2010 Profile: Elizabeth Warren "Felt Stifled" By "Administrative Constraints" At Her 1970s Teaching Job

    Two weeks ago, The Script published an article regarding Elizabeth Warren's evolving story of how she came to leave her first teaching job almost 50 years ago. Further investigation by The Script since then has failed to uncover any pre-2014 versions of Warren's anecdote that include the current details about being fired by her principal for being "visibly pregnant," not an uncommon occurrence at the time. However, The Script has discovered two additional pre-2014 examples of Warren relating the story without those details.
    A 1350-word profile of Warren in The Oklahoman in 2010 included a reference to Warren's exit from teaching in the early 1970s, saying Warren "felt stifled by the administrative constraints of the New Jersey public school where she worked," and implied this influenced her decision to switch to law. The entire passage reads as follows:

She became a teacher to brain-injured children, but felt stifled by the administrative constraints of the New Jersey public school where she worked. During a Christmas visit to Oklahoma City, her former high school debate classmates urged her to attend law school.

    Reached by email, the author of the 2010 profile, Don Mecoy, indicated he no longer had the notes from his interview with Warren that might have shed more light on her remarks. The Warren campaign did not respond to The Script's request for comment on the 2010 statement.
    Three years after that profile and less than a year before the publication of her autobiography where Warren first spoke of the principal's role in her release from her teaching job, Warren gave a commencement address at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. In a passage of the speech that contained a theme of "I was sure I had my life all planned," Warren does not mention being fired for being pregnant, but rather sums up that phase of her life as "I taught in an elementary school. I thought I had my life all planned. Two years, one baby and one move later, I decided to go to law school." Here's the remark in full context:

No, I spent pretty much my whole career as a teacher. After I graduated from a commuter college – which back cost $50 a semester – I taught in an elementary school. I thought I had my life all planned. Two years, one baby and one move later, I decided to go to law school, thinking I could be a trial lawyer. I thought I had my life all planned. Three years and another baby and another move later, I became a law professor, teaching bankruptcy and eventually writing books on the economic issues facing middle class families—and I was sure I had my life all planned.

   The Warren story finally broke out of the right-leaning media after the Washington Free Beacon published 1970s school board documents regarding Warren's exit from teaching. Only then did the Warren campaign responded publicly, and then primarily through a CBS News interview. When asked why her telling of the story changed after 2014, the Warren campaign told CBS News: "After becoming a public figure I opened up more about different pieces in my life and this was one of them. I wrote about it in my book when I became a U.S. Senator."
    Warren has subsequently attempted to turn the controversy to her advantage by championing the cause of women who have suffered pregnancy discrimination by employers. Neither Warren nor her campaign, however, have presented any clear documentation that can confirm the specifics of a firing story that Warren apparently waited 43 years to begin sharing publicly.

Planned Parenthood on Answering Children About Babies: "Answer Honestly... 'A Baby Grows In A Mother’s Belly'"

    Planned Parenthood is the country's de facto mouthpiece and leading advocate for unrestricted access to abortion from conception to just before birth. So it is rather jarring that the recommended answer for parents who wish "to answer honestly" their child's question "Where do babies come from?" is "A baby grows in a mother’s belly..." [Note: Katie Yoder first reported on this in December 2018 at National Review online which I discovered after running across this material on Planned Parenthood's website.]
    While Planned Parenthood is best known as an abortion provider, the organization itself tends to downplay that aspect of its services as a relatively small 3.4%. In addition to its other health services, Planned Parenthood also styles itself as an authoritative source for education about sex and pregnancy. The very first menu on the organization's website banner is "Learn" with submenus on various aspects of "sexual and reproductive health."
    In addition to abortion, cancer, birth control, and other health topics, the website devotes an entire section to helping parents educate their children about "sex, puberty & relationships." While Planned Parenthood makes what it considers age-appropriate distinctions in the level of detail shared with children, honesty and openness is stressed ("open and factual discussions") from the youngest ages up through older teens. The materials shuns euphemisms and discourages calling body parts anything other than their accurate anatomical names.
    When it comes to pregnancy, however, Planned Parenthood reverts back to a more traditional description that conflicts with the usual public characterization of an unborn child as just "part of a woman's body." In the section for ages 5-8 entitled "How do I talk with my elementary school aged child about pregnancy and reproduction?", there is no suggestion that what is inside the mother is anything other than a baby. Emphasis has been added to the excerpts here:

If a 5 year old asks, “Where do babies come from?” you can say, “A baby grows in a mother’s belly and comes out of her vagina.” That may be all it takes to satisfy their curiosity. 

If they ask, “How does the baby get in the mother’s belly?” you can answer while still being age-appropriate — you don’t necessarily need to describe all the details of penis-in-vagina sex. For example, you can say “Most women have tiny eggs in a special part of their belly. Most men have very tiny seeds, called sperm. Sometimes, when two grownups have sex together, one grownup’s penis goes into the other’s vagina. They can make a baby if a seed and egg meet. Do you have any other questions about that?” 

As children get older, you can fold in more detail: “Sometimes during sex between 2 grownups, sperm comes out of the penis, swims up through the vagina and into the uterus, looking for an egg. If the sperm and egg meet up, it can start to grow into a baby. The baby grows in the uterus for 9 months, and then comes out through the vagina or a small cut in the stomach.”
...
As always, simple is key: you can say things like, “There are medicines people can take if they don’t want to have a baby right now,” or “There are things people can use that stop sperm from getting to an egg, so a baby can’t happen.” As they get older, you can be more specific about how birth control works to avoid pregnancy (and sometimes STDs) from sex.

    By the time children reach age 9-13, advice to parents moves away dramatically from talk of "babies" and more towards discussions of sex, STD's, and pregnancy "options." And while Planned Parenthood now suggests telling pre-teens, "This is also a good opportunity to provide basic factual information — like that legal abortion is very safe and common," there is no mention of the fate of the "baby... in a mother's belly" and how parents should navigate through what is sure to be a difficult and thorny question from their child, "But what about the baby in the mom's belly?"