.

What was the difference?

The successful blue-collar kids had personal beliefs that set them apart: emotional stability, internal locus of control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.  These traits enabled those students to shape their future; that is, they were decisive in choosing a particular course of action or in quitting certain other paths they deemed undesirable.

Another psychologist found that students who lacked the personal beliefs isolated by Judge and Hurst were indecisive persons.  In other words, being a decisive person can be an important trait for career success.  Joseph Badaracco, an ethics professor at Harvard, identified what he called an inability to make “right vs. right” decisions as a “fatal strategic flaw.”

The bottom line?  Those who can focus on one strategy, rather than continually trying to choose between options or approaches to take in solving a problem, are more likely to finish a task or a job and, thus, be more successful.  So, make up your mind, move forward, and get the job done.  Indecision is deadly and non-productive; being decisive is essential to moving ahead.

Alex Swoyer, Miss Naples USA and member of Young Women for America

Smack dab in the middle of what I like to think is the most hostile debate in college classroom history, I found myself a lone defender. The topic of defense, you might ask? Beauty pageants.

Presumably, my position was shaped during the ill-famed 1989 Little Miss Baton Rouge Pageant. After all, I won “Most Congenial,” a tiny plastic tiara, and bragging rights among the other two-year-old girls. This also means I can personally attest to the fact that TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras doesn’t accurately reflect every pageant participant and her mother. My mom is quite rational, thank you very much.

Now fast forward back to my sophomore year in college and me trying helplessly to convince twenty-something feminist students that there are some positive aspects to pageants.

The odds were against me, to say the least. My opposition raised the usual anti-pageant protests dating back to the 1960s — “women strutted like animals,” “sexist objectification,” and “rigged competitions.” Even the timeless “cattle yard parade” metaphor was thrown up a time or two. Still, I refused to back down, no matter how intimidated, frustrated, and utterly outnumbered I was.

But now recent pageant news has me asking the question, “All that defense, for what?”

Did you catch Miss Ohio’s shocking comment during Miss USA? When Miss Ohio was asked to provide an example of a positive female role model, she answered, Julia Roberts’ character in the movie Pretty Woman. In this movie, Julia Roberts plays an ambitious prostitute — not exactly the model example of positive womanhood. What about strong women like Susan B. Anthony, Mother Theresa, Condoleezza Rice, and others who have fought against norms and stereotypes to uphold their core convictions? Thankfully, the pageant judges didn’t think prostitutes a good example either, dubbing Miss Ohio the second runner up.

What’s more, who can forget the transgendered contestant allowed to compete in the Miss Universe pageant? Now young women can’t even look to beauty queens anymore without wondering if they are, in fact, actually women.

Honestly, I was ready to trade in my own tiara after reading these stories — that is until I learned Young Women for America’s own Alex Swoyer won the Miss Naples USA Pageant. Alex is a fresh reminder that there are intelligent, morally upright women dedicated to using pageants as a platform to serve, inspire, and witness to the rising generation.

I wasn’t blessed to have the support of a YWA club that connected me with other conservative college students on my campus. But believe me, facing college — or brutal classroom debates — is easier alongside other women who share your values.

Learn more about YWA college chapters at www.ConcernedWomen.org.