Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood era When did Planned Parenthood come into existence? in 1939 as the Birth Control Federation of America.
When was the name changed to Planned Parenthood?
When was the name Birth Control Federation of America changed to Planned Parenthood?
Sanger worked with African American leaders and professionals who saw a need for birth control in their communities. In 1929, James H. Hubert, a black social worker and the leader of New York's Urban League, asked Sanger to open a clinic in Harlem. Sanger secured funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic, staffed with black doctors, in 1930. The clinic was directed by a 15-member advisory board consisting of black doctors, nurses, clergy, journalists, and social workers. The clinic was publicized in the African-American press as well as in black churches, and it received the approval of W. E. B. Du Bois, the co-founder of the NAACP and the editor of its magazine, The Crisis. Sanger did not tolerate bigotry among her staff, nor would she tolerate any refusal to work within interracial projects. Sanger's work with minorities earned praise from Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 1966 acceptance speech for the Margaret Sanger award.  From 1939 to 1942 Sanger was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America, which included a supervisory role--alongside Mary Lasker and Clarence Gamble--in the Negro Project, an effort to deliver birth control to poor black people. Sanger, over the objections of other supervisors, wanted the Negro Project to hire black ministers in leadership roles. To emphasize the benefits of hiring black community leaders to act as spokesmen, she wrote to Gamble:  We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.  New York University's Margaret Sanger Papers Project says that though the letter would have been meant to avoid the mistaken notion that the Negro Project was a racist campaign, conspiracy theorists have fraudulently attempted to exploit the quotation "as evidence she led a calculated effort to reduce the black population against their will".  In 1929, Sanger formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control in order to lobby for legislation to overturn restrictions on contraception. That effort failed to achieve success, so Sanger ordered a diaphragm from Japan in 1932, in order to provoke a decisive battle in the courts. The diaphragm was confiscated by the United States government, and Sanger's subsequent legal challenge led to a 1936 court decision which overturned an important provision of the Comstock laws which prohibited physicians from obtaining contraceptives. This court victory motivated the American Medical Association in 1937 to adopt contraception as a normal medical service and a key component of medical school curriculums.  This 1936 contraception court victory was the culmination of Sanger's birth control efforts, and she took the opportunity, now in her late 50s, to move to Tucson, Arizona, intending to play a less critical role in the birth control movement. In spite of her original intentions, she remained active in the movement through the 1950s.  In 1937, Sanger became chairman of the newly formed Birth Control Council of America, and attempted to resolve the schism between the ABCL and the BCCRB. Her efforts were successful, and the two organizations merged in 1939 as the Birth Control Federation of America. Although Sanger continued in the role of president, she no longer wielded the same power as she had in the early years of the movement, and in 1942, more conservative forces within the organization changed the name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a name Sanger objected to because she considered it too euphemistic.  In 1948, Sanger helped found the International Committee on Planned Parenthood, which evolved into the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952, and soon became the world's largest non-governmental international women's health, family planning and birth control organization. Sanger was the organization's first president and served in that role until she was 80 years old. In the early 1950s, Sanger encouraged philanthropist Katharine McCormick to provide funding for biologist Gregory Pincus to develop the birth control pill which was eventually sold under the name Enovid. Pincus had recruited Dr. John Rock, Harvard gynecologist, to investigate clinical use of progesterone to prevent ovulation. ("The Pill" (2009). PBS series. Retrieved November 29, 2009.) CANNOTANSWER
in 1942, more conservative forces within the organization changed the name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America,
Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Sanger used her writings and speeches primarily to promote her way of thinking. She was prosecuted for her book Family Limitation under the Comstock Act in 1914. She was afraid of what would happen, so she fled to Britain until she knew it was safe to return to the US. Sanger's efforts contributed to several judicial cases that helped legalize contraception in the United States. Due to her connection with Planned Parenthood, Sanger is a frequent target of criticism by opponents of abortion. However, Sanger drew a sharp distinction between birth control and abortion and was opposed to abortions throughout the bulk of her professional career, declining to participate in them as a nurse. Sanger remains an admired figure in the American reproductive rights movement. She has been criticized for supporting eugenics.

In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, which led to her arrest for distributing information on contraception, after an undercover policewoman bought a copy of her pamphlet on family planning. Her subsequent trial and appeal generated controversy. Sanger felt that in order for women to have a more equal footing in society and to lead healthier lives, they needed to be able to determine when to bear children. She also wanted to prevent so-called back-alley abortions, which were common at the time because abortions were illegal in the United States. She believed that, while abortion may be a viable option in life-threatening situations for the pregnant, it should generally be avoided. She considered contraception the only practical way to avoid them.

In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In New York City, she organized the first birth control clinic to be staffed by all-female doctors, as well as a clinic in Harlem which had an all African-American advisory council, where African-American staff were later added. In 1929, she formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, which served as the focal point of her lobbying efforts to legalize contraception in the United States. From 1952 to 1959, Sanger served as president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She died in 1966 and is widely regarded as a founder of the modern birth control movement.

Life

Early life 

Sanger was born Margaret Louise Higgins in 1879 in Corning, New York, to Irish Catholic parents—a "free-thinking" stonemason father, Michael Hennessey Higgins, and Anne Purcell Higgins. Michael had immigrated to the United States aged 14, joining the Army in the Civil War as a drummer aged 15. Upon leaving the army, he studied medicine and phrenology but ultimately became a stonecutter, chiseling-out angels, saints, and tombstones. Michael became an atheist and an activist for women's suffrage and free public education.

Anne accompanied her family to Canada during the Great Famine. She married Michael in 1869. In 22 years, Anne Higgins conceived 18 times, birthing 11 alive before dying aged 49. Sanger was the sixth of 11 surviving children, spending her early years in a bustling household.

Supported by her two older sisters, Margaret Higgins attended Claverack College and Hudson River Institute, before enrolling in 1900 at White Plains Hospital as a nurse probationer. In 1902, she married architect William Sanger, giving up her education.  Suffering from consumption (recurring active tubercular), Margaret Sanger was able to bear three children, and the five settled down to a quiet life in Westchester, New York. Margaret would become a member of an Episcopal Church which would later hold her funeral service.

Social activism 

In 1911, after a fire destroyed their home in Hastings-on-Hudson, the Sangers abandoned the suburbs for a new life in New York City. Margaret Sanger worked as a visiting nurse in the slums of the East Side, while her husband worked as an architect and a house painter. The couple became active in local socialist politics. She joined the Women's Committee of the New York Socialist party, took part in the labor actions of the Industrial Workers of the World (including the notable 1912 Lawrence textile strike and the 1913 Paterson silk strike) and became involved with local intellectuals, left-wing artists, socialists and social activists, including John Reed, Upton Sinclair, Mabel Dodge and Emma Goldman.

Sanger's political interests, her emerging feminism and her nursing experience all led her to write two series of columns on sex education which were titled "What Every Mother Should Know" (1911–12) and "What Every Girl Should Know" (1912–13) for the socialist magazine New York Call. By the standards of the day, Sanger's articles were extremely frank in their discussion of sexuality, and many New York Call readers were outraged by them. Other readers, however, praised the series for its candor.  One stated that the series contained "a purer morality than whole libraries full of hypocritical cant about modesty". Both were published in book form in 1916.

During her work among working-class immigrant women, Sanger met women who underwent frequent childbirth, miscarriages and self-induced abortions for lack of information on how to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Access to contraceptive information was prohibited on grounds of obscenity by the 1873 federal Comstock law and a host of state laws. Seeking to help these women, Sanger visited public libraries, but was unable to find information on contraception. These problems were epitomized in a story that Sanger would later recount in her speeches: while Sanger was working as a nurse, she was called to the apartment of a woman, "Sadie Sachs", who had become extremely ill due to a self-induced abortion. Afterward, Sadie begged the attending doctor to tell her how she could prevent this from happening again, to which the doctor simply advised her to remain abstinent. His exact words and actions, apparently, were to laugh and say "You want your cake while you eat it too, do you? Well it can't be done. I'll tell you the only sure thing to do .... Tell Jake to sleep on the roof." A few months later, Sanger was called back to Sadie's apartment—only this time, Sadie died shortly after Sanger arrived. She had attempted yet another self-induced abortion. Sanger would sometimes end the story by saying, "I threw my nursing bag in the corner and announced ... that I would never take another case until I had made it possible for working women in America to have the knowledge to control birth"; biographer Ellen Chesler attempted unsuccessfully to find corroboration of this story. There is the strong possibility Sanger might have deliberately fabricated the whole story as a propaganda technique.

This story—along with Sanger's 1904 rescue of her unwanted niece Olive Byrne from the snowbank in which she had been left—marks the beginning of Sanger's commitment to spare women from the pursuit of dangerous and illegal abortions. Sanger opposed abortion, but primarily as a societal ill and public health danger which would disappear if women were able to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

Given the connection between contraception and working-class empowerment, Sanger came to believe that only by liberating women from the risk of unwanted pregnancy would fundamental social change take place. She launched a campaign to challenge governmental censorship of contraceptive information through confrontational actions.

Sanger became estranged from her husband in 1913, and the couple's divorce was finalized in 1921. In 1922, she married her second husband, James Noah H. Slee.

In 1914, Sanger launched The Woman Rebel, an eight-page monthly newsletter which promoted contraception using the slogan "No Gods, No Masters". Sanger, collaborating with anarchist friends, popularized the term "birth control" as a more candid alternative to euphemisms such as "family limitation"; the term "birth control" was suggested in 1914 by a young friend called Otto Bobstei Sanger proclaimed that each woman should be "the absolute mistress of her own body." In these early years of Sanger's activism, she viewed birth control as a free-speech issue, and when she started publishing The Woman Rebel, one of her goals was to provoke a legal challenge to the federal anti-obscenity laws which banned dissemination of information about contraception. Though postal authorities suppressed five of its seven issues, Sanger continued publication, all the while preparing Family Limitation, another challenge to anti-birth control laws. This 16-page pamphlet contained detailed and precise information and graphic descriptions of various contraceptive methods. In August 1914, Margaret Sanger was indicted for violating postal obscenity laws by sending The Woman Rebel through the postal system. Rather than stand trial, she fled the country.

Margaret Sanger spent much of her 1914 exile in England, where contact with British neo-Malthusians such as Charles Vickery Drysdale helped refine her socioeconomic justifications for birth control. She shared their concern that over-population led to poverty, famine and war. At the Fifth International Neo-Malthusian Conference in 1922, she was the first woman to chair a session. She organized the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth-Control Conference that took place in New York in 1925. Over-population would remain a concern of hers for the rest of her life.

During her 1914 trip to England, she was also profoundly influenced by the liberation theories of Havelock Ellis, under whose tutelage she sought not just to make sexual intercourse safer for women but more pleasurable.  Another notable person she met around this time was Marie Stopes, who had run into Sanger after she had just given a talk on birth control at a Fabian Society meeting. Stopes showed Sanger her writings and sought her advice about a chapter on contraception.

Early in 1915, Margaret Sanger's estranged husband, William Sanger, gave a copy of Family Limitation to a representative of anti-vice politician Anthony Comstock. William Sanger was tried and convicted, spending thirty days in jail while attracting interest in birth control as an issue of civil liberty. Margaret's second husband, Noah Slee, also lent his help to her life's work.  In 1928, Slee would smuggle diaphragms into New York through Canada in boxes labeled as 3-In-One Oil. He later became the first legal manufacturer of diaphragms in the United States.

Birth control movement 

Some countries in northwestern Europe had more liberal policies towards contraception than the United States at the time, and when Sanger visited a Dutch birth control clinic in 1915, she learned about diaphragms and became convinced that they were a more effective means of contraception than the suppositories and douches that she had been distributing back in the United States. Diaphragms were generally unavailable in the United States, so Sanger and others began importing them from Europe, in defiance of United States law.

On October 16, 1916, Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic at 46 Amboy Street in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the United States. Nine days after the clinic opened, Sanger was arrested. Sanger's bail was set at $500 and she went back home. Sanger continued seeing some women in the clinic until the police came a second time. This time, Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, were arrested for breaking a New York state law that prohibited distribution of contraceptives. Sanger was also charged with running a public nuisance. Sanger and Byrne went to trial in January 1917. Byrne was convicted and sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse but went on a hunger strike. She was force-fed, the first woman hunger striker in the US to be so treated. Only when Sanger pledged that Byrne would never break the law was she pardoned after ten days. Sanger was convicted; the trial judge held that women did not have "the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception." Sanger was offered a more lenient sentence if she promised to not break the law again, but she replied: "I cannot respect the law as it exists today." For this, she was sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse. An initial appeal was rejected, but in a subsequent court proceeding in 1918, the birth control movement won a victory when Judge Frederick E. Crane of the New York Court of Appeals issued a ruling which allowed doctors to prescribe contraception. The publicity surrounding Sanger's arrest, trial, and appeal sparked birth control activism across the United States and earned the support of numerous donors, who would provide her with funding and support for future endeavors.<

In February 1917, Sanger began publishing the monthly periodical Birth Control Review.

American Birth Control League 

After World War I, Sanger shifted away from radical politics, and she founded the American Birth Control League (ABCL) in 1921 to enlarge her base of supporters to include the middle class. The founding principles of the ABCL were as follows:

After Sanger's appeal of her conviction for the Brownsville clinic secured a 1918 court ruling that exempted physicians from the law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptive information to women (provided it was prescribed for medical reason), she established the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB) in 1923 to exploit this loophole. The CRB was the first legal birth control clinic in the United States, staffed entirely by female doctors and social workers. The clinic received extensive funding from John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his family, who continued to make anonymous donations to Sanger's causes in subsequent decades.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated five thousand dollars to her American Birth Control League in 1924 and a second time in 1925.
In 1922, she traveled to China, Korea, and Japan. In China, she observed that the primary method of family planning was female infanticide, and she later worked with Pearl Buck to establish a family planning clinic in Shanghai. Sanger visited Japan six times, working with Japanese feminist Kato Shidzue to promote birth control. This was ironic, since ten years earlier Sanger had accused Katō of murder and praised an attempt to kill her.

In 1928, conflict within the birth control movement leadership led Sanger to resign as the president of the ABCL and take full control of the CRB, renaming it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB), marking the beginning of a schism that would last until 1938.

Sanger invested a great deal of effort communicating with the general public. From 1916 onward, she frequently lectured (in churches, women's clubs, homes, and theaters) to workers, churchmen, liberals, socialists, scientists, and upper-class women. She once lectured on birth control to the women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey. In her autobiography, she justified her decision to address them by writing "Always to me any aroused group was a good group," meaning that she was willing to seek common ground with anyone who might help promote legalization and awareness of birth-control. She described the experience as "weird", and reported that she had the impression that the audience were all half-wits, and, therefore, spoke to them in the simplest possible language, as if she were talking to children.

She wrote several books in the 1920s which had a nationwide impact in promoting the cause of birth control. Between 1920 and 1926, 567,000 copies of Woman and the New Race and The Pivot of Civilization were sold. She also wrote two autobiographies designed to promote the cause. The first, My Fight for Birth Control, was published in 1931 and the second, more promotional version, Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, was published in 1938.

During the 1920s, Sanger received hundreds of thousands of letters, many of them written in desperation by women begging for information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Five hundred of these letters were compiled into the 1928 book, Motherhood in Bondage.

Work with the African-American community 

Sanger worked with African American leaders and professionals who saw a need for birth control in their communities. In 1929, James H. Hubert, a Black social worker and the leader of New York's Urban League, asked Sanger to open a clinic in Harlem. Sanger secured funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic, staffed with Black doctors, in 1930. The clinic was directed by a 15-member advisory board consisting of Black doctors, nurses, clergy, journalists, and social workers. The clinic was publicized in the African-American press as well as in Black churches, and it received the approval of W. E. B. Du Bois, the co-founder of the NAACP and the editor of its magazine,  The Crisis. Sanger did not tolerate bigotry among her staff, nor would she tolerate any refusal to work within interracial projects. Sanger's work with minorities earned praise from Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr.; when he was not able to attend his Margaret Sanger award ceremony, in May 1966, Mrs. King read her husband's acceptance speech that praised Sanger, but first said her own words: "Because of [Sanger's] dedication, her deep convictions, and for her suffering for what she believed in, I would like to say that I am proud to be a woman tonight."

From 1939 to 1942, Sanger was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America, which included a supervisory role—alongside Mary Lasker and Clarence Gamble—in the Negro Project, an effort to deliver information about birth control to poor Black people. Sanger advised Dr. Gamble on the utility of hiring a Black physician for the Negro Project. She also advised him on the importance of reaching out to Black ministers, writing:

The ministers work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the [Birth Control] Federation [of America] as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

New York University's Margaret Sanger Papers Project says that though the letter would have been meant to avoid the mistaken notion that the Negro Project was a racist campaign, detractors of Sanger, such as Angela Davis, have interpreted the passage "as evidence that she led a calculated effort to reduce the Black population against its will".

Planned Parenthood era 

In 1929, Sanger formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control in order to lobby for legislation to overturn restrictions on contraception. That effort failed to achieve success, so Sanger ordered a diaphragm from Japan in 1932, in order to provoke a decisive battle in the courts. The diaphragm was confiscated by the United States government, and Sanger's subsequent legal challenge led to a 1936 court decision which overturned an important provision of the Comstock laws which prohibited physicians from obtaining contraceptives. This court victory motivated the American Medical Association in 1937 to adopt contraception as a normal medical service and a key component of medical school curriculums.

This 1936 contraception court victory was the culmination of Sanger's birth control efforts, and she took the opportunity, now in her late 50s, to move to Tucson, Arizona, intending to play a less critical role in the birth control movement. In spite of her original intentions, she remained active in the movement through the 1950s.

In 1937, Sanger became chairman of the newly formed Birth Control Council of America, and attempted to resolve the schism between the ABCL and the BCCRB. Her efforts were successful, and the two organizations merged in 1939 as the Birth Control Federation of America. Although Sanger continued in the role of president, she no longer wielded the same power as she had in the early years of the movement, and in 1942, more conservative forces within the organization changed the name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a name Sanger objected to because she considered it too euphemistic.

In 1948, Sanger helped found the International Committee on Planned Parenthood, which evolved into the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952, and soon became the world's largest non-governmental international women's health, family planning and birth control organization. Sanger was the organization's first president and served in that role until she was 80 years old. In the early 1950s, Sanger encouraged philanthropist Katharine McCormick to provide funding for biologist Gregory Pincus to develop the birth control pill which was eventually sold under the name Enovid. Pincus had recruited Dr. John Rock, Harvard gynecologist, to investigate clinical use of progesterone to prevent ovulation.  (Jonathan Eig (2014).  "The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution."  W. W. Norton & Company.  New York.  London.  pp. 104ff.)  Pincus would often say that he never could have done it without Sanger, McCormick, and Rock.  (Ibid., p. 312.)

Death 
Sanger died of congestive heart failure in 1966 in Tucson, Arizona, aged 86, about a year after the U.S. Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, which legalized birth control in the United States. Sanger is buried in Fishkill, New York, next to her sister, Nan Higgins, and her second husband, Noah Slee. One of her surviving brothers was College Football Hall of Fame player and Pennsylvania State University Head Football coach Bob Higgins.

Views

Sexuality 
While researching information on contraception, Sanger read treatises on sexuality including The Psychology of Sex by the English psychologist Havelock Ellis and was heavily influenced by it. While traveling in Europe in 1914, Sanger met Ellis. Influenced by Ellis, Sanger adopted his view of sexuality as a powerful, liberating force. This view provided another argument in favor of birth control, because it would enable women to fully enjoy sexual relations without fear of unwanted pregnancy. Sanger also believed that sexuality, along with birth control, should be discussed with more candor, and praised Ellis for his efforts in this direction. She also blamed Christianity for the suppression of such discussions.

Sanger opposed excessive sexual indulgence. She wrote that  "every normal man and woman has the power to control and direct his sexual impulse. Men and women who have it in control and constantly use their brain cells thinking deeply, are never sensual." Sanger said that birth control would elevate women away from the position of being objects of lust and elevate sex away from an activity that was purely being engaged in for the purpose of satisfying lust, saying that birth control "denies that sex should be reduced to the position of sensual lust, or that woman should permit herself to be the instrument of its satisfaction." Sanger wrote that masturbation was dangerous. She stated: "In my personal experience as a trained nurse while attending persons afflicted with various and often revolting diseases, no matter what their ailments, I never found anyone so repulsive as the chronic masturbator. It would not be difficult to fill page upon page of heart-rending confessions made by young girls, whose lives were blighted by this pernicious habit, always begun so innocently." She believed that women had the ability to control their sexual impulses, and should utilize that control to avoid sex outside of relationships marked by "confidence and respect". She believed that exercising such control would lead to the "strongest and most sacred passion". Sanger maintained links with affiliates of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology (which contained a number of high-profile gay men and sexual reformers as members), and gave a speech to the group on the issue of sexual continence. She later praised Ellis for clarifying "the question of homosexuals ... making the thing a—not exactly a perverted thing, but a thing that a person is born with different kinds of eyes, different kinds of structures and so forth ... that he didn't make all homosexuals perverts—and I thought he helped clarify that to the medical profession and to the scientists of the world as perhaps one of the first ones to do that.

Freedom of speech 
Sanger opposed censorship throughout her career. Sanger grew up in a home where orator Robert Ingersoll was admired. During the early years of her activism, Sanger viewed birth control primarily as a free-speech issue, rather than as a feminist issue, and when she started publishing The Woman Rebel in 1914, she did so with the express goal of provoking a legal challenge to the Comstock laws banning dissemination of information about contraception. In New York, Emma Goldman introduced Sanger to members of the Free Speech League, such as Edward Bliss Foote and Theodore Schroeder, and subsequently the League provided funding and advice to help Sanger with legal battles.

Over the course of her career, Sanger was arrested at least eight times for expressing her views during an era in which speaking publicly about contraception was illegal. Numerous times in her career, local government officials prevented Sanger from speaking by shuttering a facility or threatening her hosts. In Boston in 1929, city officials under the leadership of James Curley threatened to arrest her if she spoke. In response she stood on stage, silent, with a gag over her mouth, while her speech was read by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.

Eugenics 

After World War I, Sanger increasingly appealed to the societal need to limit births by those least able to afford children. The affluent and educated already limited their child-bearing, while the poor and uneducated lacked access to contraception and information about birth control. Here she found an area of overlap with eugenicists. She believed that they both sought to "assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit." She distinguished herself from other eugenicists, by writing " imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her duty to the state. We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother." Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics, which aimed to improve human hereditary traits through social intervention by reducing the reproduction of those who were considered unfit.

Sanger's view of eugenics was influenced by Havelock Ellis and other British eugenicists,  including H. G. Wells, with whom she formed a close, lasting friendship.  She did not speak specifically to the idea of race or ethnicity being determining factors and "although Sanger articulated birth control in terms of racial betterment and, like most old-stock Americans, supported restricted immigration, she always defined fitness in individual rather than racial terms." Instead, she stressed limiting the number of births to live within one's economic ability to raise and support healthy children. This would lead to a betterment of society and the human race. Sanger's view put her at odds with leading American eugenicists, such as Charles Davenport, who took a racist view of inherited traits. In A History of the Birth Control Movement in America, Engelman also noted that "Sanger quite effortlessly looked the other way when others spouted racist speech. She had no reservations about relying on flawed and overtly racist works to serve her own propaganda needs."

In "The Morality of Birth Control", a 1921 speech, she divided society into three groups: the "educated and informed" class that regulated the size of their families, the "intelligent and responsible" who desired to control their families in spite of lacking the means or the knowledge, and the "irresponsible and reckless people" whose religious scruples "prevent their exercising control over their numbers". Sanger concludes, "There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped."

Sanger's eugenics policies included an exclusionary immigration policy, free access to birth control methods, and full family planning autonomy for the able-minded, as well as compulsory segregation or sterilization for the "profoundly retarded". Sanger wrote, "we [do not] believe that the community could or should send to the lethal chamber the defective progeny resulting from irresponsible and unintelligent breeding."  In The Pivot of Civilization she criticized certain charity organizations for providing free obstetric and immediate post-birth care to indigent women without also providing information about birth control nor any assistance in raising or educating the children.  By such charities, she wrote, "The poor woman is taught how to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid bringing into the world her eighth."

In personal correspondence she expressed her sadness about the aggressive and lethal Nazi eugenics program, and donated to the American Council Against Nazi Propaganda.

Sanger believed that self-determining motherhood was the only unshakable foundation for racial betterment. Initially she advocated that the responsibility for birth control should remain with able-minded individual parents rather than the state. Later, she proposed that "Permits for parenthood shall be issued upon application by city, county, or state authorities to married couples," but added that the requirement should be implemented by state advocacy and reward for complying, not enforced by punishing anyone for violating it.

She was supported by one of the most racist authors in America in the 1920s, the Klansman Lothrop Stoddard, who was a founding member of the Board of Directors of Sanger's American Birth Control League. Chesler comments:

Abortion 

Margaret Sanger opposed abortion and sharply distinguished it from birth control. She believed that the latter is a fundamental right of women and the former is a shameful crime. In 1916, when she opened her first birth control clinic, she was employing harsh rhetoric against abortion. Flyers she distributed to women exhorted them in all capitals: "Do not kill, do not take life, but prevent." Sanger's patients at that time were told "that abortion was the wrong way—no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but it was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun."  Sanger consistently distanced herself from any calls for legal access to abortion, arguing that legal access to contraceptives would remove the need for abortion. Ann Hibner Koblitz has argued that Sanger's anti-abortion stance contributed to the further stigmatization of abortion and impeded the growth of the broader reproductive rights movement.

While Margaret Sanger condemned abortion as a method of family limitation, she was not opposed to abortion intended to save a woman's life. Furthermore, in 1932, Margaret Sanger directed the Clinical Research Bureau to start referring patients to hospitals for therapeutic abortions when indicated by an examining physician. She also advocated for birth control so that the pregnancies that led to therapeutic abortions could be prevented in the first place.

Legacy 

Sanger's writings are curated by two universities: New York University's history department maintains the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, and Smith College's Sophia Smith Collection maintains the Margaret Sanger Papers collection.

Sanger's story also features in several biographies, including David Kennedy's biography Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970), which won the Bancroft Prize and the John Gilmary Shea Prize. She is also the subject of the television films Portrait of a Rebel: The Remarkable Mrs. Sanger (1980), and Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story (1995). In 2013, the American cartoonist Peter Bagge published Woman Rebel, a full-length graphic-novel biography of Sanger.  In 2016, Sabrina Jones published the graphic novel "Our Lady of Birth Control: A Cartoonist's Encounter With Margaret Sanger."

Sanger has been recognized with several honors. Her speech  "Children's Era", given in 1925, is listed as #81 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank). Sanger was an inspiration for Wonder Woman, a comic-book character introduced by William Marston in 1941. Marston was influenced by early feminist thought while in college, and later formed a romantic relationship with Sanger's niece, Olive Byrne. According to Jill Lepore, several Wonder Woman story lines were at least in part inspired by Sanger, like the character's involvement with different labor strikes and protests. Between (and including) 1953 and 1963, Sanger was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 31 times. In 1957, the American Humanist Association named her Humanist of the Year. In 1966, Planned Parenthood began issuing its Margaret Sanger Awards annually to honor "individuals of distinction in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering reproductive health and reproductive rights". The 1979 artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for her. In 1981, Sanger was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 1976, she was inducted into the first class of the Steuben County (NY) Hall of Fame.  In 1993, the United States National Park Service designated the Margaret Sanger Clinic—where she provided birth-control services in New York in the mid-twentieth century—as a National Historic Landmark. As well, government authorities and other institutions have memorialized Sanger by dedicating several landmarks in her name, including a residential building on the Stony Brook University campus, a room in Wellesley College's library, and Margaret Sanger Square in New York City's Noho area. There is a Margaret Sanger Lane in Plattsburgh, New York and an Allée Margaret Sanger in Saint-Nazaire, France. There is a bust of Sanger in the National Portrait Gallery, which was a gift from Cordelia Scaife May. Sanger, a crater in the northern hemisphere of Venus, takes its name from Margaret Sanger.

Due to her connection with Planned Parenthood, many who oppose abortion frequently condemn Sanger by criticizing her views on birth control and eugenics.

In July, 2020, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced their intention to rename the Planned Parenthood headquarters on Bleecker Street, which was named after Sanger. This decision was made in response to criticisms over Sanger's promotion of eugenics. In announcing the decision, Karen Seltzer explained, "The removal of Margaret Sanger's name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood's contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color."

Works

Books and pamphlets 
 What Every Mother Should Know – Originally published in 1911 or 1912, based on a series of articles Sanger published in 1911 in the New York Call, which were, in turn, based on a set of lectures Sanger gave to groups of Socialist party women in 1910–1911. Multiple editions published through the 1920s, by Max N. Maisel and Sincere Publishing, with the title What Every Mother Should Know, or how six little children were taught the truth ... Online (1921 edition, Michigan State University)
 Family Limitation – Originally published 1914 as a 16-page pamphlet; also published in several later editions. Online (1917, 6th edition, Michigan State University); Online (1920 English edition, Bakunin Press, revised by author from 9th American edition);
 What Every Girl Should Know – Originally published 1916 by Max N. Maisel; 91 pages; also published in several later editions. Online (1920 edition); Online (1922 ed., Michigan State University)
 The Case for Birth Control: A Supplementary Brief and Statement of Facts – May 1917, published to provide information to the court in a legal proceeding. Online (Internet Archive)
 Woman and the New Race, 1920, Truth Publishing, foreword by Havelock Ellis. Online  (Harvard University); Online (Project Gutenberg); Online (Internet Archive); Audio on Archive.org
 Debate on Birth Control – 1921, text of a debate between Sanger, Theodore Roosevelt, Winter Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Robert L. Wolf, and Emma Sargent Russell. Published as issue 208 of Little Blue Book series by Haldeman-Julius Co. Online (1921, Michigan State University)
 The Pivot of Civilization, 1922, Brentanos. Online (1922, Project Gutenberg); Online (1922, Google Books)
 Motherhood in Bondage, 1928, Brentanos. Online (Google Books).
 My Fight for Birth Control, 1931, New York: Farrar & Rinehart
 
 Fight for Birth Control, 1916, New York (The Library of Congress)
 "Birth Control: A Parent's Problem or Women's?" The Birth Control Review, Mar. 1919, 6–7.

Periodicals 
 The Woman Rebel – Seven issues published monthly from March 1914 to August 1914. Sanger was publisher and editor. Sample article The Woman Rebel, Vol. 1, No. 4, June 1914, 25, Margaret Sanger Microfilm, C16:0539.
 Birth Control Review – Published monthly from February 1917 to 1940. Sanger was editor until 1929, when she resigned from the ABCL. Not to be confused with Birth Control News, published by the London-based Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress.

Collections and anthologies 
 Sanger, Margaret, The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 1: The Woman Rebel, 1900–1928, Esther Katz, Cathy Moran Hajo, Peter Engelman (eds.), University of Illinois Press, 2003
 Sanger, Margaret, The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 2: Birth Control Comes of Age, 1928–1939, Esther Katz, Cathy Moran Hajo, Peter Engelman (eds.), University of Illinois Press, 2007
 Sanger, Margaret, The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 3: The Politics of Planned Parenthood, 1939–1966, Esther Katz, Cathy Moran Hajo, Peter Engelman (eds.), University of Illinois Press, 2010
 
 The Margaret Sanger Papers at Smith College
 The Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University
 
 Correspondence between Sanger and McCormick, from The Pill  documentary movie; supplementary material, PBS, American Experience (producers).  Online.

Speeches 
 Sanger, Margaret, "The Morality of Birth Control" 1921.
 Sanger, Margaret, "The Children's Era" 1925.
 Sanger, Margaret, "Woman and the Future" 1937.

See also

In popular culture

Graphic novels

Notes

References

Bibliography 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 Coigney, Virginia (1969), Margaret Sanger: rebel with a cause, Doubleday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

  Reprinted: 
 Lader, Lawrence and Meltzer, Milton (1969), Margaret Sanger: pioneer of birth control, Crowell

Historiography

External links 

 
 
 
 
 Margaret Sanger Papers at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College
 Interview  conducted by Mike Wallace, September 21, 1957. Hosted at the Harry Ransom Center.
 9 Things You Should Know About Margaret Sanger TGC—The Gospel Coalition
 Michals, Debra "Margaret Sanger". National Women's History Museum. 2017.

1879 births
1966 deaths
American birth control activists
American democratic socialists
American Episcopalians
American eugenicists
American feminists
American humanists
American nonprofit executives
American nurses
American women nurses
American people of Irish descent
American socialists
American women's rights activists
Claverack College alumni
Free speech activists
Industrial Workers of the World members
Liberalism in the United States
Members of the Socialist Party of America
People from Corning, New York
People from Greenwich Village
People from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
People associated with Planned Parenthood
Presidents of Planned Parenthood
Progressive Era in the United States
Progressivism in the United States
Sex educators
American socialist feminists
Women nonprofit executives
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. v. Bucci, 42 U.S.P.Q.2d 1430 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), an early Internet domain trademark infringement case heard in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, established the theory that hosting a site under a domain name that was the registered trademark of a third party constituted trademark infringement. The case was also important in determining what constitutes "Use in Commerce" under the Lanham Act in cyberspace. Although these holdings were modified and overruled by various American courts following the decision, Bucci stands as a seminal case for being one of the first cases to address these issues.

Parties
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.  is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.  The organization receives its funding from governmental grants and contracts as well as private contributions.

Planned Parenthood has been using the Planned Parenthood mark since as early as 1922 and registered the mark in the 1950s. At the commencement of the action, the Planned Parenthood mark was considered strong, famous, and incontestable under federal trademark law.

Richard Bucci, at the time of the decision, operated a daily Catholic Radio program in Syracuse, New York. Bucci operated websites at www.catholicradio.com and www.lambofchrist.com.

Background information
On August 28, 1996, Bucci registered the domain www.plannedparenthood.com. The site's homepage, as operated by Bucci, contained the text "Welcome to the PLANNED PARENTHOOD HOME PAGE!" The page also included a scanned cover of the book The Cost of Abortion by Lawrence Roberge. The site also included a text version of the book's foreword and afterword, quotes about the book, a section about the author, and the author's contact information.

Planned Parenthood filed a request for preliminary injunction citing trademark infringement under §§ 1114, 1125(a) and 1125(c) of the Lanham Act.

Opinion of the court
The question before the court was whether Bucci's use of the PLANNED PARENTHOOD trademark in the website's domain name violated the Lanham Act's provisions.

Trademark Infringement: Federal trademark law makes it a violation for a party to "use in commerce any reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive."

The court interpreted the "Use in Commerce" provision broadly to be co-extensive with Congress' commerce clause power under the Constitution. Accordingly, even though Bucci wasn't selling anything on his website, the court held that he violated this provision. First, the court held Bucci was in violation because he was helping Roberge "plug" his book.  Second, by promoting anti-birth control information, Bucci was providing a "service" to site viewers. Third, because Bucci had the domain name, people looking for Planned Parenthood's services may abandon their search for the legitimate Planned Parenthood site, and this interfered with Planned Parenthood's services.

Trademark Dilution: The Lanham Act also provides that the owner of a famous mark can enjoin a party's "commercial use in commerce of a mark or trade name, if such use begins after the mark has become famous and causes dilution of the distinctive quality of the mark."

Although Bucci claimed that his use of the mark was not commercial, the court held that the use was commercial for three reasons: 1) Bucci was involved in promoting a book; 2) Bucci was a non-profit activist who solicited funds; 3) Bucci's actions were designed to do commercial harm to Planned Parenthood.

Because these actions were held to be commercial, the court found that the domain name diluted the PLANNED PARENTHOOD trademark.

Impermissible Implied Sponsorship: Under Federal trademark law, a party infringes a mark if the use "is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person." The court held that because Bucci offered information relating to anti-abortion materials and solicited funds, he was acting commercially and therefore violated this provision.

Likelihood of confusion: Finding that Lanham §§ 1114, 1125(a) and 1125(c) were applicable, the court applied Second Circuit's eight factor Polaroid balancing test in determining if the use was likely to cause confusion. Because the bulk of the factors weighed in favor of Planned Parenthood, the court decided that a preliminary injunction was appropriate.

Bucci's Defenses: Bucci argued that he was protected because his usage of the mark was both parody and protected by the First Amendment. As for the parody defense, the court held that it did not apply because the initial site viewing did not contradict an internet user's assumption that the site was operated by Planned Parenthood. For the First Amendment defense, the court held that because Planned Parenthood wanted only to restrain Bucci's usage of their mark as a domain, and not his actual speech, the defense did not apply.

Conclusion

The defendant was barred from using the Planned Parenthood mark, making "colorable" imitations, representing the defendant (by offering information, products, or services), and from taking any other action in creating confusion for internet users or consumers in relation to the Planned Parenthood mark.

Subsequent proceedings

Bucci appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In a non-substantive summary order, the Second Circuit affirmed the trial court's reasoning and upheld the injunction.

Bucci then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, but certiorari was denied.

Following the denial of certiorari, the domain was transferred to Planned Parenthood in early 1999.

Subsequent legal developments
In Ford Motor Co. v. 2600 Enterprises, 177 F. Supp. 2d 661 (E. D. Mich. 2001), the court narrowed the Bucci holding by stating that the mere usage of a mark in a domain name in itself is not commercial, emphasizing Bucci's plugging of the book.

In Taubman Co. v. Webfeats, 319 F. 3d 770 (6th Cir. 2003), the Sixth Circuit declined to strictly follow the Bucci holding by stating that one of the reasons Bucci infringed was that Bucci adopted another party's mark without any other changes in the domain name and that the mere incorporation of a trademark into a domain was not, in itself, infringement.

In Bosley Medical Institute, Inc. v. Kremer, 403 F.3d 672 (9th Cir. 2005), the Ninth Circuit looked not just at the nature of a potentially infringing webpage, but also the nature of the outbound links from the page, before determining that there was not a use in commerce.

Because there has been no Supreme Court decision on the issue of what exactly constitutes a "Use in Commerce" under the Lanham Act with regard to the incorporation of a trademark into a domain name, it is difficult to say whether the Bucci case is still good law. However, because there have been so many divergent opinions and fact specific determinations from subsequent cases, it is not likely that the case would be strictly followed by other courts.

See also 
 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. Doughney

References

United States trademark case law
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cases
Planned Parenthood litigation
United States Internet case law
Domain Name System Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) and a member association of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). PPFA has its roots in Brooklyn, New York, where Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in 1916. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921, which changed its name to Planned Parenthood in 1942.

Planned Parenthood consists of 159 medical and non-medical affiliates, which operate over 600 health clinics in the U.S.  It partners with organizations in 12 countries globally. The organization directly provides a variety of reproductive health services and sexual education, contributes to research in reproductive technology and advocates for the protection and expansion of reproductive rights. Research shows that closures of Planned Parenthood clinics lead to increases in maternal mortality rates.

PPFA is the largest single provider of reproductive health services, including abortion, in the U.S. In their 2014 Annual Report, PPFA reported seeing over 2.5million patients in over 4million clinical visits and performing a total of nearly 9.5million discrete services including 324,000 abortions. Its combined annual revenue is , including approximately  in government funding such as Medicaid reimbursements. Throughout its history, PPFA and its member clinics have experienced support, controversy, protests, and violent attacks.

History

Origins 

The origins of Planned Parenthood date to October 16, 1916, when Margaret Sanger, her sister Ethel Byrne, and Fania Mindell opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in the Brownsville section of the New York borough of Brooklyn. They distributed birth control, birth control advice, and birth control information. All three women were arrested and jailed for violating provisions of the Comstock Act, accused of distributing obscene materials at the clinic. The so-called Brownsville trials brought national attention and support to their cause. Sanger and her co-defendants were convicted on misdemeanor charges, which they appealed through two subsequent appeals courts. While the convictions were not overturned, the judge who issued the final ruling also modified the law to permit physician-prescribed birth control. The women's campaign led to major changes in the laws governing birth control and sex education in the United States.

In 1921, the clinic was organized into the American Birth Control League, the core of the only national birth-control organization in the U.S. until the 1960s. By 1941, it was operating 222 centers and had served 49,000 clients.  In 1923, Sanger opened the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB) for the purposes of dispensing contraceptives under the supervision of licensed physicians and studying their effectiveness.

Some found the ABCL's title offensive and "against families", so the League began discussions for a new name. In 1938, a group of private citizens organized the Citizens Committee for Planned Parenthood to aid the American Birth Control League in spreading scientific knowledge about birth control to the general public. The BCCRB merged with the ABCL in 1939 to form the Birth Control Federation of America (BCFA). In 1942 the name of the BCFA was changed to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

1940s – 1960s 
Under the leadership of National Director D. Kenneth Rose, the PPFA expanded its programs and services through the 1940s, adding affiliate organizations throughout the country. By the end of World War II, the Federation was no longer solely a center for birth control services or a clearing house for contraceptive information but had emerged as a major national health organization. PPFA's programs included a full range of family planning services including marriage education and counseling, and infertility services. The leadership of the PPFA, largely consisting of businessmen and male physicians, endeavored to incorporate its contraceptive services unofficially into regional and national public health programs by emphasizing less politicized aspects such as child spacing.

During the 1950s, the Federation further adjusted its programs and message to appeal to a family-centered, more conservative post war populace, while continuing to function, through its affiliated clinics, as the more reliable source of contraceptives in the country.

From 1942 to 1962, PPFA concentrated its efforts on strengthening its ties to affiliates, expanding public education programs, and improving its medical and research work. By 1960, visitors to PPFA centers across the nation numbered over 300,000 per year.

Largely relying on a volunteer workforce, by 1960 the Federation had provided family planning counseling in hundreds of communities across the country. Planned Parenthood was one of the founding members of the International Planned Parenthood Federation when it was launched at a conference in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, in 1952.

In 1961, the population crisis debate, along with funding shortages, convinced PPFA to merge with the World Population Emergency Campaign, a citizens fund-raising organization to become PPFA-World Population.

Both Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger are strongly associated with the abortion issue today. For much of the organization's history, however, and throughout Sanger's life, abortion was illegal in the U.S., and discussions of the issue were often censored. During this period, Sanger – like other American advocates of birth control – publicly condemned abortion, arguing that it would not be needed if every woman had access to birth control.

1960s – present 

Following Margaret Sanger, Alan Frank Guttmacher became president of Planned Parenthood, serving from 1962 until 1974. During his tenure, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the sale of the original birth control pill, giving rise to new attitudes towards women's reproductive freedom. Also during his presidency, Planned Parenthood lobbied the federal government to support reproductive health, culminating with President Richard Nixon's signing of Title X to provide governmental subsidies for low-income women to access family planning services. The Center for Family Planning Program Development was also founded as a semi-autonomous division during this time. The center became an independent organization and was renamed the Guttmacher Institute in 1977.

Planned Parenthood began to advocate abortion law reform beginning in 1955, when the organization's medical director, Mary Calderone, convened a national conference of medical professionals on the issue. The conference was the first instance of physicians and other professionals advocating reform of the laws which criminalized abortion, and it played a key role in creating a movement for the reform of abortion laws in the U.S. Focusing, at first, on legalizing therapeutic abortion, Planned Parenthood became an increasingly vocal proponent of liberalized abortion laws during the 1960s, culminating in its call for the repeal of all anti-abortion laws in 1969. In the years that followed, the organization played a key role in landmark abortion rights cases such as Roe v Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992).  Once abortion was legalized during the early 1970s, Planned Parenthood also began acting as an abortion provider.

Faye Wattleton became the first African American president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1978. Wattleton, who was also the youngest president in Planned Parenthood's history, served in this role until 1992. During her term, Planned Parenthood grew to become the seventh largest charity in the country, providing services to four million clients each year through its 170 affiliates, whose activities were spread across 50 states.

From 1996 to 2006, Planned Parenthood was led by Gloria Feldt. Feldt activated the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF), the organization's political action committee, launching what was the most far reaching electoral advocacy effort in its history. The PPAF serves as the nonpartisan political advocacy arm of PPFA. It engages in educational and electoral activity, including legislative advocacy, voter education, and grassroots organizing to promote the PPFA mission. Feldt also launched the Responsible Choices Action Agenda, a nationwide campaign to increase services to prevent unwanted pregnancies, improve quality of reproductive care, and ensure access to safe and legal abortions. Another initiative was the commencement of a "Global Partnership Program", with the aim of building a vibrant activist constituency in support of family planning.

On February 15, 2006, Cecile Richards, the daughter of former Texas governor Ann Richards, and formerly the deputy chief of staff to the U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (the Democratic Leader in the United States House of Representatives), became president of the organization. In 2012, Richards was voted one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Richards' tenure as president of the organization ended on April 30, 2018. Current Planned Parenthood board member Joe Solmonese was appointed as transition chair to temporarily oversee day-to-day operations of Planned Parenthood after Richards’ departure.

On September 12, 2018, the organization announced that Leana Wen would take over as president, effective November 2018. Wen was removed as president of Planned Parenthood by the organization's board of directors on July 16, 2019. Alexis McGill Johnson, a board member and former chairwoman, became the organization's acting president.

Data breaches 
In October 2021, a hacker gained access to the Los Angeles branch of Planned Parenthood network and obtained the personal information of approximately 400,000 patients. On December 1, 2021, The Washington Post reported that the breach was a ransomware attack. The organization did not say if they paid the ransom or if the perpetrators made any demands. There was no indication as to who was responsible for the hack. The Metropolitan Washington branch of Planned Parenthood was also hacked in 2020 with donor and patient information compromised, including dates of birth, social security numbers, financial information, and medical data.

Margaret Sanger Awards 

In 1966, PPFA began awarding the Margaret Sanger Award annually to honor, in their words, "individuals of distinction in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering reproductive health and reproductive rights." In the first year, it was awarded to four men: Carl G. Hartman, William Henry Draper Jr., Lyndon B. Johnson, and Martin Luther King Jr. Later recipients have included John D. Rockefeller III, Katharine Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Turner.

Services 

The services provided by PPFA affiliates vary by location, with just over half of all Planned Parenthood affiliates in the U.S. performing abortions. Services provided by PPFA include birth control and long-acting reversible contraception; emergency contraception; clinical breast examinations; cervical cancer screening; pregnancy testing and pregnancy options counseling; prenatal care; testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections; sex education; vasectomies; LGBT services; and abortion. Contrary to the assumption of some, Planned Parenthood conducts cancer screenings but does not provide mammograms.

In 2013, PPFA reported seeing 2.7million patients in 4.6million clinical visits. Roughly 16% of its clients are teenagers. According to PPFA, in 2014 the organization provided 3.6million contraceptive services, 4.5million sexually transmitted infection services, about 1million cancer related services, over 1million pregnancy tests and prenatal services, over 324,000 abortion services, and over 100,000 other services, for a total of 9.5million discrete services. PPFA is well known for providing services to minorities and to poor people; according to PPFA, approximately four out of five of their clients have incomes at or below 150percent of the federal poverty level. Services for men's health include STD testing and treatment, vasectomy procedures, and erectile dysfunction services. Education is available regarding male birth control and lowering the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

Planned Parenthood won the 2020 Webby Award for Machine Learning and Bots for their Sex Education chatbot.

Facilities 

PPFA has two national offices in the United States: one in Washington, D.C., and one in New York City. It has three international offices, including a hub office in London, England. It has 68 medical and related affiliates and 101 other affiliates including 34 political action committees. These affiliates together operate more than 700 health centers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. PPFA owns about  in property, including real estate. In addition, PPFA spends a little over  per year for rented space. The largest facility, a ,  structure, was completed in Houston, Texas, in May 2010.

Worldwide availability 

PPFA's international outreach and other activities are performed by Planned Parenthood Global, a division of PPFA, and by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) which now consists of more than 149 Member Associations working in more than 189 countries. The IPPF is further associated with International Planned Parenthood Federation affiliates in the Caribbean and the Americas, and IPPF European Network, as well as other organizations like Family Planning Queensland, Pro Familia (Germany) (de) and mouvement français pour le planning familial (French Movement for Family Planning) (fr). Offices are located in New York, NY; Washington, D.C.; Miami, FL; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Abuja, Nigeria; and Nairobi, Kenya. The organization's focus countries are Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Kenya. The Bloomberg Philanthropies donated  for Planned Parenthood Global's reproductive health and family planning efforts in Tanzania, Nicaragua, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Uganda. Among specific countries and territories serviced by Planned Parenthood Global's reproductive planning outreach are Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic, Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Guyana, Cape Verde and Samoa.

Funding 
Planned Parenthood has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act, amending the Public Health Service Act. Title X of that law provides funding for family planning services, including contraception and family planning information. The law had support from both Republicans and Democrats. Nixon described Title X funding as based on the premise that "no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition."

Donors to Planned Parenthood have included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Buffett Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Cullmans, and others. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's contributions to the organization have been specifically marked to avoid funding abortions. Some donors, such as the Buffett Foundation, have supported reproductive health that can include abortion services. Pro-life groups have advocated the boycott of donors to Planned Parenthood. Corporate donors include CREDO Mobile.

In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014, total revenue was : non-government health services revenue was , government revenue (such as Medicaid reimbursements) was , private contributions totaled , and  came from other operating revenue. According to Planned Parenthood, 59% of the group's revenue is put towards the provision of health services, while non-medical services such as sex education and public policy work make up another 15%; management expenses, fundraising, and international family planning programs account for about 16%, and 10% of the revenue in 2013–2014 was not spent.

Planned Parenthood receives over a third of its money in government grants and contracts (about  in 2014). By law (Hyde Amendment), federal funding cannot be allocated for abortions (except in rare cases), but some opponents of abortion have argued that allocating money to Planned Parenthood for the provision of other medical services allows other funds to be reallocated for abortions.

A coalition of national and local anti-abortion groups have lobbied federal and state governments to stop funding Planned Parenthood. As a result, federal and state legislators have proposed legislation to reduce funding levels. Eight statesAlabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana,  New Hampshire, Ohio, and Utahhave enacted such proposals. In some cases, the courts have overturned such actions, citing conflict with federal or state laws; in others the federal executive branch has provided funding in lieu of the states. In some states, Planned Parenthood was completely or partially defunded.

In August 2015, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal attempted to end Louisiana's contract with Planned Parenthood to treat Medicaid patients at a time when there was an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in Louisiana. Planned Parenthood and three patients sued the state of Louisiana, with the United States Department of Justice siding with Planned Parenthood.

On February 2, 2016, the U.S. House failed to override President Obama's veto of  (Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015) which would have prohibited Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal Medicaid funds for one year.

Late in 2016, the Obama administration issued a rule effective in January 2017 banning U.S. states from withholding federal family-planning funds from health clinics that give abortions, including Planned Parenthood affiliates; this rule mandates that local and state governments give federal funds for services related to sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy care, fertility, contraception, and breast and cervical cancer screening to qualified health providers whether or not they give abortions. However, this rule was blocked by a federal judge the day before it would have taken effect. In 2017, it was overturned by new legislation.

The proposed American Health Care Act (), announced by Congressional Republicans in March 2017, would have made Planned Parenthood "ineligible for Medicaid reimbursements or federal family planning grants."

On August 19, 2019, Planned Parenthood voluntarily withdrew from Title X funding due to a regulatory gag order stating that medical institutions that receive Title X funding cannot refer patients for abortions.

Political advocacy 

Planned Parenthood is an advocate for the legal and political protection of reproductive rights. This advocacy includes helping to sponsor abortion rights and women's rights events. The Federation opposes restrictions on women's reproductive health services, including parental consent laws for minors.  To justify this position, Planned Parenthood has cited the case of Becky Bell, who died following an illegal abortion rather than seek parental consent for a legal one. Planned Parenthood also takes the position that laws requiring parental notification before an abortion can be performed on a minor are unconstitutional on privacy grounds.

The organization opposes laws requiring ultrasounds before abortions, stating that their only purpose is to make abortions more difficult to obtain. Planned Parenthood has also opposed initiatives that require waiting periods before abortions, and bans on late-term abortions including intact dilation and extraction, which has been illegal in the U.S. since 2003. Planned Parenthood supports the wide availability of emergency contraception such as the PlanB pill. It opposes conscience clauses, which allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense drugs against their beliefs. Planned Parenthood has been critical of hospitals that do not provide access to emergency contraception for rape victims. Citing the need for medically accurate information in sex education, Planned Parenthood opposes abstinence-only education in public schools. Instead, Planned Parenthood is a provider of, and endorses, comprehensive sex education, which includes discussion of both abstinence and birth control.

Planned Parenthood's advocacy activities are executed by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which is registered as a 501(c)(4) charity, and files financial information jointly with PPFA. The committee was founded in 1996, by then-president Gloria Feldt, for the purpose of maintaining reproductive health rights and supporting political candidates of the same mindset. In the 2012 election cycle, the committee gained prominence based on its effectiveness of spending on candidates. Although the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) shares some leadership with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the president of PPAF, Cecile Richards, testified before Congress in September 2015 that she did not manage the organization. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund has 58 active, separately incorporated chapters in 41 states and maintains national headquarters in New York and Washington, D.C. Planned Parenthood has received grants from the Obama administration to help promote the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare.

Political spending 

Planned Parenthood spends money on politics and elections through the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (its federal political action committee), through its Super PAC, and through a variety of related 501(c)(4) entities. Planned Parenthood endorsed Obama in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. In the 2014 election cycle, Planned Parenthood spent  on contributions to candidates and political parties (overwhelmingly to Democrats) and on independent expenditures.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court 

Planned Parenthood regional chapters have been active in the American courts. A number of cases in which Planned Parenthood has been a party have reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Notable among these cases is the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the case that sets forth the current constitutional abortion standard. In this case, "Planned Parenthood" was the Southeast Pennsylvania Chapter, and "Casey" was Robert Casey, the governor of Pennsylvania. The ultimate ruling was split, and Roe v. Wade was narrowed but upheld in an opinion written by Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter. Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens concurred with the main decision in separately written opinions. The Supreme Court struck down spousal consent requirements for married women to obtain abortions, but found no "undue burden"—an alternative to strict scrutiny, which tests the allowable limitations on rights protected under the Constitution—from the other statutory requirements. Dissenting were William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Byron White. Blackmun, Rehnquist, and White were the only justices who voted on the original Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 who were still on the Supreme Court to rule on this case, and their votes on this case were consistent with their votes on the original decision that legalized abortion. Only Blackmun voted to maintain Roe v. Wade in its entirety.

Other related cases include:

 Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth (1976). Planned Parenthood challenged the constitutionality of a Missouri law encompassing parental consent, spousal consent, clinic bookkeeping and allowed abortion methods. Portions of the challenged law were held to be constitutional, others not.
 Planned Parenthood Association of Kansas City v. Ashcroft (1983). Planned Parenthood challenged the constitutionality of a Missouri law encompassing parental consent, clinic record keeping, and hospitalization requirements. Most of the challenged law was held to be constitutional.
 Planned Parenthood v. ACLA (2001). The American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA) released a flier and "Wanted" posters with complete personal information about doctors who performed abortions. A civil jury and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals both found that the materials were indeed "true threats" and not protected speech.
 Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (2003). Planned Parenthood sued U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for an injunction against the enforcement of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Planned Parenthood argued the act was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment, namely in that it was overly vague, violated women's constitutional right to have access to abortion, and did not include language for exceptions for the health of the mother. Both the district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, but that decision was overturned in a 54 ruling by the Supreme Court.
 Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (2006). Planned Parenthood et al. challenged the constitutionality of a New Hampshire parental notification law related to access to abortion. In Sandra Day O'Connor's final decision before retirement, the Supreme Court sent the case back to lower courts with instructions to seek a remedy short of wholesale invalidation of the statute. New Hampshire ended up repealing the statute via the legislative process.

Other court cases 

Some state attorneys general have subpoenaed medical records of patients treated by Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has gone to court to keep from turning over these records, citing medical privacy and concerns about the motivation for seeking the records.

In 2006, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, a Republican, released some sealed patient records obtained from Planned Parenthood to the public. His actions were described as "troubling" by the state Supreme Court, but Planned Parenthood was compelled to turn over the medical records, albeit with more stringent court-mandated privacy safeguards for the patients involved. In 2007 Kline's successor, Paul J. Morrison, a Democrat, notified the clinic that no criminal charges would be filed after a three-year investigation, as "an objective, unbiased and thorough examination" showed no wrongdoing. Morrison stated that he believed Kline had politicized the Attorney General's office. In 2012, a Kansas district attorney found that the practices of the Kansas City-area Planned Parenthood clinic were "within accepted practices in the medical community" and dropped all of the remaining criminal charges. In all, the Planned Parenthood clinic had faced 107 criminal charges from Kline and other Kansas prosecutors, all of which were ultimately dismissed.

In 2006, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that Planned Parenthood was not required to turn over its medical records in an investigation of possible child abuse. In 2005, Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota was fined  for violating a Minnesota state parental consent law.

In 2012, a Texas state court judge, Gary Harger, denied Planned Parenthood request for a temporary restraining order against the State of Texas, concluding that the State may exclude otherwise qualified doctors and clinics from receiving state funding if the doctors or clinics advocate for abortion rights.

Impact 
A 2020 study found that closures of Planned Parenthood clinics resulted in increases in the maternal mortality rate: "Planned Parenthood clinic closures negatively impacted all women, increasing mortality by 6%–15% across racial/ethnic groups."

A 2016 study found that the exclusion of Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinics from Texas's Medicaid fee-for-service family-planning program was linked to reductions in the provision of contraception and an increase in child-bearing for women who used injectable contraceptives and who were covered by Medicaid.

Debate and opposition

Margaret Sanger and eugenics 

In the 1920s, various theories of eugenics were popular among intellectuals in the U.S. In her campaign to promote birth control, Sanger teamed with eugenics organizations such as the American Eugenics Society, although she argued against many of their positions. Scholars describe Sanger as believing that birth control and sterilization should be voluntary, and not based on race. Sanger advocated for "voluntary motherhood"—the right to choose when to be pregnant—for all women, as an important element of women's rights. As part of her efforts to promote birth control, however, Sanger found common cause with proponents of eugenics, believing that she and they both sought to "assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit".

Critics of Planned Parenthood often refer to Sanger's connection with supporters of eugenics to discredit the organization by associating it, and birth control, with the more negative modern view of eugenics. Planned Parenthood has responded to this effort directly in a leaflet acknowledging that Sanger agreed with some of her contemporaries who advocated the voluntary hospitalization or sterilization of people with untreatable, disabling, or hereditary conditions, and limits on the immigration of the diseased. The leaflet also states that Planned Parenthood "finds these views objectionable and outmoded" but says that it was compelled to discuss the topic because "anti-family planning activists continue to attack Sanger[...] because she is an easier target" than Planned Parenthood.

Abortion 

Planned Parenthood has occupied a central position in the abortion debate in the U.S., and has been among the most prominent targets of the U.S. pro-life movement for decades. Some members of Congress, overwhelmingly Republican, have attempted since the 1980s to end federal funding of the organization, nearly leading to a government shutdown over the issue in 2011. Planned Parenthood has consistently maintained that federal money received by Planned Parenthood is not used to fund abortion services, but pro-life activists have argued that the federal funding frees up other resources that are, in turn, used to provide abortions.

Planned Parenthood is the largest single provider of abortions in the U.S., but pro-choice advocates have argued that the organization's family planning services reduce the need for abortions; in the words of Megan Crepeau of the Chicago Tribune, Planned Parenthood could be "characterized as America's largest abortion preventer". Pro-life activists dispute the evidence that greater access to contraceptives reduces abortion frequency.

Undercover videos by anti-abortion activists 

Periodically, pro-life advocates and activists have tried to demonstrate that Planned Parenthood does not follow applicable state or federal laws. The groups called or visited Planned Parenthood health centers posing as victims of statutory rape, minors who by law need parental notification before abortion, racist donors seeking to earmark donations to reduce the African-American population, or pimps seeking abortions for underage prostitutes. As a result of some of these videos, several Planned Parenthood workers have been disciplined or fired. However, a 2005 review by the Bush administration's Department of Health and Human Services "yielded no evidence of clinics around the nation failing to comply with laws on reporting child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape or incest".

Live Action videos 

Beginning in 2010, Live Action released several series of undercover videos filmed in Planned Parenthood centers. Live Action said one series showed Planned Parenthood employees at many affiliates actively assisting or being complicit in aiding a prostitution ring, advising patients on how to procure sex-selective abortions, while one who said they would immerse a child born alive after a botched abortion in a chemical solution to make it stop moving and breathing. No criminal convictions resulted, but some Planned Parenthood employees and volunteers were fired for not following procedure, and the organization committed to retraining its staff. Additionally, one center was placed on probation.

Center for Medical Progress videos

Violence by anti-abortion activists 

In the U.S., abortion providers have been threatened with death, and facilities that provide abortions have been attacked or vandalized. Planned Parenthood clinics have been the target of a number of instances of violence by anti-abortion activists, including bombing, arson and attacks with chemical weaponry. In 1994, John Salvi entered a Brookline, Massachusetts Planned Parenthood clinic and opened fire, murdering receptionist Shannon Elizabeth Lowney and wounding three others. He fled to another Planned Parenthood clinic where he murdered Leane Nichols and wounded two others. In 2012, a Grand Chute, Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood clinic was subject to a bombing perpetrated by an unknown individual. In 2015, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Pullman, Washington was heavily damaged by arson.

2015 shooting 

On November 27, 2015, a gunman shot and killed two civilians and a police officer during a five-hour gun battle at the Colorado Springs, Colorado clinic. The 57-year-old gunman, Robert Dear, surrendered to police and was taken into custody. During his arrest, he gave a "rambling" interview in which, at one point, he said "no more baby parts", echoing language used in the news media about the clinic following the Center for Medical Progress videos. Dear was declared incompetent to stand trial for the shooting, citing experts' finding that he suffers from "delusional disorder, persecutory type."

See also 

 
 Timeline of reproductive rights legislation
 United States abortion-rights movement

Notes

References

Further reading 
 Manon Perry, Broadcasting Birth Control: Mass Media and Family Planning. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013.

External links 

 
 Planned Parenthood Action Fund
 
 Planned Parenthood Federation of America Records, 19181974 at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections
 Planned Parenthood Federation of America Records, 19282009 at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections
 Planned Parenthood at OpenSecrets.org
 United Nations: Every Woman Every Child

 
501(c)(3) organizations
American abortion providers
Health and disability rights organizations in the United States
Health charities in the United States
Non-profit organizations based in New York City
Organizations established in 1916
Abortion-rights organizations in the United States
Women's health
International Planned Parenthood Federation affiliates