Since 1928, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland has been helping women lead healthier lives. PPGC has earned an important place in the history of the family planning movement. One of the first birth-control clinics in North America, the Cleveland Maternal Health Association was the forerunner of Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland and acted as a pioneer and a role model for other reproductive health care centers.
1920s - Birth of the MHA
In 1921, Dorothy Hamilton Brush and Hortense Oliver Shepard volunteered for the Junior League at a charity maternity clinic for Cleveland's poor. They discovered a desperate need for family planning education. "Pregnant girls our own age attended the dispensary, already with two, three, or more children; girls with no money and terrible anxiety," recalled Brush. "'How can I stop another baby?' they begged. 'We ourselves knew very little but we told what we knew. When we were found out, we were dismissed!' We promptly persuaded our mothers and our friends to start a birth control committee."
Later that year, Brush and Shepard attended the first American Birth Control Conference in New York City, where nationally known birth control advocate, Margaret Sanger, was scheduled to lecture. But city police barred Sanger from speaking and arrested her. The Clevelanders and a crowd of supporters followed Sanger to the police station in a show of solidarity.
Although police later released Sanger, this glaring violation of constitutional rights aroused new supporters for birth control in Cleveland. Brush and Shepard, however, remained careful in their efforts to counteract opposition. They knew they had to patiently win over Cleveland's civic, medical, and social service leaders to their cause. These leaders would then sway public opinion, making it possible to offer birth control in Cleveland. This "organized campaign of nagging" would take seven years.
Meanwhile, the founders worked to build a legal foundation for providing birth control. The federal Comstock Law of 1873 classified birth control information and devices with obscene material and pornography; therefore, it could not be advertised or sent through U.S. mail. Convinced that it was illegal, most doctors of the day refused to advise patients on contraception.
Cleveland attorney Jerome C. Fisher, whose wife, Katherine Bingham Fisher, helped organize the Maternal Health Association, addressed the legal confusion. In 1922, he examined Ohio obscenity laws and wrote an interpretation that would allow a doctor to give contraceptive information, providing no "secret nostrum" was used and no information was sent through the mail. Amos Burt Thompson, head of Fisher's law firm, Thompson, Hine and Flory, signed the interpretation.
With this legal basis, a committee met in 1923 at the Women's City Club. Avoiding the controversial term "birth control," the committee resolved to create a "Maternal Health Clinic." Their first mission, to set up clinics in hospital outpatient departments, failed. Hospitals of the day were afraid to venture into the disreputable arena of family planning. So the committee decided to establish an independent clinic, beginning a tradition of pioneering health services other organizations could not or would not provide.
Clinic planners sought advice from the American Birth Control League and tapped their wide circle of families, friends and colleagues. They recruited Protestant and Jewish religious leaders as well as social service managers and healthcare workers. The growing network of support represented a breadth of community leadership that crossed gender and generational lines.
On March 20, 1928, the birth control planning committee, by formal action, became the Maternal Health Association of Cleveland and opened its first clinic. The Osborn Building at Huron Road and Prospect Avenue sat just a few blocks from Public Square, the center of the city. Clients from all over the city could reach it by streetcar, and because the building already housed many doctors' offices, founders reasoned, "Patients would not feel conspicuous entering it." After "begging and borrowing" furniture and equipment for the clinic's three small rooms, committee members only had to purchase three items: a sterilizer, an examining table, and a typewriter, all second-hand.
The founders chose a Medical Advisory Board of local physicians and hired Ruth Robishaw, M.D., and Rosina Volk, R.N. as clinic staff. But American medical schools did not teach birth control techniques, and federal law restricted the transportation of birth control. So Robishaw and Volk trained at Margaret Sanger's Birth Control Research Bureau in New York City, while association members and their husbands practiced civil disobedience, toting diaphragms and other supplies home from New York in suitcases.
Initially, the clinic accepted only sick women whose lives would be jeopardized by pregnancy. Of the three women seen the first day, one was already pregnant. By June, the clinic listed only 28 clients. Though many more women asked for help, MHA turned them away because they were not ill, only poor. A year later, the Medical Advisory Board recommended the acceptance of women who needed help for "social and economic reasons." Within four months, the caseload rose to 385 clients.
The same year, Cleveland scientist and inventor Charles F. Brush endowed the Brush Foundation in memory of his son, Charles F. Brush, Jr., husband of the Maternal Health Association founder. Working closely with Cleveland's MHA, the foundation would focus on improving the health of children through research. It would also build a strong relationship with the national and international family planning movement.
Despite the association's success in establishing a clinic, it still faced the challenge of changing traditional beliefs and rhetoric, both among the public and its members. In 1929, "notorious" birth control crusader Margaret Sanger spoke at the Cleveland City Club. According to the Plain Dealer, J.J. Thomas, M.D., president of the City Club, "banged his gavel," refusing to allow a vote on a motion to endorse Sanger's effort to legalize the distribution of birth control information. Although Dr. Thomas also chaired the Maternal Health Association's Medical Advisory Board, he would not compromise the traditional, neutral stance of the City Club.
The following quote appeared in the Plain Dealer: "'Birth control,' Mrs. Sanger said, 'means that children come into the world from choice and not by chance.' She described it as "the keynote of a new social and moral awakening."
1930s - First Decade of Service
The stock market crash of 1929 brought a rash of unemployment and poverty that would linger throughout the first half of the 1930s. During the Great Depression, Association funds dwindled and the Maternal Health Association's caseload grew. The purchase of a 25-cent lampshade for the clinic waiting room required great deliberation. And when nurses requested a towel rack, they were told, "It will be necessary to get along with a string for the next month at least." With careful budgeting and successful fundraising, however, the Maternal Health Association grew throughout the decade, offering more services and reaching more women.
In 1931, female medical students at the Western Reserve University School of Medicine requested the opportunity to observe birth control clinics, and the Maternal Health Association became a training center for medical students, physicians and family planning advocates from across the country and around the world. Also in 1931, MHA became the first family planning organization to recognize the need for sexuality education before marriage. Its clinics began to offer premarital counseling to build stronger marriages.
In 1934, Maternal Health Association President Adele Chisholm Eells, along with Margaret Allen Ireland and Helen Chisholm Halle, organized the association's first public benefit, an ice carnival featuring Toronto Skating Club members. The women sold just enough tickets to ensure MHA's survival. But rave reviews made the show a sellout in succeeding years, and its success sparked the founding of the Cleveland Skating Club in 1936.That same year, the association opened its first West Side Branch.
Meanwhile, important changes were taking place throughout the nation that would generate support for the birth control movement at home. In the fall of 1936, a federal appellate court judge, Augustus Hand, ruled that birth control could no longer be classified as obscene. This meant that physicians in the court's jurisdiction could import contraceptive devices from abroad. In 1937, six years after the Maternal Health Association began training medical students; the American Medical Association recognized birth control as a legitimate medical service and recommended it for medical school curricula.
1940s - Providing New Services
In the early '40s, men left home to fight in World War II, and women joined the work force as factory workers, farmers, and professionals. Necessity forced most couples to postpone child bearing until the war's end, and the Maternal Health Association responded with continued premarital and birth control counseling. Grateful women from all over Ohio praised the association and referred their friends to its clinics. "I want to thank you for the wonderful service you have given to me and to my friends, although we are most times lax in expressing our thanks," one woman wrote. "I am deeply and sincerely grateful to the Maternal Health Clinic." As the clientele grew, the association established two more clinics on the city's east side. And in 1942, MHA affiliated with the newly formed Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).
By 1946, the war was over, and reunited men and women were eager to start their own families. Unfortunately, pregnancy didn't come easily to every willing couple, and few physicians or hospitals addressed infertility at the time. With the support of the Brush Foundation, the Cleveland Maternal Health Association launched one of the country's first fertility clinics. Directed by David Weir, M.D., the clinic opened with a waiting list of about 100 childless men and women. The Plain Dealer reported, "For the first time in Cleveland all the measurements and treatment for men and women who find they are infertile are available in one place. This is the first such clinic in the Middle West, it is believed, and one of the first in the country." The fertility clinic would treat almost 1000 couples between 1946 and 1968.
To pay for the new clinics and expanding services, in 1947, resourceful MHA members established an enterprise that would provide continual funding. The Cleveland News reported, "Members of the 18-year-old organization will soon open a 'Nearly New Shop,' an innovation in the city." The store will sell second-hand clothing, jewelry, furniture, antiques, toys, glassware, and china." Doris Crandall Brayton, Gertrude Haskell Britton, Helen Chisholm Halle, Mrs. O.L. Hawk, Marjorie Lane Shephard, and Betty Lee Titus Webber organized this long-lasting venture.
In 1948, inspired by the success of the Nearly New Shop, Marianne Millikin Hadden, Brooks Barlow McWilliams, Eleanor Cottrell Hatch, and Frances Wick Bolton coordinated the first Christmas Mart to benefit the Maternal Health Association. Specialty stores from Fifth Avenue, Palm Beach, Vail, and other glamorous spots set up temporary shop, bringing unusual gift items to Cleveland. The Christmas Mart was so successful that a few years later Cleveland society columnist Winsor French noted, "The Maternal Health Association's annual Christmas Mart swings into action today in the usually cloistered Intown Club, and the rush, you can be sure, is going to be terrific."
At the same time, the population was growing at an alarming rate in developing countries, so Planned Parenthood Federation of America focused its attention internationally. In 1948, The Brush Foundation provided seed money to help establish the International Committee on Planned Parenthood (ICPP). In 1952, the organization opened its headquarters in London, England.
1950s - A Building of Its Own
In the years following WWII, dubbed the "Baby Boom" years, the population soared. Middle class women were expected to be happy at home taking care of their children. Sex was not discussed in polite conversation, and birth control methods, such as the diaphragm, were hard to come by. Poor women suffered as they risked injury or death to obtain illegal abortions. Determined to help, the Maternal Health Association (MHA) worked hard to build community support and reach out to women and men who desperately needed birth control information.
In 1953, Margaret Sanger returned to Cleveland to speak at the Maternal Health Association's 25th anniversary celebration. Her friend and associate, MHA founder Dorothy Brush, introduced her. In 1954, West Side supporters organized a home tour to aid the clinic on that side of the city. The tours would continue for many years, raising critical funds to support the work of the organization.
In 1957, the Maternal Health Association moved to a new building on Cornell Road near Western Reserve University. It was the first building erected solely to house a birth control clinic. Frances Wick Bolton and Elizabeth Chisholm Chandler co-chaired the association's fundraising drive to construct the building, and strong support from Cleveland's business community began a tradition of corporate giving and involvement. "The Maternal Health Association is the first family planning organization in the United States to occupy a building especially constructed for its purposes," proclaimed the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The association named the new training and conference facilities in honor of legal adviser Jerome C. Fisher and dedicated a children's playroom to early supporter Edith Meacham Hitchcock. The building would serve Planned Parenthood for 25 years.
1960s - Moving Ahead
The family planning movement made dramatic leaps forward, both nationally and locally in the 1960s. Politicians recognized a worldwide need for population control, the Supreme Court made a landmark decision that led to the acceptance of birth control, and modern medicine offered women new and exciting birth control options.
In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved oral contraceptives, and the Cleveland Maternal Health Association began to offer The Pill to its clients. By 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, ruled that Connecticut's law prohibiting the use of birth control by married couples violated the newly defined right of marital privacy. This decision led other states to liberalize their restrictions and signaled cultural acceptance of contraception. It also set a precedent for future rulings regarding the right to abortion. Cleveland's Maternal Health Association thrived in the new social climate, establishing two groundbreaking services: the Mobile Health Clinic and the hospital outpatient clinic.
In 1965, the Maternal Health Association established the country's first Mobile Health Clinic, dramatically expanding its service area. The new van was a self-contained clinic on wheels. In a daring act for the era, the Junior League of Cleveland funded the clinic, which was run almost entirely by volunteers, including Sally Burton, Claire Feldman Markey, and Muffy MacDonald. Staffed by a doctor, a nurse, and the volunteers, the mobile clinic scheduled stops at churches and community centers, reaching people who did not live near a MHA clinic. It was one of the few free or low-cost health services available in the inner city. According to the Cleveland Press, 900 women used the mobile birth control unit in its first year.
Also in 1965, Metropolitan General Hospital accepted the Maternal Health Association's offer to furnish a doctor, Janet Dingle Kent, M.D., a nurse, and volunteers for one year to start a family planning clinic in Metropolitan General Hospital's outpatient department. The acceptance came with two conditions: 1) Only married patients would be served. 2) No hospital funds would be used. Controversy over the new service never materialized.
Because more than half of the mothers who delivered babies at Metro General were unmarried, the hospital lifted restrictions after the first year and took over the clinic. Metro General became the first healthcare facility in Cleveland "other than the Maternal Health Association" to offer family planning. Other local teaching hospitals would soon follow suit, and the Cleveland Health Department would eventually offer family planning in its health centers.
In 1966, the Maternal Health Association changed its name to Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland (PPGC). That year, 135 people volunteered 6,600 hours in Planned Parenthood clinics and hospital maternity wards, at educational events and as fundraisers. By the next year, PPGC operated clinics at five sites in addition to the mobile unit: University Circle, East 35th Street, Garden Valley Neighborhood Center, West Side, and Fairview Community Hospital.
1970s - A New Right for Women
The 1970s commenced with unparalleled government support for family planning and women's reproductive rights. A new bill granted federal funding to birth control clinics, and a groundbreaking court decision gave women the right to safe and legal abortions. But a new challenge arose for birth control providers: teen pregnancy rates skyrocketed in the '70s. To address this new problem, the Maternal Health Association made changes in its policy to make its services available without regard to age.
In the early 70s, lines of teens asked for help at birth control clinics, focusing widespread attention on the exploding rate of teenage pregnancy. The Cleveland Press reported in 1970, "Planned Parenthood today proposes to establish a birth control program, along with counseling and other services, for teenage girls who are sexually active. Confronted with what has been described as a sex revolution, especially among teenagers, medical co-director Dr. Janet Dingle Kent felt that Planned Parenthood's present challenge had become how best to serve youth." Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland lifted age restrictions on its services, determining that refusal of service based on age did not serve its goal: "Every child a wanted child."
On Christmas Eve 1970, President Richard Nixon signed into law Title X of the Public Health Services Act, providing federal funds for family planning information and services. The funding made family planning services accessible and affordable for all women. Thanks to groundwork laid by Planned Parenthood and the Community Family Planning Project, local birth control agencies successfully applied for funds and coordinated their efforts under the Metropolitan Cleveland Family Planning Program.
The next year, the George Gund Foundation provided a grant to Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland and Planned Parenthood-World Population. The grant established a National Institute for Family Planning Management Training for executive directors of Planned Parenthood affiliates. For five years, the institute continued under Gund Foundation support as a national program for Planned Parenthood-World Population.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, ruled that the constitutional right of privacy extends to a woman's choice of whether to bear a child. Before this decision, complications of illegal abortions represented the number one cause for emergency room admissions among American women. The Maternal Health Association had expressed concerns about abortion as early as 1937. That year, Dr. Ruth Robishaw, the Maternal Health Association's first staff physician, lectured on the "scourge" of abortion. The "chief responsibility for its correction," she said, "lies at the door of the medical profession." She claimed that physicians had the duty to provide patients with contraceptive care and education. A researcher as well as a physician, she estimated that in Cleveland in the 1930s, illegal abortions caused almost one-fifth of maternity-related deaths.
In 1977, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland's 50th year of service, volunteers and leaders raised funds from local companies for the Community Reproductive Education and Service Project. The project ultimately established PPGC as the training center for parents, educators, and youth workers in sexuality education.
1980s - Beating the Odds
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan - and a small army of right wing supporters - launched a full-scale attack on family planning services and reproductive choice. They cut Title X funding, stacked the courts with conservative judges, and instituted a "gag rule" that barred Title X funded clinics from giving pregnant women information about abortion, even when the women requested it. Despite these obstacles, Planned Parenthood widened its outreach to meet the needs of teens and poor women, many of whom were left without affordable contraception and healthcare when other clinics closed.
In 1982, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland's trustees and staff undertook an exhaustive evaluation of all services and programs. As a result, they closed the Cornell Road site, which was badly in need of repairs and located among a concentration of family planning providers, and opened clinics in Bedford, East Cleveland and Lakewood, bringing services closer to the women who needed them. But, as the circle of poverty deepened and widened in Cuyahoga County, the demand for family planning services grew. In some Cleveland neighborhoods, 90 percent of the residents lived at or below the poverty level. Pockets of poverty also appeared in the suburbs closest to the city.
New administrative methods such as the cross-training of clinic staff, advances in clinical productivity, and improved methods of service delivery allowed Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland to serve more clients with fewer staff members at a lower cost per visit. This "efficiency model" helped the organization meet the explosive growth, and allowed it to reach 10,800 clients in 1987, compared to 5,000 in 1982. In the late '80s, PPGC responded to the rising incidence of AIDS by adding HIV testing to its services.
In 1989, the Supreme Court struck two major blows against abortion rights. The Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision expanded states' rights to regulate abortion, and the Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health decision allowed states to restrict an unmarried minor's access to abortion by requiring parental notification.
At the same time, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland stepped up its public outreach and increased its education efforts. In May 1989, national advocates for women's issues stopped in Cleveland for two events, and local leaders conducted 30 media interviews, more than half of the total interviews done the year before. The annual Spring Forum featured Roe v. Wade attorney Sarah Weddington, and the City Club of Cleveland debate featured Faye Wattleton, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
As a part of its long-time mission to educate individuals, families, and organizations about reproduction, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland opened the Alice Malone Sexual Health Resource Center, named after PPGC's first African American Executive Director. The center provided books, reference materials, videos, and curricula for students, parents, educators, and youth-serving professionals. In the '80s, PPGC also launched a peer sex education effort for teens, continued its Postponing Sexual Involvement program for Cleveland middle school students, and began the Life Options program to give young teens in the Cleveland Public Schools the tools and skills necessary to make positive choices about their future.
Hard Times, Tough Decisions - 1990s
The 1990s began with an explosion of violence against family planning clinics. Anti-choice activists armed with bombs, bricks, and profanities were determined to take away women's freedom of choice. But Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health service providers stood strong in the face of danger, banding together to protect one another. In the end, advances in technology and medicine, along with aggressive fundraising and public awareness efforts, made the '90s a decade of progress for women and reproductive health services. New computer technology facilitated communication between clinics and clients, modern medicine offered more birth-control options, and fundraising events provided support for expanded health services.
In 1991, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland initiated the Ellery and Elizabeth Sedgwick Award to recognize individuals who exhibited an extraordinary commitment to PPGC---a quality that the Sedgwicks exemplified. Louise 'Ligi' Grimes Ireland was the first recipient. Born in 1904, Ireland had been a dedicated supporter of family planning since the '20s, when she volunteered to work for Margaret Sanger.
Later in 1991, the Supreme Court stunned family planning supporters with its ruling on Rust v. Sullivan by upholding the 1988 "gag rule." The law withheld federal funds from family planning clinics that provided information about abortion. To many, the Rust v. Sullivan decision was an assault not only on freedom of choice, but on freedom of speech. Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland established a policy to reject the federal money if there were strings attached and continued to offer complete information. Local donors and advocates responded with enthusiastic support.
The same year, anti-choice activists firebombed a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbus, Ohio. This incident was just one of an increasing number of violent attacks committed against reproductive service providers. Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland leaders responded by demonstrating for reproductive choice in Ohio and across the nation, but the violence continued to escalate. In 1993, anti-choice agitators bombed and vandalized 50 U.S. birth control clinics. In Cleveland, Planned Parenthood led a strong community response, which included training hundreds of volunteers to monitor picketers at local clinics. It wasn't until 1994 that Congress enacted the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE), a law that protects reproductive health centers, their staff, and patients from threats, assault, vandalism, and blockades.
Despite the danger of backlash from anti-choice groups, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland was committed to providing local women with all available reproductive choices. In January of 1997, after careful planning and two years of lawsuits, PPGC began to offer abortion services at its Southeast center in Bedford. Only two other Planned Parenthood locations in Ohio offered this service. Clients responded gratefully and positively, and donations increased. That same month, violent protestors bombed a number of family planning clinics in Georgia, and local clinics, experiencing occasional harassment and threats, added security.
Threats of violence and loss of federal funding were not the only challenges Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland faced. In the early '90s, more infants died in Cuyahoga County than in 86 other Ohio counties. Planned Parenthood resolved to reduce those figures by reaching a greater number of people and preventing more unwanted pregnancies. The community's generosity to a $2.5 million 60th Anniversary Campaign allowed PPGC to open a new Southwest clinic in Old Brooklyn in 1990 and funded the start-up costs for abortion services.
In addition to high infant mortality rates, a high rate of teen pregnancy afflicted Cleveland in the '90s. In its number of teenage mothers, Cleveland was one of the top five U.S. cities. To address this problem, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland launched a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative, organizing an annual conference to educate middle school students, teachers, and parents about self-esteem and other topics related to sexuality.
In 1993, PPGC introduced the Let's Talk program, which encouraged parents and teens to communicate about premarital sex, abstinence, disease, pregnancy, and protection. Later, supporter Caroline Emeny funded an innovative teen pregnancy prevention program called Baby Think It Over. The wildly popular program uses computerized, lifelike baby dolls to teach teens about the responsibility and challenges of parenting. Teachers receive a complete curriculum with ready-to-copy materials that allow students to record their thoughts and experiences and guide classroom discussion. Like infants, the dolls cry often and required sustained attention from their young caregivers. Baby Think it Over continues to be one of the most popular community education programs.
At the end of 1996, Congress passed the federal Welfare Reform Bill, which included money to fund only those public school sex education programs that taught abstinence as the exclusive option for sexual health. Because Planned Parenthood's programs were a combination of abstinence and contraception, PPGC established a policy not to apply for funding that restricted the curriculum to abstinence. As a result of a 60th anniversary campaign that raised funds to support educational programs, it still managed to increase its efficiency and offer its clients a wider array of services. In the '90s, PPGC simplified record keeping and facilitated communication by putting its clinics and administrative offices online and linking them with a computer network. Improved communication meant better service for patients. Also in the '90s, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland began to offer menopausal services, colposcopy for the treatment of pre-malignant cervical conditions, to provide continuing education for social workers, and teachers, and opened a 24-hour automated phone line. The Facts of Life Line plays recorded information about pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, birth control, and other health topics for people who needed answers quickly and anonymously.
The 1990s also brought innovative methods of birth control to Cleveland women. Just one injection of Depo-Provera protected against pregnancy for three months. And, on February 25, 1997, the FDA declared emergency contraception safe and effective. When taken with 120 hours after unprotected sex, emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy. Though it had been available for years, few women or physicians knew about emergency contraception, because pharmaceutical companies didn't market it. By the late '90s, Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation became the first company to advertise birth control pills in popular magazines such as Glamour and People.
In 1999, after a nine-month battle with the Rocky River City Council, PPGC moved its Lakewood clinic to Rocky River. Funded by the Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Foundation, the larger and more modern Rocky River health center made services available to the widening Westside suburbs.
Later that same year, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland began to offer health services at welfare-to-work programs, domestic violence shelters, and other community sites. Initially funded by The Cleveland Foundation, the program was dubbed Roving HOPE (Hormonal Options without a Pelvic Exam). Working from a suitcase, a nurse practitioner and a family planning assistant provided reproductive testing and healthcare and taught about birth control methods and prevention of STDs. Much like PPGC's mobile clinic of the 1950s, Roving HOPE brought reproductive healthcare right to the clients' own neighborhoods.
Many of these initiatives were made possible by profits from fund raising efforts led by dedicated volunteers. In 1996, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland's annual holiday sale, the annual Christmas Mart (later the Holiday Mart) benefit, became known as "Celebrate!," and was transformed into an event where donated fine collectibles were sold to benefit PPGC. Led by volunteer Jean B. Sarlson, the event continues today and is PPGC's most successful fundraiser raising in excess of $70,000.
In 1996, PPGC hosted its first Party Politics event, an informal after-work gathering that offered young professionals a social opportunity to meet and discuss relevant current topics. The quarterly event remains a popular forum for everyone from local supporters to state legislators to learn about pressing legislation and new developments in reproductive health.
Through the decade, Planned Parenthood continued to advocate for reproductive freedom and access to affordable healthcare, in the tradition of its founders. In order to legally and effectively participate in the full range of legislative activities, PPGC established the Cleveland Planned Parenthood Action Fund (CPPAF), a 501(c)(4) organization, in 1994. Through such activities as voter education, direct and grassroots lobbying, and special political events, CPPAF educates and influences the general public and legislators about family planning and reproductive healthcare issues. CPPAF is one of only two Planned Parenthood affiliate 501(c)(4) organizations in the state of Ohio.
2000s - Venturing Abroad
At the dawn of a new century, Planned Parenthood stands as a mature organization with amazing potential for growth. In the face of intermittent resistance, the organization continues to break new boundaries. In the first years of the twenty-first century, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland has already set up a new clinic, traveled overseas, and expanded its service area at home.
In 2001, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland collaborated with local abortion provider, Preterm to open Cleveland's fifth family planning health center. Located in the Preterm facility on Shaker Boulevard, the health center operates two days a week on a walk-in basis and offers a full array of birth control and reproductive healthcare. The same year, Planned Parenthood health centers began to offer two new types of birth control, the NuvaRing and the Ortho Evra patch. Both long-acting methods contain the same hormones as birth control pills but have fewer side effects.
In 2002, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland was chosen to participate in PPFA's Global Partners program. Designed to advance international family planning initiatives, the effort coordinates inter-country exchanges and shared technical support between nations. Early that year, PPGC CEO, Betsey Kaufman and Bonnie Bolitho, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Stark County and also a Global Partner with India, and PPGC Board member, Gita Gidwani, MD visited family planning centers in India. And in May, four family planning representatives from India spent three weeks in Ohio, touring PPGC's health centers, talking with staff and meeting local officials. PPNEO's International work
Throughout its history, Planned Parenthood has faced opposition from extremist groups and dealt with periods of government or societal apathy. However, it has always endured and grown to meet the escalating need for reproductive healthcare. In 2003, PPGC extends its service area to include eight new counties: Lorain, Huron, Erie, Sandusky, Seneca, Lake, Geauga, and Ashtabula.
In the coming years, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland will continue to encourage all women to take control of their health, through education, healthcare services, and advocacy. It will give women and men the information they need to make choices that result in healthier lifestyles. It will promote the prevention of disease and unintended pregnancies and provide quality health services in a safe, supportive environment. And, as it has for 75 years, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland will protect the right of every woman to determine when to bear children so that every child is treasured and loved.
