Planned Parenthood’s Painful Past, Back to Haunt Us All
Editors’ Note: Today we’ve got a very special guest post from Kara Loewentheil, the president of the LSRJ board and a 3L at Harvard Law School. Kara brought this story to my attention and I suggested she write about it, since I couldn’t think out of fear that my head might explode. Luckily, Kara was able to keep it together. Here she is:
Although the conversation in question took place over the summer, it is only now making its way through the blogosphere: a taped recording of a phone call in which an anti-choice organization, posing as a racist prospective donor, offers a donation to Planned Parenthood of Idaho if they will use the money specifically to perform abortions on African-American women because, the fake “donor” said, “the less black kids out there the better.” It’s hard to even know where to start with how disturbing this story is, on multiple levels. First, of course, there is the fact that anti-choice organizations are using their time and money to try and trick reproductive health care providers into saying or doing something that can be used to stir up negative publicity. It’s this kind of duplicitous behavior aimed at not only tarnishing the reproductive justice movement but diverting its resources away from patient care and into defensive action and media response that many reproductive justice activists find incredibly frustrating.
But more important, of course, is Planned Parenthood of Idaho’s reaction to the fake donation offer. The charge of racism is particularly weighted in the reproductive health care and reproductive justice movements. While reproductive justice itself is a movement that was born out of the experiences of women of color in particular, the mainstream reproductive health and rights communities have often unfortunately been out of touch with the needs of marginalized populations, particularly poor women of color. The history of experimentation on the bodies of poor women of color in this country has given rise to a healthy skepticism about the ways that the mainstream medical community behaves in treating the reproductive health needs of women from these communities. It’s thus clear that even assuming the best of intentions, reproductive health care providers must go above and beyond in distancing themselves from this legacy.
Planned Parenthood of Idaho apologized for the caller’s responses and called her approach “a serious mistake.” Bloggers and activists have disagreed on how to interpret the tape - whether the Planned Parenthood employee was happy and eager to accept the donation, whether she was confused and flustered, etc. It’s impossible for us to know. You can hear the tape recording of the phone call here and read the transcript here, and see what you think for yourself.
Hopefully we can all at least agree not only that reproductive health care providers should be very clear about their rejection of such offers, and that we would all be better off if the anti-choice organizations making these calls would put their time, money, and volunteer energy into doing something that actually improved reproductive health care for women and their families.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
This is incredibly upsetting. There is no excuse for the employee reacting (or not reacting) the way she did. It is also unforgivable for the anti-choice organization to dangle the bait of the donation, knowing that many of these clinics are operating on tiny budgets and therefore are desperate for funding. Everyone please donate to your local clinic to help make up for the damage this publicity will do. Remember, this is designed to distract us from the basic truth that this very minute, there are women who need reproductive health services and these clinics are often the only place- especially in rural areas such as Idaho- that will help.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I think Madison makes a great point — that it’s possible that part of the reason why this clinic worker took the bait is that clinics are so hard up for cash that they are desperate. This is so because of the Hyde amendment, and also because of TRAP laws, which require clinics to spend money on unnecessary “improvements” to the facilities to meet state standards (which are implemented solely to squeeze clinics dry). That said, clinics may be desperate, but they must never allow their staff to stoop to racism.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
are you kidding me? I might agree with you if these were smaller franchise clinic chains, but this was Planned Parenthood…
With $300,000 coming in annually from the federal govt, they are in no means scraping for funds, and by the way, this incident happened in several Planned Parenthood locations as well, not just Idaho.
Now as a pro-lifer, does this really concern me too much? Not really. I oppose Planned Parenthood for other reasons then supposed racist motives that won’t really impact the media and the masses too much. I don’t believe pro-choicers are racist by any means, and neither do any of the other sane pro-lifers…
March 6th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Greg says: With $300,000 coming in annually from the federal govt, they are in no means scraping for funds..
Well, actually, 300 grand doesn’t go all that far, Greg. Think about how many services the clinics provide (gynecological exams, contraceptive services, abortion), and about how many clinics there are. Think about the expense imposed on clinics by TRAP laws. You may believe that abortion is wrong, but it’s not really up for debate that planned parenthood clinics could really use more money for operational expenses.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Communities of color are rightfully suspicious of eugenics movements and people geared at limiting their reproductive choices. However, the reproductive rights movement is not synonymous with racism. The recent shift in our group’s focus to the reproductive justice framework highlights the importance of ensuring reproductive self-determination so that parents can create healthy children when they want and not create them if they do not want to. It ensures that women and men have access not only to abortion services, but sexual education, contraception, health care, etc… The real demon is the Hyde Amendment, which excludes most abortion from health care services provided to low-income people through Medicaid. Planned Parenthood needs money to support women in low-income and in minority communities in understanding and exercising their reproductive choices, including accessing abortion services; however, the fact that Planned Parenthood would accept money from an obviously racist donor is shocking, wrong and not in line with the organization’s general philosophy.