Whole Living Guide
The Whole Living Guide is Chronogram’s handbook to the often
confusing and overwhelming choices available in the natural health
and whole care field. The Whole Living Guide will inform readers about
practitioners, services and products. Our hope is to offer a clear
and easy-to-use reference to the wide array of conventional and alternative
health modalities available in the Mid-Hudson Valley.
The True Face of Planned Parenthood
by Lorna Tychostup
“So
much attention gets focused on the fact that we offer abortion services,
but that is a very small part of what we do,” says Anne Matsui,
Director of Development and Marketing for Planned Parenthood of the
Mid-Hudson Valley (PPMHV). With 13 medical offices spanning the four
counties of Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan and Orange, PPMHV is the single
largest provider of reproductive services to both women—and more
recently, men—in the Hudson Valley. And although anti-abortion
activists across the nation have made unending attempts, ranging from
picketing to acts of violence, to disrupt and scare people away from
clinics that offer abortion services, the numbers of people using
the services of PPMHV continues to increase steadily each year.
These numbers, says Matsui, indicate the strong need for reproductive
health services. “People come to us for birth control, pregnancy
testing, screening for sexually transmitted diseases, midlife services,
hormonal replacement services, for all kinds of things. They really
depend on us for those basic services.”
Indeed, the mission statement of the Planned Parenthood Federation
of America includes provision of “comprehensive reproductive
and complementary health care services which preserve and protect”
the rights and privacy of each individual; the advocacy of public
policies to help guarantee these rights, as well as access to such
services; educational programs addressing issues of human sexuality;
and promotion of advanced technologies and research into reproductive
health care and related bioethical, behavioral and societal implications.
With abortion services currently performed one day each week at only
one site out of the 13, Matsui believes that “Who we are, who
we serve and what we do has become so distorted, many people think
all we do is abortion, or serve poor women or teens, and that is not
in any way accurate.”
From
Boys to Men
So what is the true face of Planned Parenthood here in the mid-Hudson
Valley? First of all, Planned Parenthood is not just for women. PPMHV
now offers a full range of reproductive and sexual health care services
for men at most of their clinics. These services include full physical
exams, testicular exams, cancer screening, screening for sexually
transmitted infections, and HIV testing and counseling. Word of these
services has slowly spread in the last 18 months since their inception,
and the number of men of all ages taking advantage of them has started
to rise. The presence of young men in the services and programs that
PPMHV offers is particularly crucial to help young men know that they
are part of the reproductive health equation, and that they can make
responsible choices too. Birth control, family planning and sexual
health are not just the woman’s issue. Young men helping other
young men to know what their choices are, and how to support their
partners’ choices, is helping to ease the burden of reproductive
health that normally falls solely on the shoulders of women.
Sexual
and Gender Configurations
Another expansion of services was started last year in New Paltz.
Given the name “Circles,” this program was set up for lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgendered people. According to Matsui, many
lesbian women shy away from health care in general, and specifically
reproductive health care, due to a generalized social attitude that
assumes that everyone is heterosexual. “We want people who identify
themselves as lesbian or gay to feel comfortable coming to Planned
Parenthood,” says Matsui.
Realizing that questions on past intake forms that asked for information
relating to a person’s medical history, etc., were worded in
a way that assumed that the person’s partner was a member of
the other sex, PPMHV changed the questions. They also instituted ongoing
staff training to create an environment that is lesbian-and gay-friendly.
In addition to attempting to create a safe atmosphere for lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgendered people, Circles also offers educational
workshops that explore different issues that PPMHV believes is important.
Recent workshops offered to human service providers dealt specifically
with domestic violence in the gay and lesbian community, as well as
how to create safe environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered
people in clinic and agency settings
American
Graffiti
Programs targeting teens, both male and female, have also expanded
at PPMHV. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the national organization
under which all Planned Parenthoods operate, recently gave an award
of excellence to PPMHV’s special services to teens. The honor
was one of only two given to teen service programs within the entire
Planned Parenthood family. No one was happier at news of the award
than Jane Elven, PPMHV’s Peer Education Coordinator. “We’ve
been having a lot of fun. They gave us the award for a series of programs
we run in Newburgh, as well as several of them which we run in other
communities.”
One of the programs, Safe or Sorry (SOS) Peer Education Training,
involves 24 hours of fun yet intensive training for teenagers of 14
years and older. Applicants must attend every one of ten training
sessions, score perfectly on a knowledge test, and give a mini-presentation
to their group in order to act as an educator to their peers. Training
provides in-depth information on HIV and pregnancy prevention. Most
SOS Peer Educators are 17 and 18, and they can receive additional
training that would enable them to provide workshops and “infojams”
to other teens.
For the younger teens and pre-teens (ages 10-13), the KEY (Knowledge
Empowers Youth) program is slated toward puberty peer education training.
“Kids talk among themselves all the time,” says Elven, “and
nobody has the real information.” The KEY program is four sessions
long and teaches the kids accurate information, which they, in turn,
can share with their peers. “It’s a really fun program;
the kids are delightful and come out of it so proud of themselves.”
And kids aren’t the only ones in need of answers regarding issues
such as puberty, teenage sexuality, body changes and sexual reproduction.
Their parents need help learning how to cope with their children’s
changes too. “Parents are their children’s best resource
in most families,” says Elven. “Parents call us and really
don’t have accurate information. They want help with how to talk
to their kids, and what to teach them at what age.” Enter the
SAFE program, where parents are taught to teach other parents about
how to talk with their children about sexuality.
Other programs offered by PPMHV include their half-day “What
is Abstinence?” program, where schoolteachers and health educators
are trained to help young people to understand that abstinence is
a viable choice of contraception, how to make abstinence work, and
how to carry it with you every day; the “Contraceptive Update”—another
half-day program designed for health teachers and youth leaders who
serve as resource people for students. It provides current information
on teen sexuality, safer sex and contraception, as well as a detailed
discussion on each of the 12 contraceptive methods, including corresponding
fact sheets and availability of contraceptive kits; and a three-day
HIV Counselor Training course that discusses facts about HIV/AIDS
transmission, HIV spectrum disease, medical treatments, testing, counseling
skills, prevention and confidentiality law. And if these programs
don’t quite suit the needs of a particular community or group,
PPMHV is happy to create programs that will.
Back
in the Day...
Confidentiality, the provision of a non-judgmental atmosphere and
client-centered treatment have always been and continue to be the
cornerstone of all Planned Parenthood services. The road to reproductive
freedom was hard-fought by Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret
Sanger, and always provided for the right of women to make decisions
that would impact their futures and allow them movement toward reproductive
freedom. Sanger understood that in order to make such decisions, a
safe atmosphere and privacy are paramount.
Raised in an Irish immigrant family in Corning, New York, Sanger had
watched her own mother’s health weaken under the duress of 11
pregnancies, and die an untimely death at the age of 48. Later, as
a public health nurse on New York’s Lower East Side, Sanger witnessed
women dying from the effects of botched illegal abortions. These experiences
inspired her to help free women from unwanted pregnancy and childbirth.
Traveling to Europe, Sanger learned about recipes for contraceptive
douches, tampons and suppositories—methods of birth control that
European women had used and passed down through the generations to
their daughters. She also learned about using rubber “pessaries,”
known today as diaphragms, to prevent pregnancy. Upon her return to
New York, Sanger coined the term “birth control,” started
publishing a newspaper called The Woman Rebel, and wrote a pamphlet,
“Family Limitation,” that explained in simple language the
preparation and use of European-style contraceptives.
In 1914, Sanger was indicted by the federal government for nine separate
violations of alleged obscenity in The Woman Rebel. Fleeing back to
Europe, she spent almost a year learning more about modes of contraception.
By the time she returned to America, the birth control cause had gained
momentum and Sanger had become a popular and highly sympathetic public
figure. She then embarked on the first of many speaking tours to promote
reproductive choices for women and men.
On October 16, 1916, in a cooperative effort with her sister, Ethel
Byrne, also a nurse, and an associate, Fania Mindell, Sanger opened
America’s first birth control clinic in America, located in the
Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Desperately poor immigrant women
and their families began lining up long before the doors opened.
Within a month the three women were arrested and indicted for discussing
and distributing contraceptives, which were considered to be “obscene”
according to the federal and local Comstock statutes. Sanger chose
to be imprisoned in the Queens County Penitentiary to bring attention
to the absurdity of the Comstock law rather than pay the fine for
her role in opening the clinic. During her 30-day imprisonment, Sanger
taught inmates about effective methods of birth control.
(The Comstock statutes are named for Anthony Comstock, a self-appointed
anti-vice crusader who lobbied a stringent anti-obscenity bill through
Congress in the 1870s. The Comstock statute became the model that
many state legislatures followed and expanded upon; it criminalized
the importing or mailing of contraceptives or contraception information,
and the distribution (and even in some states the use) of contraceptives.
Comstock was so effective in the enforcement of these laws that by
the late 19th century, the subject of contraception had become unmentionable—even
in major medical textbooks.)
The locking up of Sanger, Byrne and Mindell raised public attention
and galvanized anger against the injustice of forcing women to bear
children that they could not afford and was a turning point in the
fight for women’s reproductive freedom. From that time on, the
birth control movement grew rapidly, with Sanger traveling and lecturing
worldwide. She spread the word that birth control had to be legalized
in order to free women from poverty, dependence and inequality. And
she attracted loyalty and financial backing from a growing number
of educated women and men. This support enabled Sanger to found and
edit the first medical journal on birth control, Birth Control Review,
as well as launch the American Birth Control League. In 1923 she founded
the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, which besides treating
patients, attempted to keep accurate records to demonstrate the need
to broaden the Comstock law and allow women to use contraception for
heath reasons. (At that time, men were allowed under the law to use
condoms to protect themselves from sexually transmitted disease.)
After two decades of activism, in 1936, Judge Augustus Hand ordered
a sweeping liberalization to the Comstock law, and found that birth
control could no longer be considered “obscene.” (It took
another 30 years for the U.S. Supreme Court to find, in Griswold v.
Connecticut, that married couples had the right to obtain contraceptives
from their physicians.) 1939 saw the merging of Sanger’s organizations
into the Birth Control Federation of America, which was eventually
renamed the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Now
and Forever
The newest Planned Parenthood clinic recently opened in Woodstock,
and an expansive renovation of its Beacon facility is almost complete.
Whether training professionals, such as teachers and child care staff,
about sexual health issues, teaching people of all ages to help themselves,
offering help to pregnant and parenting teens, or offering rape counseling
services, Planned Parenthood keeps its pulse on the needs of the community
and continually works to create innovative offerings. And it writes
plenty of grants.
This is, in addition to its offerings of the most basic reproductive
health care services. Of all the services that Planned Parenthood
offers, medical services are utilized by the greatest numbers. In
1999, 42,247 visits were made to PPMHV clinics in the four-county
area by 22,000 clients. This was a 13% increase over the 37,460 visits
in 1998.
The use of emergency contraception or the “morning after pill”
is also on the rise. Usually consisting of two doses, one taken within
72 hours of unprotected intercourse followed by a second dose 12 hours
later, this regime prevents unwanted pregnancy. 2300 Hudson Valley
women received this treatment in 1999, in contrast to 1100 women in
1998 and 300 in 1997.
It is not surprising that the greatest number of clients seen are
between the ages of 18 and 24. Teens are the next largest group. Although
men have begun to use Planned Parenthood’s medical services,
women are still represented in larger numbers. Yet, according to Planned
Parenthood’s Anne Matsui, “Once women are beyond their childbearing
years, they tend to neglect their reproductive health care.”
With many of the reproductive cancers preventable by way of early
detection and regular screening, it is very important for women to
have annual Pap test and breast cancer screenings. It is also important
for young people to get tested for sexually transmitted infections,
some of which, if not treated, can lead to cervical cancer or even
infertility.
“The message here is prevention,” says Matsui, “and
this is one area where prevention is the only answer. It is the answer
to teen pregnancies, to unintended pregnancies, to serious illnesses.
Prevention is the focus of what we do.”
Most importantly, however, Planned Parenthood will see people whether
or not they have health insurance. While it does accept all the major
insurance plans, it also has a sliding scale of fees to make their
services available to everyone. “Many people we see are working-class
people who cannot afford health insurance,” says Matsui. “You
hear about it in the national news...There’s 37 million uninsured
people...those are the people we see.”
With a standard visit to an OB/GYN registering in at approximately
$200 on an individual’s financial Richter scale, Planned Parenthood
fees are a bargain. A complete exam, including lab work, costs approximately
$60 to $80. Not a bad price to pay for comprehensive, confidential,
client-centered treatment by an organization working to protect our
right to manage our fertility.
