Community Outreach

EC is a time-sensitive drug-it is more effective in preventing pregnancy the sooner you take it. Thus, women's access to EC is imperative. Recent studies have indicated that wider access could prevent 1.7 million unintended pregnancies and 800,000 abortions each year in the United States.

Recently, in an unprecedented act, the FDA ruled against the advice of its own expert panel, preventing EC from going over-the-counter. EC meets the FDA's own rigorous scientific criteria for over-the-counter access. This decision was not based on science, but rather on narrow political ideology. It is a major public health setback and a blow to women's reproductive rights and health.

To email the FDA in support of EC OTC, click here: http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/ec_otc_ppcnc.

"I think abstinence-only education is a good thing-teens shouldn't be having sex."
Federal spending on abstinence-only curricula in our public schools has topped a quarter of a billion dollars. While comprehensive sex ed teaches abstinence in addition to safe and effective methods of birth control and STD prevention, abstinence-only education fails to mention contraception, excepting to state, often inaccurately, its failure rates.

Abstinence-only sexuality education doesn't work. There is no evidence that teens in abstinence-only programs abstain from intercourse longer than others. However, studies have demonstrated that when these teens do become sexually active, they often fail to use condoms or other contraceptives. Telling teens to "just say no" without understanding risk or how to protect oneself from risk turns out to create greater risk of pregnancy, HIV, and other STDs.

The U.S. has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the developed world, and American adolescents are contracting HIV faster than almost any other demographic group. The teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. is at least twice that in Canada, England, France, and Sweden, and 10 times that in the Netherlands. Experts cite restrictions on teens' access to comprehensive sexuality education, contraception, and condoms in the U.S., along with the widespread American attitude that a healthy adolescence should exclude sex. By contrast, the "European approach to teenage sexual activity, expressed in the form of widespread provision of confidential and accessible contraceptive services to adolescents, is . . . a central factor in explaining the more rapid declines in teenage childbearing in northern and western European countries" (Singh & Darroch, 2000).

In an era marked by HIV/AIDS, abstinence-only education is a dangerous and irresponsible approach to sexuality. Wake up America! This is our youth, our future. Our silence keeps them ignorant. Our silence renders them defenseless. Our silence is deadly.

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"What does gay marriage have to do with choice?"
Planned Parenthood believes that equal protection of the law is an essential constitutional right. All people, regardless of sexual orientation, must be guaranteed the fundamental freedom of reproductive and sexual self-determination.

In Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a state law that criminalized the use of birth control by married couples, citing the constitutional right to privacy. The court's decision in this case became the basis for later decisions recognizing privacy rights, including Eisenstadt v. Baird, in which the court invalidated a law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried couples, and Roe v. Wade, in which the court recognized the right of a woman to make certain fundamental decisions affecting her destiny, including the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. The Supreme Court reaffirmed these constitutional protections most recently in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down the Texas law making it a crime for individuals of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual contact. In reaching its decision in Lawrence, the court relied on Griswold, Eisenstadt, and Roe itself in reaffirming that the Constitution protects individual's decisions about marriage, having and raising children, and basic family relationships. These cases form a seamless web that underscores an individual's right to freedom from government interference in the most personal, private decisions.

Choice is the essence of freedom, the affirmation that every individual has the right to make personal, private decisions to determine the course of his/her life. The freedom to marry, the freedom to love, the freedom to decide when, whether, and with whom to start a family, are fundamental freedoms, central to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.

Last week, the US Senate rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, an extremist, divisive measure endorsed by the President. NC Senator Elizabeth Dole voted in favor of the constitutional amendment. Please sign our petition to Senator Dole, letting her know that the vast majority of North Carolinians oppose extremist, discriminatory amendments to the US Constitution! http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/profamily_prochoice.

"Why should I care about judicial nominations?"
Federal courts exercise enormous power in deciding cases on such issues as civil rights, the right to privacy, reproductive freedom, women's rights, religious liberty, consumer and worker protection, and the environment. Judges on the federal bench are appointed, not elected, and are appointed for life. Thus, it is imperative that we work together to ensure that judges appointed to the Supreme Court - and all other courts - will defend Roe and a woman's right to choose.

Claude A. Allen, Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has been nominated for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Federal Circuit that presides over North Carolina. Allen's record in Virginia and the federal government clearly indicates a lack of respect for the right to privacy and reproductive choice. Planned Parenthood joins other organizations concerned with women's rights and civil rights in opposing Claude Allen's nomination to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. He currently awaits a vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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Reproductive Justice in North Carolina
Reproductive freedom is a right, not a privilege. Women's constitutionally recognized right to choose should not be contingent on her income level.

The state of North Carolina affirmed reproductive freedom for low-income women with the creation of the State Abortion Fund in 1978. This Fund ensures that all women, regardless economic status, can exercise the right to make personal, private childbearing decisions.

However, no woman has been able to access the State Abortion Fund since 1996 because of restrictive eligibility requirements. In order to access the Fund, women must live below the federal poverty level, but not qualify for Medicaid. This essentially excludes almost all low-income women.

The state of North Carolina rightly provides pre-natal coverage to women who live at up to 185% of the federal poverty level. An accessible State Abortion Fund, as well as state-funded pre-natal care, ensures that low-income women have the same ability to make reproductive health decisions for themselves and their families as do women with higher income and greater means.

Take Action! Sign our petition below in support of the State Abortion Fund! We will gather and deliver thousands of signatures to NC elected officials at the beginning of the 2005 legislative session: http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/nc_abortion_fund.

Reproductive Justice Abroad
Two weeks ago, the Bush administration announced its decision to continue denying lifesaving funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). To date, the administration has withheld a total of $93 million in family planning funding for UNFPA since 2002. If there was ever any doubt that this administration cares more about its ultra-conservative political base than about the health and dignity of women, it is gone now.

UNFPA provides a range of basic reproductive health services in developing countries where access to birth control and comprehensive sexuality education is often a matter of life and death. According to UNFPA, our country's $34 million contribution could prevent upwards of 80,000 maternal and infant deaths annually--more than the entire population of Santa Fe, New Mexico. And with 5 million new HIV infections last year alone, denying access to preventive services, supplies, and information through funding cuts along with "abstinence-only" restrictions on global HIV prevention programs amounts to a death sentence for millions the world over.

Despite the tired refrain that "W stands for women," cutting of health services provided through UNFPA reveals the president's blatant disregard for the health and rights of over half the world's population. Just a few weeks ago, at the Fifteenth International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, the world's leading public health experts emphasized that women must have the tools and information to not only protect themselves from unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, but also to address persistent discrimination, poverty, and gender-based violence that fuel the AIDS epidemic.

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Fetal Personhood: Unborn Victims of Violence Act
On its face, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act creates a penalty for violation of a number of criminal statutes if, in the course of commission of these crimes, an "unborn child" is injured or killed. The dangerous reality of the bill, however, is that it would elevate the legal status of the fetus to that of an adult human being, the first step in eroding a woman's right to choose.

By defining "unborn child" as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb," this bill would give separate federal protection to a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus. The criminal sentences imposed under this legislation for crimes against the "unborn child" would be equal to that which would be imposed had the injury or death been to the woman.

Nowhere in this legislation is the harm to the woman resulting from an involuntary termination of her pregnancy mentioned. In fact, when given the opportunity to vote for a substitute that had similar criminal penalties, but that recognized the pregnant woman as the victim of the crime, the sponsors of this bill voted against it. This bill ignores the very serious issue of violence against women in this country, and shifts the focus away from the women who are truly the victims of these crimes.

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Fetal Personhood: Federal Child Health Insurance Program

In the beginning of the Bush administration, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson announced a wide-sweeping policy change in the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that would allow states to provide prenatal coverage to the unborn but not to the woman. If the woman suffered from a condition during pregnancy that was unrelated to the unborn, she could remain untreated.

If providing prenatal care for poor women had been the real intention, Secretary Thompson could have proposed covering prenatal care for women either through expanded CHIP or Medicaid eligibility. Aside from undermining reproductive rights, the new CHIP regulation betrayed the Administration's lack of support for children. The new CHIP coverage provides very limited coverage for a child once it is born. Moreover, because CHIP is a block grant, with a finite amount of money, covering zygotes would mean choosing not to cover existing children.

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What about Partial Birth Abortion?
From a medical perspective, there is no such thing as a "partial birth abortion." "Partial birth" is a misleading, inaccurate, and intentionally inflammatory term chosen by anti-choice extremists. It suggests narrowly focused legislation that prohibits a single late-term abortion procedure, but the measure's wording adds up to a sweeping prohibition that would, in effect, overturn Roe v. Wade by criminalizing the most common procedures used to preserve the woman's health and life after the first trimester, but well before fetal viability.

It is important to note that Roe does not protect the right to an abortion in the third trimester; more than forty states have already banned abortion after 24 weeks. The only instances in which late-term abortions are performed, then, are out of necessity, and in immediate protection of the health and life of the woman. This ban, however, fails to provide a health exception, an omission already deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in similar state enacted bans.

The federal abortion ban is currently being contested in court. This past Thursday (Women's Equality Day!), a federal judge ruled the Partial Birth Abortion legislation to be unconstitutional because it does not provide an exception for the health of the woman, following the precedent of the Supreme Court. Despite these rulings, the delegates at the Republican Convention have adopted a platform that calls for a Constitutional ban on all abortions.

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Science Over Ideology: Stem Cell Research
There is currently much debate about funding the use of pre-embryonic, embryonic, and fetal cells and tissue for medical treatment and research, all of which show great promise for potentially lifesaving treatments of many incurable, debilitating, and life threatening illnesses. Since 1928, when researchers transplanted fetal tissue into patients suffering with diabetes, the important healing and curative potential of fetal tissue has been recognized. Although first experiments failed, successes have followed. During the 1950s, fetal tissue was used to help develop the polio vaccine and it was used later in the development of the rubella vaccine. Although still experimental, the current use of fetal tissue and stem cells which are derived from pre-embryos and fetal tissue to treat Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's chorea, strokes, spinal cord injuries, hemophilia, leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and muscular dystrophy is giving patients, their families, physicians, and researchers every reason for hope.

Bush's stem cell policy, which he announced on Aug. 9, 2001, limits federally funded embryonic stem cell research to cell lines created on or before that date. This policy forsakes science for extremist, conservative ideology, and undermines the potential to discover cures for devastating diseases.

Despite calls for Bush to ease his restrictions from scientists and politicians from both parties, the Bush administration is maintaining its position. A broad spectrum of scientists has expressed opposition to the president's overall science policy and specifically to the Bush administration's embryonic stem cell research policy. More than 4,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel Prize winners, have signed a statement saying that they oppose the Bush administration's science policies. In February, the Union of Concerned Scientists released the statement, which says that the Bush administration frequently suppresses or distorts scientific analyses from federal agencies -- including research on condoms and abortion -- when the data disagree with its policies.

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Celebrating the 125 birthday of our founder, Margaret Sanger: Visionary and Social Justice Advocate
Margaret Sanger devoted her life to the birth control movement. At times she was vilified and even imprisoned for her work, but nothing deterred her. Because of her courage, vision, and persistence, first birth control and then abortion became legal. The birth control pill was developed. Birth Control clinics sprang up all over the country and eventually many of them joined forces to form Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Among her many visionary accomplishments as a social reformer, Sanger:

• established the principles that a woman's right to control her body is the foundation of her human rights; that every person should be able to decide when or whether to have a child; that every child should be wanted and loved; and that women are entitled to sexual pleasure and fulfillment just as men are
•  brought about the reversal of federal and state "Comstock laws" that prohibited publication and distribution of information about sex, sexuality, contraception, and human reproduction
• helped establish the contemporary American model for the protection of civil rights through nonviolent civil disobedience as a model that later propelled the civil rights, anti-war, women's rights, and AIDS-action movements
• created access to birth control for low-income, minority, and immigrant women
• expanded the American concept of volunteerism and grassroots organizing by setting up a network of volunteer-driven family planning centers across the U.S.

Early on in the movement for legalized birth control, Sanger was frequently jailed for distributing information to women about controlling their fertility. Attempts to censor Sanger were, ultimately, unsuccessful as she continued to assert her voice and stand up for the rights of women.

Use your voice! 22 million unmarried women did not vote in election 2000. The stakes are high this November. Make sure all of the women you know are registered to vote. You can check your registration and/or register online at the State Board of Elections website: http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/. Make sure your voice is heard”register to vote!

We thought the days of censorship and the chilling Comstock laws were long gonewe were wrong
The Bush administration has waged a relentless war on women, both at home and abroad. Federal programs promoting women's equity have been abandoned, and, similar to the censoring of medically accurate sex education in our public schools, much of the information most important to women and their health has disappeared from government sources of public health information. According to MISSING: Information about Women's Lives, a report released recently by the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW):

• RUCIAL OFFICES HAVE BEEN DISBANDED - Front-line offices designed to assure that the concerns of women are addressed in policy development, such as the Office of Women's Initiatives and Outreach in the White House, have disappeared.
• MORE BUDGET CUTS ON THE WAY - In May, Bush administration post-election budget plans were released, indicating cuts to nearly every government department, including several that will disproportionately affect women: Women, Infants and Children (WIC) will be cut by 122 million, Head Start by 177 million, in addition to heavy cuts to the National Institutes of Health and Social Security.
• SCIENCE IS BEING QUESTIONED - Scientific data on the effectiveness of condoms in preventing AIDS has been called into question on government websites and abstinence touted instead. For example, in December 2002, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fact sheet on the efficacy of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted infections is revised to refer to benefits of condoms as "inconclusive." And in November 2002, information on the National Cancer Institute Web site was changed to imply that the link between abortion and breast cancer is inconclusive, when in fact it has been thoroughly proved to be false.

Margaret Sanger refused to be silenced by anti-woman policies and censorship laws.

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Support Medically Accurate Sex Ed in NC
NC Representative Thomas Wright introduced House Bill 1059 to correct medical inaccuracies in North Carolina's public school health curriculum and to add instruction so that students avoid risky sexual behavior. Thanks to your letters, this bill passed on the House floor, and is now on its way to the Senate.

*Campaign Expired* Stay posted! We will let you know when/how to contact your Senator in support of this bill.

Protect Teens' Access to Birth Control and STD Treatment
Urge the NC House Health Committee to oppose House Bill 679, "Permit Notification to Treat Minors." This bill, scheduled for a vote on Thursday, May 26, undermines minors? access to confidential health care services. Right now in NC teenagers have the right to seek confidential treatment for time-sensitive and critical services: STD screening, birth control, mental health and substance abuse counseling. HB 679 would allow doctors to notify parents after the teenagers seek such treatment--without the knowledge or consent of the minor.

*Campaign Expired* Thank you for taking action! Thanks in part to your efforts, HB 679 was not taken up in committee.