Lepore's Birthright

Recently, The New Yorker ran an article by Jill Lepore, Birthright, about Planned Parenthood. The first birth control clinic in the United States opened in 1916 in Brooklyn, not too far from where the Brooklyn Planned Parenthood stands today. There are now almost eight hundred clinics in the U.S. operating under the eighty-two Planned Parenthood affiliates. The clinic in Brooklyn is one of four Planned Parenthood clinics in New York City. In the last year, the Brooklyn clinic saw seventeen thousand patients.

Planned Parenthood stays in the political cross-hairs year after year. Planned Parenthood has faced an argument in the 2012 campaign that abortion constitutes 90% of their work. In actuality, Planned Parenthood reports that less than 3% of their work is performing abortions. Planned Parenthood provides healthcare to women in a wide variety of situations with a wide variety of needs.

It is interesting to note that Margaret Sanger opened the first clinic in 1916 and, in 1920, women were given the right to vote. We have since moved on from human rights to person-hood rights.

Today, college students have access to a wide variety of contraceptive options through health services. Others have Planned Parenthood or their doctor. When Sanger began nursing the women living on the Lower East Side, the women were poor and immigrants. They begged Sanger for information about birth control. Imagine pregnancy after pregnancy, completely out of your control. In 1912, Sanger began writing and distributing information about contraception. Sanger conceived the term “birth control” in 1914. She wrote essays that were censored, she was indicted and forced to flee the country, returned, and, opened a clinic. Sanger was arrested, along with her sister, Ethel Byrne and Fania Mindell, the receptionist. The clinic was shut down. Sanger and Byrne were sentenced to 30 days.

The American Birth Control League was founded by Sanger in 1921. Lepore continues with more of Sanger’s life, her battles and achievements.

Lepore interviewed Cecile Richards, the current Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) president. Her life has been shaped by an incredible number of democratic turns, her life entwined in fighting for justice; she has been involved in a number of important events at the age of fifty-four.

Lepore goes on to talk about Planned Parenthood today and where it is headed. With the multitudes Planned Parenthood serves nationwide, therehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif is no doubt that it is very necessary and there is no doubt that there will continue to be raging debates long into 2012 and beyond.

♀ To read Jill Lepore’s article, Birthright, go to:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all

♀ To listen to Jill Lepore talk about her article, go here:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2011/11/14/111114on_audio_lepore

♀ For more about the history of Planned Parenthood, read this:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/11/planned-parenthood.html

♀ To listen to the NPR story, “How Birth Control and Abortion Became Politicized” click here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/09/142097521/how-birth-control-and-abortion-became-politicized

♀ For information from PBS about Margaret Sanger read this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_sanger.html

♀ To watch the PBS movie, The Pill, go here:
http://encore.radford.edu/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1767743__Sthe+pill__P0%2C2__Orightresult__X5?lang=eng&suite=cobalt (Streamihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifng, access provided by Radford University’s McConnell Library)

♀ For more information about Cecile Richards, go here:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/national-leadership/cecile-richards-4676.htm

♀ For more information about women in history, look here:
http://nwhp.org/resourcecenter/biographycenter.php