Planned Parenthood is jumping on the “Pokemon Go” craze.
The women’s health and abortion provider has created its own Pokemon to get teens to use condoms, saying that users of the hugely popular game “Pokemon Go” don’t have to “catch ’em all.”
Planned Parenthood is using the craze to promote condom use to prevent pregnancy and STDs. An Instagram post was accompanied by an image of a Pokemon in the form of a condom.
The image was created by the group Advocates for Youth, which seeks to educate teens about safe sex.
“There are some things you don’t want to catch,” the Instagram post says. “Condoms help prevent both pregnancy and STDS.”
“Pokemon Go” has taken the nation by storm as recently it has raced past Twitter and Netflix in daily active users.
The augmented reality game calls on people to catch Pokemon in the real world using their smartphone’s camera. Players also can trade with and battle other players and travel to locations called “Pokestops” to pick up supplies.
Planned Parenthood’s condom Pokemon is an image and can’t actually be caught in the game.
There has been a backlash against the popular game, though, as the Holocaust Museum and Arlington National Cemetery recently asked players not to play at those locations.
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., wrote a letter to the game’s developers, Niantic, asking about how the company plans to use data it collects from users of the game. Media reports have said that the game enables Niantic to access all of the data from a user’s Google account, which can be used to sign in to the game.
Niantic has issued an update that fixes the scope of data that remains, but questions about the company’s access to users’ smartphones remains.
Planned Parenthood has been a focal point of controversy in Congress for years. Republicans recently tried to strip the $500 million in federal funding provided to the group.
Republicans were angered last year by a series of undercover videos that showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the harvesting and donation of aborted fetal tissue. It is illegal to profit from the sale of fetal tissue, but Planned Parenthood says it was only covering transportation and other costs when providing the tissue to biotechnology companies.
