Planned Parenthood is first and foremost a healthcare and sex ed provider, including cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing. The organization began in 1916 when Margaret Sanger, sister Ethel Byrne and friend Fania Mindell opened a birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn to give birth control information and advice to women. Sanger's mother died at the age of 50 after her body had been through eleven children and seven miscarriages. Sanger went on to be a nurse in New York and study birth control methods in Europe.
Then, in 1951, Planned Parenthood awarded a grant to biologists Gregory Pincus and M.C. Chang and obstetrician John Rock to do research on the birth control pill. In 1952, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) was formed at the third International Conference on Planned Parenthood in Bombay, India.
In 1961, in Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruled that married couples were allowed to use birth control. This happend when Estelle Griswold, Executive of Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, opened a control clinic in 1961. One out of every four married women under 45 in the United States was on the pill. In 1972, birth control was legalized for unmarried people. In January 1973, the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case ruled that a woman's right to privacy extended to her right to get an abortion. Only four years later in 1977, the Hyde Amendment was passed, which is described later in this article.
Since its origins in 1916 in Brooklyn, Planned Parenthood has been an international organization dedicated to women's rights. Planned Parenthood's mission statement, "A Reason for Being", says, "Planned Parenthood believes in the fundamental right of each individual, throughout the world, to manage his or her fertility, regardless of the individual's income, marital status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or residence. We believe that respect and value for diversity in all aspects of our organization are essential to our well-being. We believe that reproductive self-determination must be voluntary and preserve the individual's right to privacy. We further believe that such self-determination will contribute to an enhancement of the quality of life and strong family relationships."
Planned Parenthood helps 2.5 million people each year and nearly two-thirds of those people rely on public programs to help pay for their care. 84% of Planned Parenthood clients are age 20 or older, and it is estimated that one in five women in the United States have been to a Planned Parenthood facility.
As outlined in its history, Planned Parenthood's health centers focus on preventative measures, i.e. access to birth control and knowledge of sex and STIs and help to prevent approximately 579,000 unwanted pregnancies each year. Other services include 270,000 Pap smears and 360,000 breast exams, both of which are essential to cancer detection. Planned Parenthood also provides more than 4.2 million tests and treatments for STIs and its affiliates provide educational programs to 1.5 million people each year.
According to its most recent annual report, only 3% of all of Planned Parenthood services are abortion services.
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| Photo credit to Planned Parenthood 2014-2015 Annual Report |
If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, 47 million women could lose access to birth control without a co-pay. Planned Parenthood provides affordable birth control to its patients, which in turn reduces abortions. To celebrate preventative actions against unwanted pregnancy, the "Birth Control Helped Me _____." campaign was launched. Women tweeted #BirthControlHelpedMe with a reason birth control has helped them.
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| Photo credit to Teri Bossard Twitter |
In early January, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced plans to defund Planned Parenthood, criticizing its practice of giving aborted fetus tissue to research facilities. As clearly exemplified, Planned Parenthood goes far beyond abortion procedures, but if the rest of this article wasn't enough to persuade you, the Hyde Amendment, first passed in 1977 and most recently made permanent on January 24, 2017 by the House of Representatives, makes using federal tax dollars for abortion services illegal. Since federal funding doesn't go towards abortion services, the only thing that defunding Planned Parenthood would do is cut funding toward services that would either reduce the number of abortions or vital healthcare screenings, such as cancer or STI testing. So, the question is, since Planned Parenthood defunding wouldn't affect abortion services, why exactly does Speaker Ryan want to defund it?
