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Attack on Planned Parenthood: a Historical Analysis

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Attack on Planned Parenthood: a Historical Analysis ARTICLES THE ATTACK ON PLANNED PARENTHOOD: A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS Sarah Primrose* "If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday." -Pearl S. Buck' INTRODUCTION .............................................. 166 I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD O RGANIZATION ...................................... 168 A. The TraditionalRole of Women: Early Views on Family Planning ............................ 169 B. Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control L eague ......................................... 175 C. The Women's Rights Movement of the 1960s... 184 II. THE "CONTROVERSIAL" NATURE OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD ....................................... 187 A. The Contraception Debate: Women's Rights Cosiderations .................................. 188 B. Changing Attitudes?: The PartialSocial Acceptance of Planned Parenthood ............ 191 III. THE MODERN ATTACK ON PLANNED PARENTHOOD ....................................... 194 A. Legislative Attempts to Defund Planned Parenthood .................................... 195 B. The Need for Planned Parenthood ............. 204 CONCLUSION ................................................ 209 * This piece was awarded the Sarah Weddington Writing Prize for New Stu- dent Scholarship. J.D., Michigan State College of Law, 2012. The author would like to thank Professor Charles Ten Brink, Dr. Janet Primrose, Mark Primrose, and Jack McCloskey for helpful comments. The author would also like to thank her grand- mothers, Lynn Primrose and Hazel Widaman, for their encouragement. The author is also very grateful for the assistance of the UCLA Women's Law Journal. 1. PEARL S. BUCK (1892 - 1973). UCLA WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 19:165 INTRODUCTION Legislators at both the federal and state levels have recently attacked the Planned Parenthood organization. 2 Some legisla- tors have requested a massive audit of the organization, while 3 others have demanded the total defunding of the organization. The debate has sparked a firestorm of controversy, with staunch 4 advocates of the organization responding with strong words. Senators Richard Blumenthal, Barbara Boxer, and Patty Murray, in a letter signed by eight other Senators, wrote: At a time in our country when women rely on Planned Parent- hood more than ever for essential health care, this invasive and baseless investigation is all the more reprehensible, and is an abuse of your oversight responsibilities. We urge you to im- mediately cease this investigation ... [It] amounts to no more than a witch hunt, and is a waste of resources at a time when the American people have asked that Congress come5 together and focus on job creation and economic growth. However, this is not the first time that the organization has been attacked. The Planned Parenthood organization has always been sub- ject to critique since its inception as the Birth Control League, led by Margaret Sanger. 6 Furthermore, the legal system has 7 played a role in limiting the organization's ability to function. However, despite placing limitations on Planned Parenthood, the 8 court system has also served as a shield for the organization. Engrained in the Planned Parenthood debate are women's rights concerns, and reproductive rights considerations. However, 2. See, e.g., Bill Mears, Judge Temporarily Blocks Kansas' Family Planning Money Restrictions, CNN (Aug. 1, 2011), http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-01/us/kan- sas.family.planning.funds-l-planned-parenthood-pap-smears-kansas-and-mid-mis- souri?_s=PM:US. 3. House Panel Launches Probe of Planned Parenthood, Fox NEws (Sep. 28, 2011), http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/28/house-panel-launches-probe- planned-parenthood/ [hereinafter House Panel]. 4. Jill Lepore, Birthright: What's Next for Planned Parenthood, TIlE NEW YORKER, Nov. 14, 2011, at 46. 5. Julian Pecquet, Abortion rights foes shift attention to Senate, TIlE HILL (Oct. 19, 2011), http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/abortion/188475-abortion- rights-foes-shift-attention-to-senate. 6. See generally MIRIAM REED, MARGARET SANGER: HER LIFE IN HER WORDS (2003) (providing a first-hand account of Sanger's battle to bring contracep- tives to every woman). 7. See generally CAROLE R. MCCANN, BIRTH CONTROL POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATEs, 1916-1945 (1994). 8. See generally ANGELA FRANKS, MARGARET SANGER'S EUGENIC LEGACY: TIHE CoINrROL OI FEMALE FERTILITY (2005). 2012] THE ATTACK ON PLANNED PARENTHOOD 167 these concerns have been downgraded by the organization's de- tractors. Planned Parenthood detractors fail to see the need for the organization in terms of providing preventative care, and other forms of necessary healthcare. 9 Instead, critics primarily portray Planned Parenthood as an abortion provider. 10 Planned Parenthood does provide abortion services, but the organization is quick to note that such services only constitute three percent of the organization's operations and are not federally funded. 1 The other ninety-seven percent of the organization's services are fam- ily planning, pap smears, immunizations, cancer screening, sexu- ally transmitted disease testing, and other forms of preventative care.' 2 Consequently, the organization is essential for some wo- men who lack other sources of healthcare. Planned Parenthood clinics operate in rural areas and serve women who otherwise would be unable to see a doctor. 13 As such, the organization does more good than detractors give it credit. Furthermore, the attacks have hostile undertones that go beyond their budget cut- ting and abortion rhetoric. These attacks are part of a larger at- tack on reproductive freedom and carry an undercurrent of disgust. Part I of this Article explores the history of the Planned Parenthood organization. 14 Familiarity with this history is essen- tial for understanding the radical nature of the organization's creation and the criticisms that have long plagued Planned 9. House Panel, supra note3. "Planned Parenthood is a trusted nonprofit health care provider that provides professional, reliable and quality health care, in- cluding birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, annual exams and STD testing and treatment to 3 million women and men across the country," responded Cecile Richards, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Id. She continued, "This politically motivated investigation is a continuation of the efforts of earlier this year to undermine Planned Parenthood, and more disturbingly, women's access to the primary and preventive care they need." Id. 10. See Lepore, supra note 4, at 47. ("After the Republican Whip, Jon Kyl, of Arizona, said on the floor of the Senate that abortion constitutes "well over ninety percent of what Planned Parenthood does," Planned Parenthood reported that abor- tions make up less than three percent of its services, whereupon a Kyl staffer offered that what Kyl had said "was not intended to be a factual statement."). 11. Linda Flanagan & Sarah Sangree, The Republican Plan for Planned Parent- hood, HUFFINGTON POST (Sep. 20, 2011), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda- flanagan/republican-planned-parenthood-new-jersey-b_964630.html. 12. Nancy Gibbs, The Baby and the Bathwater, TIMiE (Mar. 14, 2011), http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2056716,00.html. 13. Laura Bassett, Planned Parenthood Plays Key Role for Some Low-Income, Rural Uninsured, HUFFINGTON Pos'r (Mar. 25, 2011), http://www.huffingtonpost. com2011/03/25/planned-parenthood-low-income-rural n840730.html. 14. See infra Part I. UCLA WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 19:165 Parenthood. In addition, the Article provides a history of early contraceptive laws and their reception, and details founder Mar- garet Sanger's motivations for creating such an organization. Part II of the Article goes on to elucidate the controversial na- ture of the organization. 15 This section explores the women's rights considerations inherent in the contraception and women's healthcare debate. Finally, Part III delves into the contemporary attack on the organization. 16 The section investigates the recent legislative attacks on Planned Parenthood along with the ideol- ogy behind such assaults. The Article concludes with a detailed look at the benefits of the organization, but takes into account the criticisms of the group. I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD ORGANIZATION Margaret Sanger created a birth control organization in 1916 that would later grow into the worldwide organization commonly known as Planned Parenthood. 17 The political climate in which Sanger started the organization was not friendly to the rights of women, nor particularly concerned with women's unique health needs. 18 Moreover, birth control was heavily restricted because of the Comstock laws, which made contraception illegal. 19 Put into a larger perspective, the contraceptive rights movement was cultivated amongst a hostile political backdrop. The suffrage movement, and efforts to reduce infant mortality, eradicate child labor, and upgrade conditions for working women were other im- portant causes coming to the fore for American women at this time.20 15. See infra Part 11. 16. See infra Part III. 17. Planned Parenthood, History and Successes, 2012, http://www.plannedpar- enthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/history-and-successes.htm. 18. Herma Hill Kay, From the Second Sex to the Joint Venture: An Overview of Women's Rights and Family Law in the United States During the Twentieth Cen- tury, 88 CALIF. L. REV. 2017, 2024 (2000). 19. Kay, supra note 18. Notably, "the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 de- manded the vote for women, thus
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