Influential Public Health Services: Planned Parenthood

Donald Miller once proclaimed,” In the age of information ignorance is a choice.” This quote perfectly surmises public opinion on the influential public health service named Planned Parenthood. This particular organization has been under constant scrutiny and attack from the general public because of a gross misconception about the services provided. Planned Parenthood has made it possible for millions of citizens to receive public health care at affordable prices. Most assume this organization only deals with abortions and has no other notable contributions for society; however, this view is incorrect because in addition to providing safe and legal abortions Planned Parenthood supplies contraceptives, STD, and STI research, and breast cancer screenings.

Like all good stories, there must be some type of tragedy and Margaret Sanger is no stranger to tragedy. Sanger was inspired to create an organization that focused on providing women with knowledge about birth control because of her own history. During the time period, Sanger lived in it was common for women to die of childbirth and in fact, her own mother died of childbirth complications after giving birth to eleven children. Because of her tragic history, Sanger traveled to Europe to study birth control (Parenthood). This eventually led Sanger, her sister Ethel Byrne, and activist Fania Mindell to open the first Planned Parenthood on October 16, 1916 (Parenthood). The creation of the first Planned Parenthood was monumental because of what it stood for. This organization was created to empower women to own their bodies and encourage them to gather helpful knowledge about their own bodies to make beneficial decisions that would allow them to pursue their dreams(Parenthood). By creating this organization Sanger was able to make notable contributions towards the creation of contraceptives and towards lowering the rate at which women died at childbirth.

Although the idea of Planned Parenthood was amazing not everyone was accepting of the idea. In fact, the official Planned Parenthood site states,” Nine days later, police raided the clinic and shut it down”. This accurately depicts how the society at that period of time was. The idea of women owning their bodies and what they wanted to do with it was a relatively new concept and as a result, it was not widely accepted. At the time, Sanger and her co-founders were arrested they were charged with crimes related to the distribution of birth control information (Parenthood). However, this did not stop Sanger and she continued her goal of educating by teaching female inmates about birth control.

Even though Sanger created the first birth control clinic she did not create the first birth control pill. The creation of the birth control pill can be attributed to Gregor Pincus, John Rock, M.C. Chang, and head researcher Katherine Dexter McCormick. These researchers received a grant from the Planned Parenthood clinic to research an oral contraceptive that would help prevent pregnancies. According to Planned Parenthood,” In 1956, the first large-scale human trial of the birth control pill was carried out in Puerto Rico”. Although the research that went into creating this pill was extensive it still had detrimental side effects. However, through time and the constant vigilance of innovative scientists the birth control pill is now FDA approved and safe for women to consume.

Despite the numerous good things that the birth control pill provided it was still not accepted into mainstream society. Many states refused to allow couples who were not married to purchase the contraceptive pill. Other states refused to allow anyone to purchase the pill at all. Thankfully the Supreme Court ruled this as unconstitutional and this lead to women being able to freely purchase the contraceptive pill.

However, just because the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the contraceptive pill does not mean everyone in America was ready to accept these new social advancements. Numerous protests advocated for birth control to remain illegal. Furthermore, the main argument for most of these protests was religion-based. This type of protest is contradictory to the basis of American society which promotes free will. These people were more than willing to justify their hate-filled speech through religion. They believed women were created to give birth to as many children as their husbands wanted and that by providing them with ways to control when they conceive they were being disobedient to God. However, they did not take into consideration the countless amounts of women that died during childbirth or because of childbirth-related issues.

Furthermore, the negative reputation that the Planned Parenthood organization has received is mostly because they provide safe and legal abortions. The Planned Parenthood center in New York was the first clinic to offer abortion services in the 1970s (Parenthood). Shortly after this monumental step was made another one soon followed suit. After the Roe versus Wade case began it started a new type of conversation on the topic of abortion. This case was brought forth by a young pregnant woman who according to an article published by the Landmark of Supreme Court Cases Jane Roe believed that a Texas law that prevented the termination of fetuses unless it was a danger to the mother’s life was a violation of her First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendment (Landmark Supreme Court). Because Roe felt so strongly on the issue she took it to the Supreme Court. The ruling in favor of Roe was a commemorative moment because it allowed for abortions to be considered legal and safe as long as it was performed by the time the fetus reached three months. Subsequently, following this court ruling, the reputation of Planned Parenthood continued to decline. More people began to only associate Planned Parenthood with abortion and neglected to recognize all of the other benefits that Planned Parenthood provided to communities.

According to the United States Census Bureau America has a population of over three hundred million people. Of this large quantity of people, women make up a little over half of the population. Furthermore, of the approximately one hundred sixty-nine million women that inhabit the United States only 1.3 million of those women received abortions every year and their reasons for obtaining abortions vary. (Finer, et al. 2016). According to a published scientific article, 73% of women expressed they could not afford a child, 74% proclaimed it interfered with their education or being able to care for others under their care, and of the women who receive abortions only one-third of them stated that they had an abortion because they were not ready. These statistics help debunk common myths that surround abortion while bringing light to issues within our current society. Furthermore, they help better the public's perception of the Planned Parenthood organization. If the majority of women have abortions based on low socioeconomic status and financial instability the myth that women have abortions purely because they do not want kids is now rescinded. It cancels the main argument of people who consider themselves “pro-life” because it shows that it is expensive in our current society to raise a child. If one does not have the money to afford children then it would be in their best interest to terminate the pregnancy to prevent the child from being born into a low economic status that would potentially prevent the opportunities they are presented with. To support this claim an article published by Harvard University Professor Robert J. Barro explores the relationship between legalized abortion and lower crime rates. Professor Barro states,” The main effect, however, is the reduced frequency of crime among those in the 15-to-24 age group who did manage to be born and grow up.” This suggests that because the children that would have been born into high-risk lifestyles while living in perpetual poverty were not born they were not able to participate in illegal activities. This lowered crime rates significantly within this age group.