Balancing Act

Educator Must Juggle Roles as Teacher, Lobbyist

'So, what do we do at Planned Parenthood?" Elise Link-Taylor asked a group of teens in an after-school program at the Activities and Recreation Center last November.

"C'mon, anything. Name something."

"Pregnancy tests," one girl called out.

"Good, what else?"

"STD checks."

"Right. What else?"

"Don't you guys give abortions?" a boy's voice cracked, and a friend smacked his arm as if he'd just cursed in the presence of someone's grandmother. Everyone looked up at Elise.

"Yep. What else?" she said.

"See, I told you," the shamed respondent fired back.

Abortions account for less than 7 percent of Planned Parenthood's services, but getting past the "A-word" is a challenge. That's why Elise solicits it early and dismisses it casually. As the education and outreach coordinator for the Columbia Planned Parenthood, she is there to explain how to avoid abortions in the first place.

It can be hard to lobby under the banner of Planned Parenthood. Sometimes, it's even harder not to lobby at all. At its core, Planned Parenthood is a social service organization. But depending on who you ask, it's known as much for its health care as for its politics. As a Planned Parenthood educator, Elise straddles the two spheres every day.

On the agenda that evening at the ARC was a friendly game of sex jeopardy, boys vs. girls. "We're gonna go with condoms for 30," one boy announced, and the game was on.

Elise yelled out clues and tossed lollypops to the winners. She was tough — no calling out before she finished reading the question — but she was also funny, relaxed and fun.

This is just one of many Elises. As a trained actress, she personifies the adage that acting is reacting. Whether she is presenting at a school or a prison, arguing at a board meeting or counseling a herpes patient in her office, Elise's setting dictates her role; and like a pro, she surrenders to its needs.

One morning in late March, cars packed with women and plastered with bumper stickers cut through the parking lot at the Hollywood movie theater to meet a different Elise, this time a lobbyist. Her pen knocked against the clipboard with the sign-in sheet for this year's Pro-Choice Lobby Day. This was one occasion where Elise could shout that she works for Planned Parenthood and be greeted with cheers. Usually, the mere mention of her job evokes feelings ranging from hesitant to hostile.

That day, Elise was a hero. To the growing crowd of women huddled around her, she embodied the tireless lobbyist, a daily warrior of the movement for women's health. She stood in the cold, welcoming new arrivals, and you could see the words leaving her mouth in a cloud of air. Each frigid exhale was her battle scar.

Then, a bus — 30 minutes late — carrying lobbyists from Kansas City whisked off Elise and her companions and headed for the state Capitol. There, the group would join some 300 advocates for contraceptive rights and comprehensive sex education.

From her seat in the back, Elise shouted talking points, advising the other passengers how to defend the morning-after pill and what to say about cutting off Planned Parenthood's access to public schools. Her voice rang with passion and power.

Already, Elise's work in Columbia is limited to after-school programs. Although there is no official ban on Planned Parenthood within the Columbia Public School District, the organization has not been invited to speak in health classes for several years.

Sara Torres, the district's health and science coordinator, said Planned Parenthood failed the screening process for guest speakers several times and has since fallen out of demand. However, with four to five presentations each week, Elise still spends a lot of time in Fulton and other mid-Missouri schools.

The lobbyists gathered along the walls of the Capitol rotunda rallied against a bill proposed by House Reps. Cynthia Davis, R-O'Fallon, and Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, which sought to ban Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from schools and require students to have parental permission to be present during discussions of human sexuality. Its opponents dubbed the legislation, declared a priority by Gov. Matt Blunt, the "sex-miseducation bill."

On her Web site, Davis explained her bill like this: "It came to my attention that when abortion providers are teaching the class, there is a natural conflict of interest due to the fact that they make money from teen sex. Since all forms of contraception have a failure rate, the more students who are sexually active, the more business they get."

"Public institutions should not be fishing tanks (for abortion providers)," Davis later noted.

In her two years at Planned Parenthood, Elise said, she's often felt slighted or maligned by other groups who either question the organization's goals to decrease teen sex, unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases or don't want their names associated with the attention that surrounds Planned Parenthood.

As a result, Elise developed her confident, assertive character to defend her job against such attacks and to mask her insecurities that people won't take her seriously because of her age, 23.

During Lobby Day, the confident Elise buzzed up and down the legislative halls, soliciting legislators to vote against Davis's bill and instead to support the Prevention First Act, which calls for mandatory sex education in public schools that teaches about both abstinence and contraception.

At the session's end, neither bill had made it to a final vote.

"I'm scared of the politics involved in this job," Elise said, letting down her guard. "They can do as many studies as they want to show that abstinence-only education is not effective and even harmful, but if no one listens ..."

Never one to fret over politics in high school or college, Elise began working for Planned Parenthood two years ago. While growing up in Memphis, Tenn., she saw firsthand the devastation that befell her older brother, who died of complications of HIV when he was in his mid-30s.

When the previous education coordinator at Planned Parenthood left last June after nine months on the job, Elise accepted the offer. This month, she, too, will leave the post, when she moves to New York City to pursue her acting career.

In her office at Planned Parenthood, a small purple tile hangs above Elise's desk. "The truth will set you free," it reads, quoting Gloria Steinem, "but first it will piss you off."

The truth is that family planning, not abstinence-only programs, prevents unwanted pregnancies and abortions, Elise said. Within the walls of her office, she appears vulnerable, even a bit shy. If the words Planned Parenthood are in her introduction, this is not the Elise that will appear before you.

"I feel like if men had babies, our medical reproductive care would be incredible," she said. "It would be incredibly funded, with incredible access."

In many ways, the sex-education cause is a mixture of movements. Because most contraception is still aimed at the female body and because women carry and give birth, this is still very much a women's movement. This was evident during Lobby Day, where hundreds of women overwhelmed the few male faces in the crowd. To an extent, sex education is a racial issue as well.

As Kevin Hawkins, who leads male education programs at the St. Louis Planned Parenthood, said, black men and women have higher rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases than other races. And given the cost of health care in the United States, low-income citizens are also less likely to receive contraceptive options and medical attention for STDs.

Elise, by the way, calls them sexually transmitted infections, because she thinks "diseases" calls up an image of someone who is weak and permanently impaired.

But in its most public and volatile incarnation, the sex-education debate is about religion and culture — American culture.

Off the coast of Ireland, on a small island called Inis Baeg, men and women have sex fully clothed, infrequently and as quickly as possible, Elise read aloud from a large note pad to her young audience at the ARC. There, the female orgasm implies possession by the devil, and sexuality is never discussed.

"Rip that up," kids joked. It seemed silly to them to take this culture seriously.

On the other side of the world, Elise continued, in the South Pacific island of Mangaia, children are encouraged to masturbate and have sex at an early age. Nudity is ubiquitous, and the elders teach people how to maximize sexual pleasure.

"I'd like to go there," one teen announced, and again the crowd giggled.

"So, is the U.S. more like Mangaia or Inis Baeg?" Elise asked.

The room fell silent.

She took them down the list.

Are Americans comfortable with nudity?

Yes, some responded, but not for old people.

Do Americans talk about masturbation for women?

No.

For men?

Yes.

Do we talk to our parents about sex?

More giggles.

"Our adults in this culture are, like, abstinence only, right?" Elise asked. "Well, are kids having sex?"

Yes, the group said.

"Do parents know?"

The majority agreed that they do but that most choose to ignore it.

When it comes to sexuality, Elise said, how we feel about it and how we legislate it depends on the values of our society. But between teens and legislators, Elise is balancing two distinct sexual cultures, each one a reaction to the other. It's no wonder it takes an actress to do the job.

This story was originally published in the Missourian on July 27, 2006, and is part of a six-part series that provides a frank look at sex education from the points of views of the various individuals involved in educating teens.