PPFA hiding from ideas of its roots

Today many women will celebrate what they call a historic victory for all who value their feminine dignity: the founding of Planned Parenthood. On Oct. 16, 1916 Margaret Sanger opened the first American birth control clinic. Her American Birth Control League later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) which commemorates its 90th anniversary today. For Dawn Eden, this anniversary is about anything but feminine dignity.

"Planned Parenthood presents us in such a way that we are reduced to our sexuality" and encourages the idea that "we may objectify one another with mutual consent," says Eden, a New York-based editor, freelance writer and author recognized for her critiques of Planned Parenthood and her smart and spirited blog "The Dawn Patrol." Her upcoming book, "The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On," examines the consequeces of adopting the attitudes promoted by PPFA and other giants of the reproductive rights movement.

PPFA's Web site, www.plannedparenthood.org, touts the organization as "the nation's leading sexual and reproductive health care advocate and provider." Its affiliates include countless well-known corporations, and as this country's chief abortion provider PPFA is determined to remain on the front lines of the ongoing abortion battle.

At first glance Planned Parenthood seems reputable, but the controversy surrounding its foundress has proven to be a skeleton in their closet, and a noisy one at that.

I won't waste space quoting Sanger at length. Read any of her writings and you'll discover that she was an outspoken racist, socialist and advocate of eugenics, a philosophy which promotes selective breeding and the elimination of the "unfit" to improve the human race.

Planned Parenthood has since attempted to disassociate itself from Sanger's extremism by adopting an inclusive, politically correct agenda. Nonetheless, her incontrovertible status as its heroine is problematic. PPFA condemns Sanger's endorsement of eugenics as "objectionable and outmoded," yet she remains the figurehead of its crusade to justify contraception and abortion on demand.

PPFA honors its high-profile partners with the Margaret Sanger Award annually, and Sanger's face adorns the emblem of its brand-new "Celebrating 90 Years" promotion.

Sanger's identification of contraception as a means of preventing abortion still figures prominently in PPFA's message. PPFA's Web site, updated this year, claims: "access to birth control is a powerful tool to prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion."

This assertion originated in Sanger's writing, but a shocking distinction must be made between her claim and PPFA's: Sanger's hope that contraception could end abortion was futile but sincere; conversely, Planned Parenthood is simply paying lip service to contraception advocates made uncomfortable by the moral questions abortion raises.

Sanger called abortion a "humiliating," "repulsive" and "painful" ordeal in her book, "Woman and the New Race." She acknowledged that it is unmistakably the "killing of babies in the womb."

PPFA says nothing negative about abortion. To counter persistent allegations that abortion harms women, it repeatedly calls abortion a "very safe" practice, even arguing that "abortion after the first trimester is as safe as or safer than carrying a pregnancy to term."

Pregnancy and childbirth are risky but natural processes. Under normal circumstances, a woman's body is well equipped to recover from any stress or strain triggered by pregnancy or childbirth. Abortion is a risky and unnatural procedure. Its safety can never be guaranteed, no matter what PPFA's spin doctors might say.

PPFA's misinformation and consistent opposition to laws mandating precautionary measures such as the twenty-four-hour waiting period or parental consent for minors having abortions dispel any remaining doubt about its absolute approval of abortion.

On one hand, this approval stems from the rationalization that the child in the womb is not a human being, an argument I addressed in my Sept. 6 column on the Plan B "morning-after pill."

On the other hand, it is part of a larger maze of fallacies. Advocating birth control means advocating sex without consequences. Removing the possibility of pregnancy opens wide the door for casual sex. However, since contraception is not 100 percent effective, the possibility of pregnancy still exists in contraceptive relationships, as does the possibility of abortion.

These inconsistencies are tied into a new sexual ethic which tells us: "if you're not having great sex all the time, you're not living." Or as PPFA puts it: "Sexual expression and relationships are basic human needs like water, food and shelter."

In other words, our urge to express our sexuality through sexual relationships is so strong that we're incapable of controlling it, and is so necessary that we'd be foolish to not let it govern our lifestyles.

Many college students embrace an allegedly "free" and "pleasurable" lifestyle that encourages casual sex. This lifestyle carries with it increased risks of suffering a multitude of unpleasant consequences, including countless shallow or unsatisfactory relationships, frequent breakups and emotional distress, recurring feelings of inadequacy, a lingering sense of having been used, not to mention STDs and pregnancy. It's worth noting that the contraceptive-minded view of pregnancy as strictly an "accident" or condition which should be avoided at all costs often leads young women to choose abortion.

Regardless of whether Sanger would be pleased with the present state of things - her writings suggest otherwise - she opened Pandora's box with her staunch advocacy of contraception.

The resulting sexual ethic is the unacknowledged root of the ever-passionate debate about contraception and abortion. The debate then must begin with the examination of rival attitudes toward sex and sexuality.