Associated Press ,
February 13, 2011
Foes
seek to de-fund, discredit Planned Parenthood
By DAVID CRARY
From its defiant origins
in 1916, Planned Parenthood has not shied away from controversy
fighting to legalize birth control, offering candid sex education
to adolescents, evolving into America's largest provider of abortion.
Its foes have been
relentless, and it now faces some of the most withering attacks
of its history. A bill in Congress would strip the organization
of federal family-planning grants and a series of covertly taped
videos seek to depict some Planned Parenthood staff as willing
to assist sex traffickers.
On one side, there
are prominent conservatives suggesting that Planned Parenthood
may be a criminal enterprise.
On the other, Planned
Parenthood leaders and allies are seizing the moment to rally
support, saying the ultimate target of the attacks is the ability
of American women to get the reproductive health services they
desire.
"We've been here
for the past 95 years, and we'll be here for the next 95,"
said Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards.
Through its affiliates,
Planned Parenthood operates more than 800 clinics and health centers
across the country, serving more than 3 million patients a year.
A half-dozen of those
clinics in New Jersey, New York and Virginia figure in the undercover
videos released over the past two weeks by Live Action, a California-based
anti-abortion group. The videos show a man posing as a pimp and
a woman posing as a prostitute seeking health services for underage
sex workers.
Planned Parenthood
fired one clinic manager in New Jersey who offered advice to the
visitors, but otherwise says its staff responded professionally
and reported the visits to their superiors.
Planned Parenthood's
national office notified the FBI before any videos were released
and accused Live Action of resorting to deceptive "dirty
tricks." It also announced a nationwide retraining program
to ensure that clinic staffers were familiar with rules about
reporting possible danger to minors.
While much about the
videos is in dispute, they provided fresh ammunition for anti-abortion
activists promoting a bill introduced by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.,
that would deny federal family-planning funds to any organization
that performs abortions. Pence makes clear that Planned Parenthood
is his target; it would lose more than $70 million in annual funding.
"Every American
should be shocked that an employee of the largest recipient of
federal funds under Title X has been recorded aiding and abetting
underage sex trafficking," Pence said. "The time to
deny any and all funding to Planned Parenthood is now."
By law, federal funds
may not be used directly for abortions. But Pence argues that
the grants, by covering overhead and operational costs, free up
other money to provide abortions.
Planned Parenthood's
staunchest allies in Congress primarily liberal Democrats have
vowed to fight the proposed funding cut.
"In my community,
Planned Parenthood is a very highly regarded mainstream organization,"
said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., who depicted Pence's bill as "driven
by an extreme ideological agenda."
Richards said Planned
Parenthood, with a $1 billion annual budget, could survive the
loss of the federal grants but would be forced to close some clinics
and serve fewer people.
"This would roll
back decades of progress for women's health care," she said
in a telephone interview.
Planned Parenthood
dates its beginnings to 1916 when Margaret Sanger, her sister
and a friend opened America's first birth control clinic in Brooklyn.
At the time, women couldn't vote or divorce abusive husbands,
and contraception was illegal.
The clinic was raided,
and Sanger was convicted of disseminating birth control information.
Undaunted, she founded two organizations that later merged to
form the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Sanger's personal legacy
is complicated. She opposed abortion yet the organization she
founded now provides a quarter of America's 1.2 million annual
abortions. Her views on eugenics and racial issues remain a subject
of bitter debate to this day.
Over the decades, Planned
Parenthood played pivotal roles in easing laws against contraception,
popularizing the birth control pill and setting the stage for
the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a
woman's right to have an abortion.
Its clinics have been
repeated targets of bombings, arson and protests. A receptionist
at one of its clinics in Brookline, Mass., was shot dead in 1994
by John Salvi, who described himself as a militant foe of abortion.
Abortions account for
only a small fraction of the services provided by Planned Parenthood
mainly providing contraception, screening for cancer and testing
for sexually transmitted diseases. Many of the clients are low-income
women with few other options for non-emergency health care.
At many clinics, demand
is high. On a recent workday, the waiting room at the Brooklyn
health center, which occupies an entire floor of an office building,
was filled to overflowing, and center director Nellie Santiago-Rivera
said her 35-member staff often sees 150 patients a day.
Most of the Brooklyn
clients are black and Hispanic women in their 20s, many without
a primary-care doctor of their own.
"This is their
community health center," said Evelyn Intondi, a Planned
Parenthood nurse-midwife.
Intondi said the undercover
videos had been the topic of much discussion among clinic staff.
"You're angry,
you're upset," she said. "You wonder, what's the perception
of our clients coming in?"
However, she said the
campaigns against Planned Parenthood reinforced her resolve.
"It reignites
the fire in your belly that brought you to this in the beginning,"
Intondi said. "This is what I do. There are definitely some
people who don't like it."
Planned Parenthood's
foes are active on the federal, state and local level. On Thursday,
Virginia's House of Delegates voted to prohibit not only state
government but also local governments from allocating money to
Planned Parenthood clinics.
The bill's sponsor,
Delegate Robert Marshall, objects to the clinics' role in providing
abortion but also holds Planned Parenthood responsible for broader
phenomena he links to the sexual revolution including out-of-wedlock
pregnancies, adolescent sex and sexually transmitted diseases.
"Clearly this
group has been on the cutting edge of attacking moral standards,"
Marshall said in an interview. "Now we're reaping their revolution,
and people are having second thoughts."
While Planned Parenthood
says it retains broad public support, some of its critics believe
the tide of opinion is running against it.
Melinda Delahoyde is
executive director of Care Net, a nationwide network of centers
that counsel women with unintended pregnancies on alternatives
to abortion. She said the cumulative effect of the undercover
videos, public unease about abortion and parental concerns about
sex education are taking a toll on Planned Parenthood.
"There are cracks
in the dike that are widening on many different fronts,"
Delahoyde said.
Planned Parenthood
leaders say their attitude toward sexuality is a key reason for
the animosity they face.
"We are a safe
place where people can go and ask difficult questions about sex,"
Richards said. "We do this for teens and adults, gays and
straights, and that really irritates some people who believe sex
is only for procreation."
Serene Jones, president
of Union Theological Seminary and an expert on gender issues,
said Planned Parenthood deserved credit for directly addressing
the complexities of human sexuality.
"It would be wonderful
if we lived in a world where we didn't need Planned Parenthood,
where women had all the information and resources they needed
regarding their own sexual health," she said. "But given
we don't have that, it fills a very important role."
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