In the abstract, we don’t see anything wrong with President Obama encouraging Americans to volunteer service. We’d like to think of ourselves and our readers are civic-minded folk who don’t mind helping others.

We’re sure, however, that decision makers in the president’s administration have some decidedly different ideas about what constitutes public service, and what types of service are appropriate to promote on the government’s (a.k.a., our) tab. Case in point: a Planned Parenthood affiliate’s call for volunteers to counter the 40 Days for Life effort, helpfully advertised on serve.gov.

On Oct. 16 President Obama joined former President George H.W. Bush for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Points of Light Foundation, which the elder man had established during his first year as the chief executive. Obama used the occasion to mention his administration’s contribution to the volunteer culture: a Web site, serve.gov, which seeks to link volunteers with worthy causes.

Reasonable people can disagree about what constitutes a worthy cause, we suppose, but there’s something disgusting about the ability of Planned Parenthood’s Houston affiliate using the Web site to recruit escorts for women seeking abortion. Here it is live, and here is an image saved Oct. 20 in case the government pulls the listing.

The escorts are “needed” because pro-life volunteers are participating in 40 Days for Life, an effort focused on prayer for an end to abortion. That, however, is not how this government-sponsored Web site sees the situation:

“During 40 days, people that oppose birth control and comprehensive reproductive health care will be at our health center with one mission.

“They want to deceive our clients with misinformation and lies then prevent them from entering our health center for care.”

It’s true that some pro-life folks, but hardly all, also oppose contraception. But the description is thick with deception, because participants in 40 Days for Life oppose abortion, not “birth control and comprehensive reproductive health care,” which abortion most emphatically is not. Note also that the government couldn’t be bothered to get the names of the “offending” event correct, perhaps because it would tip off readers to their bias to include the words “for life.”

Planned Parenthood has long sought not only the law’s approval for its secular sacrament of abortion, but also the government’s endorsement of the taking of human life from the womb. The organization must be licking its collective chops over the prospect of abortion’s sanctioning through the health-insurance reform proposals now before Congress. Now, at least in this limited sense, it appears that they have it. And you are helping to pay the tab with your tax dollars. Imagine, if you participate in 40 Days for Life in the Houston area, you’re helping the government protect you from you. Just thought you’d like to know.