Planned Parenthood Federation of America likes to portray itself as a “health care” organization. Just about every press release it issues claims that it is “the nation’s largest and most trusted voluntary reproductive health care organization.” Because of Planned Parenthood’s great public relations apparatus, most Americans think of it as a health care provider. The various government agencies at the local, state and federal levels also see PP as a health care provider and give it grants and contracts under Title X of the Health and Human Services Act, Title XIX of the Social Security Act, and many other such programs.
Recently, Planned Parenthood publicly released its new 25-year plan for the organization. Called Vision 2025, this plan documents what the organization sees as its 10 most important goals for the next quarter-century. It lays out a plan for the future that was put together, according to Planned Parenthood, very carefully. In fact, PP noted the impact it had on the 20th Century, and then wrote that “Planned Parenthood embarked on a two-year visioning journey to contemplate, deliberate, and define how our organization might have an equally significant impact on the 21st Century.” [All quotes in italics are taken directly from PP’s Vision 2025 document.]
It is appropriate, then for us to take a look at the Vision 2025 document specifically in light of Planned Parenthood’s continuing claim to be a health care organization. In doing so, two facts will become increasingly clear.
First, despite its public image, this plan exposes Planned Parenthood as an organization bent on achieving a goal of massive social engineering and NOT the health care organization it likes to portray itself as being.
Secondly, it is abundantly clear that, despite the two years of work and the hundreds of visioning meetings and reviews it went through, the final plan is nothing more than a restatement of the original philosophies of the organization’s founder, Margaret Sanger.
Planned Parenthood dates its beginnings to October 16, 1916 when Margaret Sanger and two friends opened a clinic in Brooklyn, New York. The organization we know today as Planned Parenthood has had different names through the years. It was originally the American Birth Control League, then the Birth Control Federation of America in 1939, then the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. From 1961 to 1973 it went by the name Planned Parenthood – World Population, and then returned to Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1974. In this article, we will just use the term “Planned Parenthood” to refer to the organization regardless of year.
Sanger brought to the organization a set of basic philosophies:
First among Sanger’s philosophies was one of “uninhibited sex.” Sanger believed you should be able to have sex with anyone you wanted, whenever you wanted, regardless of whether or not you are married to that person and regardless of the fact that you may be married to someone else. There have been several biographies written about Margaret Sanger, most by people who think she was wonderful, and all documented her numerous extra-marital affairs. The biographers document how, during the 1910s, Sanger used to participate in weekly discussion sessions at the home of Mabel Dodge in Greenwich Village, New York. Dodge told Sanger’s biographers that Sanger was “The first person I ever knew who was openly an ardent propagandist for the joys of the flesh.”i Whenever it was Margaret’s turn to lead the discussion, the discussion was always about sex. To illustrate the depth of Sanger’s thinking on sex, one of her biographers, Madeline Gray, revealed a letter that Sanger had written to her 16-year-old granddaughter in 1960. Sanger told the teen, “Kissing and petting are okay if you are sincere. I have never given a kiss in my life that wasn’t sincere. As for intercourse, I’d say that three times a day is about right.”ii
Knowing that, today, Planned Parenthood frequently tries to verbally distance itself from Sanger’s philosophies and publicly proclaims the “health care” image, we looked with anticipation at what Planned Parenthood would list as its number one goal for the next 25 years. Certainly there are a large number of reproductive health problems facing American women and Planned Parenthood would see the tackling of these problems as its number one goal. Well, here is what PP actually listed as its top goal:
“Planned Parenthood will ensure that sexuality is understood as an essential, lifelong aspect of being human and that it is celebrated with respect, openness, and mutuality.”
Wow. Planned Parenthood doesn’t see a cure for cervical cancer, or breast cancer, or stopping the spread of pelvic inflammatory disease or chlamydia as its number one goal. Rather, it will focus its top priority on making sure that sex is celebrated!
We thought we must be misinterpreting this goal. Planned Parenthood provided eight paragraphs of further explanation of what it meant and we eagerly read it for clarification. What we found was PP talking about: “Our statement of beliefs attests . . . to our recognition of the joy and fulfillment that the healthy expression of sexuality can bring to the human experience;” and “In many industrialized countries, parents and social institutions foster healthier, more accepting, and positive feelings about sexuality among young people;” and “Discomfort with sexuality . . . inhibits many parents from talking with their teens and prevents them from achieving positive, joyful sexual relationships themselves;” and “many politicians seem to want to punish people for non-procreative sex;” and, finally, “We must help people understand that the mind, body, and spirit are enriched by the healthy and responsible enjoyment of sex.”
So, there you have it, the primary goal of this self-proclaimed health organization is to teach people about the “joys of the flesh.” Certainly, Margaret Sanger would have been proud to know that, 36 years after her death, the organization she founded was still pushing her primary philosophy as its major 25-year goal.
Of course, uninhibited sex was not the only philosophy that Margaret Sanger brought to the organization. Sanger had a frequently stated dislike for large families. She wrote in her book, Woman and the New Race, “The most serious evil of our times is that of encouraging the bringing into the world of large families. . . . The immorality of large families lies not only in their injury to the members of those families but in their injury to society.”iii Sanger fought all her life for small families. She considered a large family to be one that had more than two children. But, of course, Sanger had a problem. She wanted to have lots of sex and no children.
This problem led to Sanger’s second major philosophy – the universal use of birth control. As Madeline Gray points out in her book: “Undoubtedly one reason for [Sanger’s] interest in birth control was its connection with sex. She enjoyed sex so much that she wanted all women to enjoy it too – without having to bear children they didn’t want.”iv To Sanger, birth control was a means by which people could have sex while reducing the size of families.
With that as background, and having seen that the first 25-year goal of Planned Parenthood (this supposed health organization) has nothing to do with curing disease, we looked to what it enumerated as its second goal. Certainly the second one will address the diseases the first omitted.
Planned Parenthood stated its second goal in its Vision 2025 plan as:
“Planned Parenthood will ensure access to reproductive and sexual health care for all.”
Okay, there is some hope here. It actually mentioned health care as part of the goal. So we once again looked to the details to see exactly what it was planning.
This time, the details were only three paragraphs long. Most of the three paragraphs contained nothing but generalized statements. PP stating that it will do what is necessary to provide reproductive health care without giving any specifics. At one point it states: “By 2025 Planned Parenthood will likely transform all of its services at least twice – replacing all we do now and then replacing it all again by the time we reach that milestone. Because of the rapid pace of change, we realize that we have no way to predict exactly what services our clients will need.” It did specifically say that: “We will specifically respond to emerging health threats, such as environmentally instigated infertility, and to opportunities, such as woman-controlled microbicide therapies.” But, again, there is no indication of exactly what PP intends to do in these areas.
Then, we read it. The one sentence in the entire discussion of the second goal of Planned Parenthood for the next 25 years that actually was specific. Planned Parenthood states, in paragraph 3, “We will push the edge for universal access to birth control.”
So, there you have it. In an expressed world of uncertainty, Planned Parenthood is sure of one thing it will try to do – get everyone to use birth control. Once again, this “visionary” 25-year plan of Planned Parenthood seeks to do nothing more than follow Sanger’s original plan. Its first goal is uninhibited sex and its second goal is birth control. But, where’s the health care?
Today, when we use the term birth control, we tend to use it interchangeably with the term contraception. But, they are in fact two different things. Contraception is the prevention of conception. Birth control is the control of births by whatever means.
Margaret Sanger was an advocate of birth control in its largest sense. In 1915, the year before she started Planned Parenthood, Sanger published a pamphlet called “Family Limitation” in which she made a plea for small family size. In the pamphlet she listed all the methods of birth control known at the time. Among the methods listed by Sanger in 1915 was “abortion.”v Sanger knew then that, if she was to achieve her goal of universal small family size, she needed abortion as a backup to contraceptive failure.
But Sanger had a real problem. In 1916, when she started Planned Parenthood, abortion was illegal. In addition, the manufacture and sale of contraceptive devices was illegal, as was sending any type of sex information through the United States mail. If this was not enough of an obstacle, both abortion and contraception were condemned by every major church denomination. Sanger and her strategists determined they could not win the abortion battle and the contraception battle at the same time. First, they would win the battle on contraception and then win the battle on abortion. Thus, Sanger wrote much about her opposition to abortion as a way of gaining support for the legalization of contraception. It is clear, however, from Sanger’s 1915 pamphlet as well as letters she was writing “behind the scenes” that she always advocated privately for abortion.
In 1955, Planned Parenthood ran a National Conference on Abortion to determine a strategy to getting abortion legalized in the United States. And, after the United States Supreme Court finally legalized contraception, in the 1965 Griswold decision, Planned Parenthood swung into action. It got Colorado to liberalize its abortion laws in 1967, then 14 other states before the Supreme Court de-criminalized abortion throughout the country in 1973. It was clearly Sanger and Planned Parenthood that brought abortion to the United States.
It was with this knowledge, and the disappointment of the first two Vision 2025 goals from Planned Parenthood, that we looked to the third goal to see what reproductive health care Planned Parenthood would put as its third goal. This is what it stated as goal number three in its 25-year plan:
“Planned Parenthood will secure passage of laws and policies, including state and federal constitutional amendments, that guarantee reproductive freedom for all.”
Huh? This sounds like a goal of a political lobbying group – not a so-called health organization. Of course, “reproductive freedom” is Planned Parenthood’s code word for abortion. Why did Planned Parenthood feel that this effort was worthy of being its number three goal for the next 25 years? Well, to quote from the Planned Parenthood document, “The sharp turnabout from the views of President Clinton on the part of the Bush administration is a painful reminder of the fragility of our fundamental reproductive rights. . . (W)e are again on the verge of returning to the days of illegal abortion . . .”
Okay, so here are the top three goals of Planned Parenthood for the next 25 years – uninhibited sex, birth control and abortion. Does anyone yet see anything that justifies this advocacy organization being called a health care provider?
Margaret Sanger always had a vision of her work being spread around the world. From the beginning, she tried to move her philosophy to the international scene. In 1922, she conducted her first world tour. Her efforts resulted in the establishment of birth control associations in many countries and the calling of a number of international conferences on the issue of birth control. Some of the organizations and conferences with which Sanger was personally involved are: the Sixth International Malthusian Conference in New York (1925); the formation of the International Federation of Birth Control Leagues (1925); the First World Population Conference in Geneva (1927); and the Birth Control International Information Centre (BCIIC) in London (1930).
The push for an international birth control movement intensified after World War II. In 1948 Margaret Sanger and several other persons formed an interim group that was called the International Committee on Planned Parenthood. Following the work of the ICPP, the International Planned Parenthood Federation was formed at a conference held in Bombay, India in 1952. The founding family planning associations were the Netherlands, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and West Germany. The joint presidents were Lady Rama Rau (India) and Mrs. Margaret Sanger (USA). IPPF’s headquarters, today, are in London, England.
It is not surprising, then, that the Vision 2025 document, which had followed Sanger’s philosophies in each of its first three goals, would list as part of its goal number four: “Planned Parenthood will ensure worldwide implementation of a human rights and well-being agenda . . .”
But there is more. Margaret Sanger had three basic philosophies when she began Planned Parenthood. We’ve talked so far about the first two: uninhibited sex and birth control (including abortion). Her third philosophy was that of eugenics. Eugenics is defined as “the application of the laws of heredity to physical and mental improvement, especially of the human race.” To Sanger this meant the systematic elimination (through birth control, including abortion) of all those people she and her cohorts considered to be of “dysgenic stock” in order to create a race of superior intellectuals. Indeed, the New York Times ran the following headline after one of Sanger’s talks to her followers: “Mrs. Sanger Says Superman Is the Aim of Birth Control.”vi
Margaret Sanger wrote and published much on the issue of eugenics. One of Sanger’s chief means of getting out her message was through her newsletter, which was known as the Birth Control Review. In 1922, Sanger published an article defending the U.S. immigration policy by imploring the extension of its principles inside the United States. Sanger wrote: “The [immigration] legislation excluding [feeble-minded or diseased] people is reasonable and eugenic. But why do we stop there? Why do we prevent the addition to our burdens of pauperism, sickness and mental defect from abroad, and at the same time, by laws on our Federal and State statute books, actually compel similar additions through the birth of unfit American citizens on our own soil?”
She went on to say in that same article: “Every marriage certificate could be accompanied with instructions concerning the high responsibility of parenthood, and the conditions which should pre-exist before the great enterprise of bringing a new human being into existence should be undertaken, and measures would be taken to exclude from parentage the manifestly and permanently unfit.” (emphasis added)
This philosophy led Sanger to invite on her board of directors Lothrop Stoddard, who was known for his book, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy. It would also later lead the Birth Control Review to publish other articles such as: “The World’s Racial Problem” by Havelock Ellis; “Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need” by Dr. Ernst Rudin; and “Selective Sterilization” by E. A. Whitney, M.D. to name a few. In 1932, Sanger published “A Plan For Peace” in which she said that world peace could not be obtained until Congress sets up a special department to study world population.
The objectives were to:
Raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population
Increase population slowly
Keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race
Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring
Pension all persons with transmissible disease who voluntarily consent to sterilization
Give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization
Apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives.
It is clear, then, that this founder of Planned Parenthood, who advocated frequent sex and despised large families, saw birth control as an important part of the eugenics movement. This connection was seen clearly in her 1922 book The Pivot of Civilization. In that book she identified William Ralph Inge as the Very Reverend Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, England and as a supporter of her efforts and she included the following passage in the book: “Dean Inge believes Birth Control is an essential part of Eugenics….”
Planned Parenthood today is way too smart to openly talk about a “race of thoroughbreds” or creating “supermen.” It has, instead developed an entire lexicon of how to spread Sanger’s eugenic ideas without resorting to her vocabulary. Words like “population stability,” “family planning,” “sustainable economic growth,” “reproductive health services,” “reproductive rights” and a host of other words are used so it can talk of its agenda without triggering negative reactions.
Planned Parenthood has been pushing this new lexicon since the 1950s. It has been used to draw all kinds of people into its orbit of influence. Planned Parenthood’s thrust had its culmination at the United Nations’ International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which was held in Cairo, Egypt in 1994. That conference was widely considered a watershed event because it moved away from traditional ideas of family planning and embraced the idea that giving women the “right” to birth control (including abortion) would provide a check against supposed explosive population growth.
The program of action called for stabilizing the world’s population at no more than 9.8 billion by 2050 and it urged countries to make health care widely accessible, reduce maternal mortality, provide universal access to primary education and stem the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS. The program also suggested that where abortion is legal, it should be made safe.
The program’s acknowledgment that legal abortion could be part of health care was a major coup for Planned Parenthood. It was the first time abortion was written positively into international documents.
It is not surprising, then, that the full fourth goal of Planned Parenthood’s Vision 2025 is:
“Planned Parenthood will ensure worldwide implementation of a human rights and well-being agenda as currently expressed in the Cairo Agreement, with the U.S. fulfilling its financial commitment and implementing those principles in the U.S.”
Let’s sum-up where we are after reading the first four of the ten goals Planned Parenthood has established for itself for the next 25 years. Planned Parenthood, the group that portrays itself as a health organization, wants to push uninhibited sex, birth control (including abortion) and eugenics (disguised as population control) both here and around the world and it wants the United States taxpayer to pay for it.
Sounds like good goals for a health care organization . . . NOT!
Both Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood have always understood that they must get their ideas to the public in a positive manner in order to have them accepted as worthy. PP frequently complains about media coverage and the censorship of its ideas. In Goal number five of the 25-year plan, Planned Parenthood says,
“Planned Parenthood will control a successful, diversified media company that creates and distributes the most popular, critically acclaimed health and sexuality programming.”
It further clarifies its intentions in the details when it proclaims, “A company will be formed by Planned Parenthood to create and disseminate information products around the world.”
What kinds of programming would Planned Parenthood create and distribute?
In the details of this goal Planned Parenthood states that the traditional media “are perhaps the most effective sex educators, and their messages are all wrong.” It further laments that, “the media acts as censors.” It obviously sees itself as providing un-censored sex education programming.
This emphasis on sex education is also mentioned elsewhere in Vision 2025. In the detailed discussion of goal number one, Planned Parenthood made several references to mandatory sex education programs. In support of its call for these programs, Planned Parenthood employed its usual technique of citing reduced teen pregnancy statistics in countries that have mandatory sex education without also giving the rates of pelvic inflammatory disease, chlamydia, and other diseases that lead to sterilization and infertility problems. We maintain that a thorough analysis of all the conditions in the countries cited would lead to the conclusion that the lower teen pregnancy rates are much less a factor of free-choice decisions than the result of severe medical problems caused by the uninhibited sex, birth control and abortions advocated by these programs.
So Planned Parenthood wants to form a media company to create and distribute sexuality education programming. As we contemplate whether or not this would be a good thing, we should first take a look at the objective of Planned Parenthood sex education. At a talk in 1953, Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Leena Levine told of the two alternatives that face any attempt to teach sex education. She said one alternative is to explain to young people that sexual happiness and sexual harmony were key to marriage in the home and, therefore, all efforts should be made by organizations and society to encourage young people to save themselves sexually for marriage.
Dr. Levine said the second choice is to be ready as educators and parents to help young people obtain sex satisfaction before marriage. “By sanctioning sex before marriage,” she said, “we will prevent fear and guilt. We must relieve those who have them of their fears and guilt feelings.” She then stated that Planned Parenthood adopted this second alternative and that, in addition to helping young people obtain sex satisfaction, they will also provide contraceptives to the young.vii
To truly understand the nature of Planned Parenthood sexuality programming, we have included here short descriptions of two films distributed in Mexico by PP’s Mexican affiliate.
The Blue Dove
The first film is titled The Blue Dove. It is an animated film, so please be aware that what we describe is being done by animated characters, not real people. Since the target audience for this film is adolescent children, this use of animation actually increases the offensiveness of the film.
The film opens with a group of young children playing in the woods. There are two adolescents among the group. The young boy drifts away from the rest of the children. The children finish playing in the woods and all go for a swim in the nearby pond. The boys and girls take off all their clothes and play together in the water. A young girl, aware of her emerging womanhood, is reluctant to remove her clothes and wanders away.
The young girl sees the boy enter an abandoned house and watches him though a crack in the wall. The boy engages in fantasy play in the basement of the house – which has many nude pictures and medieval costumes. The boy removes his clothes and cavorts around the cellar with a helmet and sword. The boy is apparently aroused by the naked pictures and begins fondling a female mannequin and then falls asleep on a bed.
The girl has been watching all this and, moving for a better view, slips and falls in a small pond. Soaked, she removes her clothing and then begins fondling her breasts. Her face becomes flushed as she explores her body.
The boy has a dream in which he saves this naked girl from a dragon. He and the girl then engage in sex play culminated by a graphically animated act of sexual intercourse.
The boy awakes from his dream and leaves the house (still naked) and finds the naked girl playing in the pond. He joins her and the two engage in sexual play as the film ends.
If one were to try and produce a film which would encourage sexual play and increase the sale of Planned Parenthood birth control products, The Blue Dove would be that film.
As offensive as this movie is, in many ways, the second film is even worse…
The Last Train
The second film is titled The Last Train. It is a story (using real actors) of a young girl who becomes pregnant and leaves home. She is waiting in the railroad station for the father of her child to arrive. The boy never shows up, and she takes the last train out of town. The story is told in flashbacks as the girl remembers events that brought her to her current situation.
The film is filled with negative messages about parents. This is not surprising, of course, knowing how Planned Parenthood fears parents and their influence over their children. When the girl’s father finds out about her pregnancy, he reacts violently, calling her a whore, hitting her and, eventually, throwing her out of the house. The girl’s mother is portrayed as a weak person who cannot influence the father and does not give any real support to the girl.
The film shows the girl’s boyfriend preparing to leave home and join the girl at the station. His mother then talks him out of going. She does not offer help, but tells him that the girl is essentially a whore and that it was her fault for getting pregnant. She reminds him that if she did it with him, she would do it with others.
Thus, parents are shown not as being loving and helpful, but as being angry, violent and looking to blame. The parents in this film bear no resemblance to the majority of parents in the world and in Mexico.
Along with the negative message about parents, there is much in the film which suggests positiveness about having sex – even as a teenager. The girl and boy are shown in passionate embraces with much kissing (with their clothes on). One scene of them in the woods rolling on the ground is punctuated by a balloon rising into the air as the two become more and more involved.
In other scenes, the girl’s brother is shown in the woods with his friends looking at magazines with sexually explicit pictures. At one point, one of the boys goes off by himself. Although the camera only shows him from the waist up, the physical movement clearly indicates that he is masturbating. He finishes and joins his friends.
In the most offensive scene of the film, the girl is shown in bed, wearing pajamas, and a sheet is covering her body below the waist. The audience is forced to endure several minutes of watching this young girl masturbate. Her hands are slipped under her blouse and sheet and it is obvious from her motions and moans that she experiences an orgasm. As she relaxes after her sexual experience, the film shows her glancing at the wall in her room and her eyes fall on a picture of the head of Jesus Christ. The girl then turns away and pulls the sheet over her!
This picture is not only obscene and degrading of both children and parents, it is blatantly mocking of the Christian faith.
The Last Train was highlighted by Planned Parenthood as one of the “entertaining” films being shown by its Mexican affiliate to youths as young as 11! And they were proud of it!
With Planned Parenthood in complete control of the production of the media message and the distribution of the message (without censors), we can expect a glut of very graphic sexual images that PP tries to convince everyone is just “health education.” If anyone doubts what the products of PP will be like, we invite them to look at a book, It’s Perfectly Normal, that was written by a member of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Board of Advocates, was endorsed by Planned Parenthood, and was hyped by PP all over the country. The book is nothing short of pornographic, but PP believes it is just what our children (as young as 10) need.
In addition to the offensive presentation of sexual material, one two-page section of this book discusses abortion. On those pages, young people are told of nine reasons why they should have an abortion and zero reasons not to have an abortion.
It is clear from the review of existing Planned Parenthood material, including its website for teens (www.teenwire.com) that PP’s objective goal number five will do nothing to spread real health information and will only serve as a vehicle for it to keep promoting the basic philosophies of its founder.
Margaret Sanger was a woman raised without the benefit of religious education. Although her mother, Anne, was a Catholic and her father, Michael Higgins, was born into the Catholic faith, Higgins reportedly considered himself a “free thinker” and forbade the practice of religion in the house. Apparently Margaret’s mother secretly had her baptized and she did receive her First Communion, but there was nothing beyond that.
It appears that, as a consequence, Sanger never acknowledged that there is any moral authority that can be used to determine if particular actions are right or wrong. She believed that ideas were the only things that were important and that you should be able to make your own decisions.
Sanger lived out her beliefs by having associations with the “free thinkers” of her day. We’ve already talked about the Greenwich Village discussion sessions of the 1910s. Sanger ran with people like Havelock Ellis, who was well known for his out of the ordinary ideas concerning free sexual expression.
Sanger ingrained this “anything goes” philosophy into the Planned Parenthood culture. So successful was she in this effort that, in 1986 – 70 years after the founding of the organization and 20 years after Sanger’s death – the then president of Planned Parenthood, Faye Wattleton, proudly told the Los Angeles Times, “Our concern is not to convey ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’.”
That Planned Parenthood will continue to hold to this Sanger legacy is seen clearly in the Vision 2025 document. Throughout the document there is not a single mention of God or of a higher moral authority.
Planned Parenthood begins its document by stating, “If the pursuit of personal liberty has been the hallmark of the century just ended, few organizations have done more to contribute to that condition than Planned Parenthood.” It is proud of its role in trying to create a society in which “personal liberty” is the hallmark of one’s life – not service to God or to others.
Then, Planned Parenthood spells out its basic view of the world it would like to create: “The world we envision is one in which all people possess and pursue their own dreams. We see a world in which people will be free to make life’s most profound choices about childbearing and relationships in harmony with those dreams. We have hope that humanity will someday live in peace and harmony with our fragile global environment so that future generations will thrive. The Planned Parenthood promise is to work toward creating the will, the technology, and the enduring political and legal structures to make this vision a reality.”
There are two things that leap out from this paragraph summarizing Planned Parenthood’s vision. First, of course, there is no mention of God – unless, of course, you consider the Earth or the “global environment” as a god. It is clearly not Planned Parenthood’s intention to bring humanity into harmony with its heavenly Creator.
The second thing that comes immediately to mind is in reference to the last sentence, which enumerates the Planned Parenthood promise. Is there anything there that would give you even a hint that this has anything to do with “health care?” Of course not. That’s because Planned Parenthood is anything but a “health care” organization.
It should be noted, at this point, that Planned Parenthood had, in its history, an opportunity to become a true health care organization – and it specifically rejected that idea. In 1992, Faye Wattleton ended her 14-year run as president of Planned Parenthood. As PP searched for a new president, it offered the job to a health care professional – Pamela Maraldo. Maraldo, at the time, was head of the National League for Nursing and was credited with saving the organization and became a recognized leader in health care. Tellingly, Maraldo initially turned down Planned Parenthood.
After the election of Bill Clinton, Planned Parenthood went back to Maraldo and offered her the job again. Planned Parenthood reportedly assured her that it wanted her to bring Planned Parenthood into the mainstream of health care. Based on that, Maraldo accepted the job and, beginning in 1993, immediately set about the task of “reinventing” Planned Parenthood. She worked with some real forward thinkers in the organization and, in fact, put together a plan that truly would have transformed Sanger’s organization.
Maraldo’s short, two-and-a-half year, presidency was a stormy one. Affiliates around the country were up in arms about her efforts to reinvent Planned Parenthood. Finally, in mid-1995, Maraldo asked the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood for a vote stating they still wanted her to continue transforming the organization into a true health care provider. The Board voted against her and she resigned – leaving the organization in September 1995.
The Planned Parenthood board eventually replaced Maraldo with Gloria Feldt – a life-long Planned Parenthood ideologue. Since then, as the Vision 2025 document illustrates, PP has returned to its roots – embracing all kinds of sexual perversity in its role of promoting uninhibited sex, birth control (including abortion) and eugenics (disguised as population stabilization programs).
Thus, Planned Parenthood’s sixth goal for the next 25 years is a natural outgrowth of the way Sanger conditioned the organization. PP phrases this goal as:
“Planned Parenthood will be the model for embracing diversity and expanding the decision-making power base of its stakeholders.” It then further explains the goal as: “The most successful communities are built by diverse people with diverse points of view who unite around common values and goals that they help create. Planned Parenthood strives to be such a community so as to model diversity and the amplification of power to build strong and effective communities.”
Note, again, that Planned Parenthood talks of values created by man. Any kind of perverse, hedonistic goal is okay with Planned Parenthood and it will demonstrate that by “embracing” these people.
Of course, Planned Parenthood doesn’t really mean exactly what it says. You can bet that Planned Parenthood will not “embrace” Christian parents who insist on teaching their children right from wrong.
This lack of tolerance by Planned Parenthood is seen daily as PP rejects parents and elected officials who want to teach children chastity. We know that PP specifically rejected teaching chastity as long ago as 1953 (see the discussion on goal #5) and will even take school districts to court, as it did in Jacksonville, Florida, if parents dare teach their children that chastity is expected.
A “diverse” community is desired by Planned Parenthood as long as all of the “diverse” people are willing to follow Sanger’s legacy and have no recognition of an absolute moral authority.
Margaret Sanger spent a great deal of her life, and her fortune, seeking to create new methods of birth control. She believed that the methods available in her day were inadequate for her to achieve her goal of universal small family size. She arranged for the American manufacture of Dutch-based spring-form diaphragms, and, in subsequent years, she fostered a variety of research efforts to develop spermicidal jellies, foam powders, and hormonal contraceptives.viii
History shows that it was Margaret Sanger, and one of her friends, who paid for the development of what we know today as the Birth Control Pill. They provided the funds and then organized the political climate to ensure ultimate approval of the product by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
Her crowning victory in this regard came in 1960, six years before her death, when the FDA formally approved the Pill for use in the United States. History remembers the 1960s as the time of the “sexual revolution.” A time when young people in America threw off the conservative ways of their parents and embraced a culture glorified by sex and drugs. A number of historians today look back at the 1960s and attribute the new free sexual expression to the introduction of the Pill – and the effect it had of allowing young women to feel that it was now possible to engage in all kinds of sexual activity without the fear of becoming pregnant.
Of course, this new sexual freedom came with a price. Not only did public morals suffer as a result, but personal health also took a big hit. The Pill, itself, had many side-effects on the young women who took it. Increased risks of heart attack, stroke, blood clots and many other maladies are documented effects on the women taking the Pill.
In her book, Take Charge of Your Body, Carolyn DeMarco, M.D., summarizes many of the problems caused by the birth control pill. Among those listed by Dr. DeMarco are:
The pill makes the teenage user more susceptible to chlamydial infections, and provides no protection against chlamydia or other sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS
The risk for blood clots for a woman not using the pill is about one in 30,000. Users of high dose birth control pills (any pill containing more than fifty micrograms of estrogen) face a risk of about one in a 1,000. Users of low dose birth control pills have a risk of clotting of about 21 in 30,000.
Studies have shown that women taking the high dose pill are twice as likely as non-users to have a rupture of a blood vessel in the brain.
Women on the pill have a greater risk than non-users of having gallbladder disease requiring surgery.
In February 1989, an updated report of a Boston study showed that pill users under age 45 had twice the incidence of breast cancer as non-users. The risk of breast cancer was doubled for women who had used the pill for less than ten years, and quadrupled for women who had used the pill for ten years and over.
Pill users definitely have an increased risk of getting persistent and difficult to treat yeast infections.
The pill is a definitive causative agent in the developing of chronic candida syndrome, a widespread infection of candida that involves every organ system in the body.
according to Jill Weiss, of the Canadian PID Society, ” There is evidence to suggest that chlamydial infections of the cervix are enhanced by the pill. Also, women who use birth control pills have higher rates of chlamydial infection than women using barrier methods of birth control or no birth control. Some experts believe that pill use may increase the risk of chlamydia caused PID and the risks of developing silent pelvic infection which is more difficult to treat.”
Gum disease has been shown to increase with the use of the pill.
Some studies have shown an increased incidence of chicken pox and other viral infections.
The fact is, that when Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood unleashed the Birth Control Pill on the world, it ushered in an era of tremendous negative social and health changes for society in general and women in particular.
It is with great anxiousness, then, that we read that the seventh goal of Planned Parenthood over the next 25 years is:
“Planned Parenthood will be a significant catalyst for the development and universal dissemination of new reproductive technologies.”
One can only imagine the devastating effects on women’s health that will be brought about by the new technologies Planned Parenthood will be bringing to us. Planned Parenthood will, of course, claim that these new technologies will be an example of its “health care.” But one has to consider that none of these products are intended to treat a woman whose body is malfunctioning. All of them have the intention of taking a woman whose body is operating in a perfectly normal manner and make it operate abnormal. A strange concept of health care, indeed.
Margaret Sanger once received the “Humanist of the Year Award” from the American Humanist Association. This organization has issued a number of manifestos outlining its philosophies that basically say: There may or may not be a God, but it does not matter. God has no effect here on earth. There is no heaven and there is no hell. This existence is all that man has and it is up to man to make the rules.ix
One of Sanger’s successors as president of Planned Parenthood, Alan Guttmacher, M.D., was a signer of Humanist Manifesto II (1973) and another of her successors in that job, Faye Wattleton, also received the Humanist of the Year award in 1986. As was shown in our discussion of goal #6, Planned Parenthood is an organization that does not recognize any absolute moral authority.
It is a bit scary, then, when we read Planned Parenthood’s eighth goal in its 25-year plan. It says:
“Planned Parenthood will be an authoritative voice on bioethical standards related to reproductive health and sexuality.” It further expands on this, stating: “Planned Parenthood will inform and shape the debate. We will be an authoritative force in creating the ethics that govern biogenome technology, and we will remain a direct service provider.”
Can you imagine an organization like Planned Parenthood “creating the ethics” that govern future development in an area so critical as biotechnology.
We have examples of what happens when Planned Parenthood gets involved in influencing areas of medicine and technology. When Planned Parenthood got the birth control pill approved in 1960, it knew that the pill worked some of the time by allowing fertilization to occur and preventing implantation.
In 1960, fertilization and conception were both defined as occurring at the joining of the sperm and egg. This was also the point that pregnancy officially began. Since the pill worked some of the time after this point, it caused, by definition, an early abortion. Abortion was illegal all across the United States in 1960, so PP was selling a device that caused an illegal action.
Planned Parenthood had to find a way around this problem. In 1965, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology issued a definition document that redefined four words. Fertilization was defined as the joining of the sperm and egg. Conception was defined as implantation. Pregnancy was defined as beginning at conception (implantation). And abortion was defined as the termination of a pregnancy.
Thus, with one careful set of redefinitions, the birth control pill was rendered totally legal in its actions.
Planned Parenthood has already shown its intent with regard to biotechnology. When the Bush administration issued a ruling that restricted government funding for embryonic stem cell research (a procedure that results in the death of a human being), Planned Parenthood issued a press release that read, in part, “President Bush has ignored the wishes of a majority of Americans, and the advice of scientists, by severely restricting federal funding for medical research using embryonic stem cells. Once again, politics have come before medicine. Despite his attempt to persuade Americans that he had heard their voice and understood the need for this research, the restrictions he announced make it likely that research efforts will be severely limited. As a result, the gains scientists had hoped to achieve in developing new treatments for a broad range of afflictions might be greatly hampered.”
A quick review of Planned Parenthood’s web site shows a widespread use of terms (e.g. pre-embryo and fertilized egg) that are meant to dehumanize the human being created at fertilization and set the ground for all kinds of utilitarian experimentation.
And this is the organization that wants to control the debate and “create the ethics.” God help us!
The garnering of public support was always an important part of Margaret Sanger’s plan for victory. She worked tirelessly to get influential people behind her and to work behind-the-scenes to influence groups she needed on her side.
This was evident from her first major battle, which was to get churches to recognize contraception as legitimate. All the churches condemned contraception prior to 1930 and we know from Sanger’s 1922 book, The Pivot of Civilization, how she worked with theologians of the Church of England to achieve her goals.
Then, in the 1960s, Planned Parenthood worked once again with religious people – this time dissident Catholic leaders – to get the lay Catholics to be “tolerant” and allow government funding of contraception.
So it is, again, no surprise in this 25-year plan. Planned Parenthood specifically states as its goal number nine,
“Planned Parenthood will build the largest donor and citizen activist base of any social movement in this country.”
It elaborates by stating: “To fulfill its bold vision and to achieve its compelling goals, Planned Parenthood will have to raise a tremendous amount of human and financial support from millions of people.”
How it intends to do this is revealed throughout the document. In discussion of its first goal, Planned Parenthood says, “We envision partnering with faith-based, youth-serving, and other organizations to develop and disseminate positive models of human sexual development.” Having learned well from its history, Planned Parenthood will first try to bring religious-oriented organizations into its fold to dispel the reactions of many lay people to reject its programs.
But that will not be enough, in discussion of goal number three, Planned Parenthood states, “Over the next quarter-century, we will partner with thousands of other organizations. We will make our case known to everyone in the country. We will dramatically expand our volunteer and paid human resources. We will raise the money needed to make this happen.”
In addition to this general partnering and the cultivation of religious groups, Planned Parenthood knows that, in order to succeed, it will need government support and taxpayer money. In its discussion of goal eight, Planned Parenthood specifically states, “In the next 25 years, Planned Parenthood will create binding partnerships with individuals and governments that ensure access to contemporary products of reproductive technology for us and our clients.”
In the end, it will come down to money and power. That is specifically what Planned Parenthood seeks. We have seen throughout the discussion of the 25-year goals of Planned Parenthood that the one thing it is NOT about is health care. It is about forcing a political and social agenda on the world. Planned Parenthood states as much in the discussion of its goal number nine when it says, “The incredible power that comes from having a broad base of support is just as important as money. And this is power that PPFA will need to achieve its legislative and political goals.”
You will note in the statement of goal number nine as recounted in the beginning of this section, Planned Parenthood did NOT say that it wanted to build the largest donor and citizen activist base of any health care organization in the country. Instead, it proudly labeled its efforts as that of a social movement. Anyone who can read this plan and still maintain that Planned Parenthood is a health care organization simply did not understand what was written.
In its final goal for 2025, Planned Parenthood tackles what is, today, one of the major problems facing the organization – internal discontent. We have been fighting Planned Parenthood for over 17 years and PP employees routinely tell us that Planned Parenthood is not a happy place to work. It is, to many, just a job.
Planned Parenthood acknowledges this employee morale problem as it lays out its tenth goal for 2025. It states that, by the end of the next quarter-century,
“Planned Parenthood will have been acknowledged as one of the 10 best places to work and volunteer.”
In discussion of this goal, it laments, “we have often struggled to attract and sustain the workforce we need to serve our clients and other stakeholders.”
There are always problems attracting talent, but true health care organizations can offer their employees the knowledge that they are offering their patients services that will restore their health and better their lives.
But what does Planned Parenthood have to offer?
A plan for uninhibited sexual freedom leading to numerous sexual partners.
Birth control products that result in severe risk factors such as those listed earlier for the birth control pill.
Abortions that result in the immediate death of a child and years of suffering, regret and real physical problems.
Is it any wonder that the workers at Planned Parenthood have trouble seeing their jobs in a positive light and are frequently looking for other places to work?
Conclusion
Let me conclude this analysis of Planned Parenthood’s 25-year plan, Vision 2025, with an observation. Throughout this entire plan, put together over two years, with hundreds of reviews, and the approval of all its affiliates, this supposed health care organization does not mention the word “patient” even once. It does not see the women who come through its doors as medical patients needing cure. To Planned Parenthood, they are “clients” or “stakeholders.”
If you disregard everything else presented here, this one fact should tell you all you need to know about Planned Parenthood.
It is, by its own words, an organization looking to lead a social movement that will: celebrate the joy of sexual expression as an end in itself; fund itself through the sale of potentially harmful products and sympathetic government administrators; lower the population of certain peoples through any means including terminating their lives in the womb; and all the while sanctimoniously proclaim its adherence to freedom and diversity.
It is our sincere hope that, by 2025, Planned Parenthood will have closed its doors forever.
Endnotes:
Chesler, Ellen. Woman of Valor, Simon and Schuster, 1992, 96
Gray, Madeline. Margaret Sanger, Richard Marek Publishers, 1979
Sanger, Margaret. Woman and the New Race, Brentano’s Inc., 1920, 57
Gray, op. cit.
Sanger, Margaret. Family Limitation, New York: self-published, undated (circa 1915)
article. New York Times 31 Jan. 1922
Donovan, Charles. Address. “The History of Sex Education.” National Sex Education Conference St Louis, MO USA. 21-23 Oct.1994
Margaret Sanger: Biographical Sketch
A reading of Humanist Manifesto II, American Humanist Association, 1973