Planned Parenthood on... 

• Teen Sexual Behavior
• Abstinence Education
• Sex & Sexuality
• Babies & Pregnancy
• Youth
• Parents
• Abortion
• It's Employees who hurt Women
• Religion
• Pregnancy Help Centers
• Physician-Assisted Suicide
• Sources

Teen Sexual Behavior

"The Only Question is: What's Right for You?"

~ "Teen Sex? It's OK to Say No Way!" PPFA 1993

"If this is a girl you've just met and she agrees [to have sex], you're in the clear provided that she's old enough to have some sense."

~ "You've Changed the Combination!!!!" RMPP 1997

"[Teachers and parents should] help young people obtain sex satisfaction before marriage. By sanctioning sex before marriage, we will prevent fear and guilt."

~ Dr. Lena Levine, PPFA seminar, May 1953

"We've got to be more concerned about preventing teen pregnancies than we are about stopping sexual relationships."

~ Faye Wattleton, PPFA president, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1986

"The solution [to negative early sexual experience]…is to teach young people how to experience sexual pleasure, instead of teaching them to not have sex."

~ Bulletin, PPFC, Summer 1996

"When [teen] sexual activity is respectful, responsible, and healthy, it can be a positive, life enhancing experience."

~ A Matter of Fact, PPLM circa 1994

Abstinence Education

"[Teaching only abstinence] is a great disservice to young people."

~ Gloria Feldt, PPFA president, The Inquirer, May 4, 1997

"[U]rging abstinence while condemning all nonmarital sex is unrealistic and irresponsible."

~ INsider, PPFA, September 1994

"Abstinence-based education…programs also include information about non-coital [sex]…"

~ A Matter of Fact, PPLM, circa 1994

"Sexually active women and men who are concerned about unplanned pregnancy may choose to abstain from vaginal intercourse and engage in other forms of sexual activity…that does not lead to pregnancy. Many people refer to these options as 'outercourse.' However, whether people who practice outercourse would be considered sexually abstinent by other people would depend entirely on each individual's definition of sexual abstinence."

~ Response to a question about what constitutes abstinence, teenwire.com, PPFA, 2003

"We are not going to be an organization promoting celibacy or chastity. Our concern is not to convey 'shoulds' and 'should nots'…"

~ Faye Wattleton, PPFA president, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1986

"Sometimes the decision to design or use a 'chastity training' program is pragmatic, based on the opportunity to obtain funds and /or get into certain schools."

~ Susan Newcomer, PPFA director of education, "Is it O.K. for PPFA to Say 'No Way'?", undated (1986)

"It is essential to show the absurdity of …'abstinence only' and anti-condom crusades. We must…unmask their ideological motives. It is essential to demonstrate the truly dangerous consequences on their approach… more broken lives."

~ Steven Sinding, IPPF director-general, speaking at a Nordic meeting on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, March 2003

"[T]he throw-back thinking of Focus on the Family ['In Defense of a Little Virginity' advertisement] with its insidious message of sexual safety exclusively through abstinence is not only annoying, it is dangerous."

~ Bulletin, PPFC, April 1993

Sex & Sexuality

"Sex is fun, and joyful, and courting is fun, and joyful, and it comes in all types of styles, all of which are OK. Do what gives pleasure and enjoy what gives pleasure and ask for what gives pleasure. Don't rob yourself of joy by focusing on old-fashioned ideas about what's 'normal' or 'nice.' Just communicate and enjoy."

~ "The Great Orgasm Robbery," RMPP, 1981

"There are some people today who believe that premarital sex is always wrong-and some who say it is always right. But most people stand in the middle, acknowledging that there are times when sex before marriage is appropriate…"

~ "How to Talk to Your Teenager About the Facts of Life," PPFA 1988

"Many people believe that sex relations are right only when they are married. Others decide to have sex outside of marriage. This is a personal choice."

~ "Sex Facts," Planned Parenthood of Syracuse, 1977

"Sex with victims is always wrong. Sex without is always right."

~ "You've Changed the Combination!!!!," RMPP 1977

Babies & Pregnancy

"The fetus becomes a baby at birth."

~ "How to Talk to Your Teenager About the Facts of Life," PPFA 1995

"[B]abies are not sweet little things. They wet and dirty themselves, they get sick, they're very expensive to take care of."

~ "The Perils of Puberty," RMPP 1974

"BABIES ARE LOUD, SMELLY AND EXPENSIVE. UNLESS YOU WANT ONE."

~ Newspaper ad, Burnsville/Lakeville Sun Current, PPM/SD, October 16, 1996

"[U]nwanted pregnancy appears to be the second most [prevalent] sexually transmitted disease in our Country. What about the outcome of unwanted pregnancy? Without any treatment the natural history of unwanted pregnancy involves either a spontaneous abortion or a term delivery…[W]e conclude that unwanted pregnancy should be considered a sexually transmitted condition of epidemic proportion and moreover, that legal abortion is an effective, safe, and curative treatment for that condition."

~ "Abortion as a Treatment for Unwanted Pregnancy: The Number Two Sexually Transmitted 'Disease,'" David A. Grimes, Willard Cates, Jr., and Jack C. Smith, APPF, 1976

"The point is still under debate as to whether pregnancy is a disability, a disease, a choice or a right."

~ Rachel Cressman, PPFA program director, Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, July 20, 1978

"We are still unable to put babies in the class of dangerous epidemics, even though that is the exact truth."

~ Mary S. Calderone, PPFA medical director, 1968

Youth

"[Voices for Planned Parenthood] increases young people's awareness of current threats to reproductive health and rights, mobilizes them in support of reproductive freedom, and cultivates their long-term involvement with Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice movement."

~ Annual Report, PPFA, 2001-2002

"Emphasis shall be put on services [birth control, sterilization, abortion, etc.] to…teenagers and young adults."

~ Five-Year Plan, PPFA, 1975-1980

"You, the college students of today, are the future leaders of this country. Many student movements in this country and elsewhere have redirected repressive public policies and moved society in more positive directions…Your Campus for Choice group, as part of a nation-wide campaign on college and university campuses, has the same potential."

~ "Organizing a Campus-For-Choice Group: First Steps," PPFA, undated

Parents

"[T]ake the useful, smart stuff you've learned from your folks and kick the crap to the curb."

~ "To Know Yourself, Watch Your Parents," teenwire.com, PPFA, 2003

"Planned Parenthood opposes any limitation or restriction on the access of adolescents to confidential reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion."

~ "Mission and Policy" Statement, PPFA 1990

"There are certain things that you do not want to talk about to your parents…If you think your parents are great, that's wonderful. If you don't get along, that's too bad but it's no lifelong tragedy. How you feel about them isn't nearly as important as how you feel about yourself, and if you start thinking and talking about them all the time, you may find yourself still doing it at age fifty with no one listening."

~ "The Perils of Puberty," RMPP 1974

"[A]dults often 'overprotect' to the point that children and young people are denied information that will help them make more responsible decisions…Nowhere is this 'overprotection' more evident than in the area of sexuality. For children to make healthy and helpful choices regarding sexuality throughout their lives, they must be encouraged to make their own choices from the youngest ages."

~ Human Sexuality: What Children should Know and When They Should Know it, PPFA, 1987

Abortion

"[W]e have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say 'yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the woman's body, and therefore…her choice."

~ Faye Wattleton, PPFA president, Ms, May/June 1977

"By age five, children should: Understand the concept that a woman does not have to have a baby unless she wants to."

~ Human Sexuality: What Children should Know and When They Should Know it, PPFA, 1996

"I'm so proud of what we're doing, offering abortion…"

~ Shelley D. Stuchell, PPBEC, The Buffalo News, March 10, 2002

"[W]e have taken unequivocal and courageous stands…working for minor's access to abortion and contraception…and leading the way for abortion."

~ Gloria Feldt, PPFA president, INsider, Spring 1997

"We see abortion as a necessary, desirable service and as an integral piece of comprehensive reproductive health care services."

~ NEWS from CAPS, October 1990

"[F]or a lot of women this [abortion] is a positive decision…and they don't have to gnash their teeth and feel horrible guilt."

~ Faye Wattleton, PPFA president, Vogue, January 1992

"[R]eproductive choices…are not just legal rights but are recognized as moral necessities without which there can be no liberty."

~ Gloria Feldt, PPFA president, The Washington Times, January 22, 1997

"We're trying to shame the medical profession into doing its job. It's a breach of the public trust when you're graduated and licensed as an ob-gyn not to perform abortions."

~ Alexander Sanger, president of PPNYC, Kokomo Tribune, February 10, 1995

It's Employees who hurt Women

"[Robert D. Crist, who aborted three women who died shortly thereafter, is] one of the most skilled and competent and committed physicians performing abortions."

~ Patty Brous, Planned Parenthood of Mid-Missouri & Eastern Kansas, The Kansas City Star, April 27,1997

"'Only a handful of physicians in the country have his [Robert D. Crist] expertise,' particularly in second-trimester abortions."

~ Dr. Michael Burnhill, PPFA vice president of medical affairs, St Louis Post Dispatch, May 4, 1997

"Our association with Dr. Cunanan [on probation for committee abortions on two women and sterilizing another without their consent] has been longstanding and extremely positive."

~ PPNC, Niagara Gazette, October 2, 1997

"We are outraged by the ability of the New York State Health Deparment to essentially ruin an outstanding physician's [Fred H. Pulver] reputation [by releasing information about a disciplinary action against him]…"

~ PPHSNNY, The Daily Gazette, November 2, 1991

"[Fred H. Pulver, charged with a bungled abortion, has] an outstanding record of service with thousands of women and families…"

Religion

"[S]ome religious and semi-religious groups dominated by elderly men, simply cannot deal rationally with sex. They can't talk about it rationally, can't think about it rationally, and above all can't give up the power which controlling other people gives them. They control other people through sex. What groups? The Roman Catholic Church…the Ku Klux Klan, and certain fundamentalist churches…All of these groups control people through controlling their sexual activity. All of these groups are totalitarian groups which offer women no freedom of choice in sexual matters."

~ Jan Brittian, PPACA, April 7, 1978

"Choice on Earth"

~ text of "Holiday" card, PPFA 2002-2003

"I [now] have one more thing in common with … the first leader of Planned Parenthood-Margaret Sanger…the recipient of the Humanist of the Year Award in 1957."

~ Fay Wattleton, PPFA president, accepting the Humanist of the year Award, The Humanist, July-August 1986

Pregnancy Help Centers

"[T]o stop women from having abortions, anti-abortion activists have set up 'counseling centers'…Far from true counseling, these centers are designed to misinform and intimidate women-some will go to any lengths necessary to dissuade women.."

~ A Consumer's Alert to Deception, Harassment and Medical Malpractice," PPFA undated

"Beware of so-called 'crisis pregnancy centers'…They will lie to you about the medical and emotional effects of abortion."

~ "What if I'm Pregnant?" PPFA, 1993

Physician-Assisted Suicide

"Choice is choice."

~ Pamela Maraldo, PPFA president, U.S. News and World Report, April 25, 1994

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