Baltimore’s loss is Planned Parenthood’s gain. Dr. Wen thinks outside the box. Planned Parenthood is about to get alot more interesting!
2
Our domestic taliban distorts morality just as the foreign Taliban and as does religion in general. They protect their imagination of a particular god instead protecting real people from the vagaries of existing as a human. Nothing is more dangerous as when any of us claims power over others to protect our imagination.
4
So Dr. Leana Wen is upset that there are actually people who believe in the sanctity of human life and seek to protect it and protest against the taking of human life via abortion. Cry me a river.
2
The embattled organization could barely keep its head above water under Cecile Richards, as much as I admired her leadership. Can a trained physician also double as a political warrior?
1
"Health care" will stop being "politicized" when it stops involving the deliberate killing of human beings. Which, for Planned Parenthood, will probably be never, given the obstinance of their leadership. If they divested themselves of the ghastliness of abortion, and focused on actual healthcare, they would deserve their elite public support. Instead, they speak in euphemisms about "safe, legal procedures" because they can't face the reality of their work. If Dr. Wen and her organization value a woman's autonomy enough to perform the killing of her unborn child on demand, they might as well just say so.
In the meanwhile, I rest my hope on a rising pro-life generation that stands for the universal human dignity and value and protection of all people, from womb to tomb, regardless of their age, race, sex, nationality, orientation, or income. Someday I hope the money we spend on endless war and glamorized abortion and giant prisons can instead be spent to help the poor and vulnerable.
1
Dr. Wen is a perfect leader for the great organization, Planned Parenthood!
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" The politicization of care deeply troubles me. That’s, unfortunately, the reality that we’re in."
Then tell your PAC to never endorse a Presidential Candidate again when more than one supports your agenda.
In 2016 Planned Parenthood endorsed Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders despite his long and consistent support of abortion rights, improved access to healthcare and universal coverage. The endorsement may have been by the PAC, but was reported as by and understood to be the group. From that time I have lost all respect for Planned Parenthood as you crossed a line and have never apologized or stepped back.
Your organization owes Senator Sanders a public apology over their unwise endorsement.
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What is wrong with these people who had sex and oppose Planned Parenthood? Nothing is 100% bullet proof in birth control tools or pills. Accidents do happen. Being a man who enjoys sex, I strongly support Planned Parenthood.
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@Usok
Us guys could significantly reduce the rate of abortions, if not eliminate them--if we ever stopped doing our part in creating unwanted or problem or crisis pregnancies. At least we should allow women to make their own decisions after we have left them in that very difficult position. We are a major part of the abortion problem.
3
We are so lucky you accepted this position Dr. Wen - thank you from the bottom of my heart. I believe overpopulation is the leading causes of most issues & Planned Parenthood is key in managing that population. It's called "planned" for a reason!
Homelessness, poverty, environmental stress, war, abuse, theft, violence... nearly all caused by limited resources... simple math problem... less people under duress, less issues.
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Thank you, Dr Wen. I went to Planned Parenthood during college and also once in my thirties when my obgyn office said I’d have to wait a couple of months to see someone (to relieve discomfort from an IUD).
I now have two beautiful, planned children with happy lives. I agree - how can anyone think Planned Parenthood isn’t ‘pro-life’? I feel extremely sorry for women and children who live in parts of the country where they don’t have access to Planned Parenthood - how oppressed they are.
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Best of luck to you, Dr. Wen. There has been a growing backlash against access to birth control. I have found this perplexing, because the same conservative groups that fight the ACA on their right to deny birth control will happily offer coverage for Viagra. Sexism seems to be at the heart of the anti-birth control movement.
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@Mary M
Some of it. Some of it is "good" old fashioned finger waving "morality". People just love to pass judgement.
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The biggest problem that I see in this country concerning birth control and abortion is the too- cozy relationship between government and religions that think family planning is immoral. They call themselves "pro-life," but their pro-life stance only concerns fetuses. After babies are born they don't care what happens to them, or their mothers. The pro-lifers are the same people who don't want everyone to have affordable healthcare and vote against a viable safety net for people who are unable to fend for themselves.
In the United States, the biggest indicator that a woman will never escape poverty or will fall into poverty is motherhood.
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@Carole A. Dunn
Not only that but 50% of the poor in America are children. Moreover, those would be children born to single mothers. So to reduce poverty in America things have to change when it comes to access to free education and reproductive health. Planned Parenthood should be expanded, not cut back.
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@Carole A. Dunn
Let's call the "pro-life" people what they really are - "pro-birth". They are not advocating the end of capital punishment which would be a pro-life stance. They are not advocating gun control. They are not advocating for programs to support the women they insist should have these babies. The hypocrisy is mind boggling.
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@Laurie
I wouldn't call them "pro-birth," I would call them "anti-sex."
I can remember the debate when abortion was still illegal in New York State. One of the standard anti-abortion lines was, "If she wants to play, she has to pay." In other words, if a woman had sex, she had to pay the penalty of getting pregnant and having a child.
In general, logic is a poor guide to understanding the anti-abortion mentality.
2
I am a life-long member of Planned Parenthood and am glad to see its sensible approach to women's health care carried on by the new head. Of course I think anyone who needs an abortion should have access to one, but we could save a lot of trouble by providing inexpensive birth control, the morning after pill, the IUD, the patch and other forms of birth control. As Adrienne Rich put it so well in Of Woman Born in 1970, if birth control were readily, cheaply, and nonjudgmentally available, no one would have an abortion. I wish Dr. Wen good luck in her term as the new president.
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Reply to Rebecca, I’m an educated woman in my forties but I have found the management of fertility and birth control to be both subtle and difficult throughout my life. For most of that time I had access to totally free birth control (through a combination of workplace benefits and the public health system in Canada).
Preventing pregnancy is not as simple as education and subsidies. The Pill fails, even when perfectly used, about 1% of the time — which sounds low but keep in mind that if you take it for 25 years then you have a 1 in 4 chance of having one more child than you would like.
For many women, too, the Pill can be a bad fit — whether for health reasons or for prosaic reasons like it can lower the sex drive.
IUDs can be painful to put in, can cause cramps and are not perfect either.
Every method can have failures and limitations, even when dealing with responsible and educated women (and not every woman is). There are no easy answers.
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@Rebecca Hogan,
I will add to that and say "if birth control were readily, cheaply, and nonjudgmentally available", poverty would also be eliminated, or at least greatly reduced, in just a few generations. so it makes economic sense too for the country and world.
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The inability to achieve a perfect solution is not an argument against a good solution. Would you recommend against the use of seat belts just because they are not 100% effective at saving lives? A 75% reduction in the abortion rate would be a blessing for all.
36
It's refreshing to hear the affirmation that being pro-life can and should mean just this: consideration of the life and well-being of the fully formed adult woman. Thank you, Dr. Wen.
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Until America removes the influence of the "church" - evangelical or Catholic - women will continue to be plagued by their inability to control their own lives - and that starts with preventing pregnancy through birth control and access to legal abortions.
This is also true for women around the world. How on earth can third world countries dig themselves out of poverty and corrupt governments as long as they continue to have children they can't feed. Again, religious zealots in America have pushed their agenda on these third world populations.
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I will be sending another contribution to PP today.
20
Congratulations Dr. Wen, and thank you.
To anyone who thinks that PP should describe itself as an "abortion prevention agency", I get your point, but I disagree.
In fact, we need to talk bluntly about abortion. We need to use the word. The downside is obvious - we'll never reach the folks who will not be able to see all the other great medical care that PP provides.
But abortion is indeed the crux of it. Sugar-coating "women's health" without the explicit inclusion of abortion allows medical schools to stop teaching the procedure and conservative governors to limit funding to PP and other clinics without seeming to be anti-choice.
Though I would never have an abortion myself for moral reasons, I consider the right to a safe, legal and accessible abortion one of the most important rights in America. It is a litmus test for my voting.
Abortion (not just contraception!) is the ultimate feminist issue. Don't back away from it.
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PP is a great organization that saves lives.
Most families only want a couple of kids, but want to wait until they can afford it. The number of babies born in the US to 20- or 30- somethings because they didn't have one when they were teenagers has to be in the millions.
i know children that are alive today only because their parents didn't have other children when they were too young to take good care of them, too young to be good parents.
Thank you for that.
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Alas, Dr. Wen does a disservice to her organization and her cause through her intolerance. I have been ardently pro-choice for 45 years. However, it is intolerant to say that anti-choice folks are simply trying to control women's bodies. Many have a sincere belief that abortion is murder, and there is no rational argument that makes their point of view less compelling than the pro-choice perspective.
Truly open discussion and mutual respect is critical in this very difficult topic.
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@MHW exactly how can you have an "open discussion" when your starting position is that the other side is committing "murder"? How exactly will you respect "murderers"? Seriously, explain it to me....
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I’m so glad to be past the time in my life when I have to practice birth control. By the time I was 31 and the mother of one child I knew I didn’t want any more children. I had a tubal ligation so that I would never have to have an abortion at some later date. I had good medical insurance in those days provided by my employer. Many women are not so fortunate.
There are also women who don’t hold religious beliefs about the sanctity of life. There are women who believe that the soul destined for that aborted fetus will find another physical body.
My point is that you shouldn’t be able to force your pro-life stance on those of us who don’t buy into that belief system. We won’t force you to have an abortion. Don’t make abortion illegal and force women back to the butchers who used to provide illegal back alley services. Keep it safe. Keep it as a last resort for failed birth control. Provide birth control to all women who need it. It makes economic sense.
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@MHW writes, "it is intolerant to say that anti-choice folks are simply trying to control women's bodies."
How so? It's obvious that by making abortion close to impossible these days, anti-choice people are indeed controlling what girls and women are able to do with their bodies.
In fact, the anti-choice folk are forcing them to carry unwanted fetuses to term. Month after month after month of enforced pregnancy, with no concern about the devastation this causes desperate females or the lives of pain and deprivation they are forcing upon the fetuses they claim to adore.
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I feel better now.
8
We increased our contribution to the Planned Parenthood Federation this year substantially this year. We believe strongly in the services that your organization provides. Years ago, we supported NARAL—but we urged them to support Republicans (largely from blue states) who were not opposed to abortion. NARAL, of course, did not listen to this counsel—and the abortion issue has largely now been drawn between the parties. We have continued to support the part of Planned Parenthood that is involved in direct service. As centrists, we have supported Democrats and Republicans and we deplore the politization of women’s health care between the parties.
In my view, Planned Parenthood should reach out to some of its opponents and propose a national adoption registry that would present realistic alternatives to women who wish to terminate a pregnancy. These days, when women are marrying in their 30s (and later) in order to pursue valued careers-they are faced with choosing very costly (and somewhat risky) procedures to have a child—or they attempt to adopt a child from abroad (an increasingly difficult challenge). We need to have a national adoption registry AND the right of a woman to have a legal abortion.
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@REM
Coming from a fully adopted family (grandfather/father/mother/sisters/me) I wonder how quickly such a registry would turn into a situation straight out of The Handmaids Tale, with women forced to term to benefit "worthy" families.
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@REM You make a strong case for turning girls and women into a nationwide adoption mill. These sinners (they had sex!) can be encouraged to endure unwanted pregnancies in order to provide infants to married infertile couples.
The unwillingly pregnant females, a large proportion of them too close to destitution to raise a child themselves, can help wealthy women put their prosperous careers first and enjoy the pregnancy-free acquisition of offspring.
Genius!
Dr. Wen exemplifies the reasons why I donate to Planned Parenthood.
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To women who oppose abortion: don't get one.
To men who oppose abortion: go away.
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This perspective is quite intolerant. Many good people believe that abortion is murder. These folks (I am not one) believe that the choice is between allowing a woman to murder her child, on the one hand, and saving her an unwanted pregnancy. Although this is not my perspective, there is no logical argument that makes this point of view less valid than camorrista's.
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@camorrista
That is kind of harsh and I say that as a supporter of abortion rights.
In 2018 abortions should be a fairly rare procedure. There are way too many good methods of birth control available. Like Bill Clinton used to say "safe, rare and legal".
Were I a woman I would be reluctant to have one except under some very narrow situations, but would never suggest limiting the rights of others.
@MHW Of course, it's invalid, because believing abortion is the same as murder is a religious belief, and we have a Constitution that specifies no establishment of religion, so that we don't have to live by someone else's religious beliefs.
2
The politicization of Health Care often is implemented with the carrot/stick of government funding. Planned Parenthood is the poster child for this phenomenon. It is threatened time and again with the withdrawal of funds earmarked for non-abortion services over the issues of birth control and abortion.
While I’m a committed advocate of single payer Health Care, the possibility that ALL Health Care could be similarly politicized frightens me greatly. As we slowly dip our toes into single payer, we need to ensure that the decision makers are well insulated from the political sphere. Politicians and the mobs they seem to currently thrive on should have no say-so over Health Care decisions.
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To end the politicization of healthcare, we would have to end all government funding of it and make it all a for profit business. In that way we could absolve the elected officials from any say as to who gets what treatment, procedures, medication and surgery. That is the basis of the free market. But the liberals view healthcare as a "right" which turns it into a huge political fight. We have "rights" as spelled out in the constitution, and healthcare is NOT enumerated, sorry. Americans would bring down the cost of providing for health if the free market actually was allowed to work. We have a cap on the number of doctors trained and by whom and for how much. So supply is constrained and demand is ever increasing, a sure fire way to make the costs go up. Pricing is opaque, done on purpose to confuse and eliminate competition which is how the doctors, hospitals and drug companies set it up. When was the last time any of these groups pushed for published pricing? Never is the correct answer. We have met the enemy and it is the voters who return these phony politicians to office, year after year.
5
@sob, you say, "Pricing is opaque, done on purpose to confuse and eliminate competition, which is how the doctors, hospitals and drug companies set it up." To that list, I would add insurance companies. And yet, you advocate ending "all government funding and make it all a for profit business." Do you not see the contradiction in your two statements. Healthcare in our country has always been based on the for profit model -- even the insurance industry inextricably tied to all the government programs -- and it has failed a large part of our population miserably. It has not created a market model of competition which you say would bring prices down, and it has excluded people of low, and even middle income, creating disasters when a catastrophic illness strikes. I believe the only answer is in single payer health care. It has worked effectively in many other countries. . . . why do we continue to insist that it won't work here?
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@sob Planned Parenthood has very clear pricing-- as someone who went uninsured when I was younger, their flat fees for services (and willingness to be very clear up front about what things would cost) was a huge help to me when I needed diagnosis of and treatment for my endometriosis.
I do object to the idea that simply removing government funding for all health care would have any impact on the politicization of abortion. The people who oppose a woman's right to choose may object to government funding because it's an easy target, but if all abortions were paid for by patients, anti-choice people would still oppose them.
9
Healthcare can never be a pure free market because demand is inelastic. If you are having a baby who needs to go to ER or you are an old man who is having a heart attack: you don’t google around for price comparison of hospitals near you - if you are lucky enough to live in an area that even has more than one. Even 2 - have you learned that in Econ class is called Oligopoly. Some rural Americans live hours to the nearest hospital! That’s complete monopoly in those markets. So no, we cannot make healthcare pure free market.
13
Congratulations Dr. Wen on your new position. Cecile Richards was an aspirational leader for the past 10 years and I’m certain you will also lead with integrity and commitment to protecting reproductive freedom. Now more than ever we need Planned Parenthood to provide medical services and educational programs throughout our country.
Thank you to the thousands of staff and volunteers at Planned Parenthood who provide services each day without judgment and with compassion.
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What I find insulting is Dr. Wen offering abortions and claiming she is all " about saving lives". I am a physician myself . I know what saving lives means. And abortion , the killing of a live fetus , is NOT SAVING LIVES.
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You should inform yourself about the reasons the Supreme Court made abortion a legal right— the medically unsafe conditions for many, the disparities based on income, residency, etc. And stop interfering in other people’s lives while you’re at it.
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Offering a safe legal procedure to a patient who has been informed with evidenced based choices and has chosen the procedure for her life and circumstance is the right thing to do and obligatory for the provider. If the procedure is against your personal beliefs, refer the patient to where she can exercise her right. It is that simple. It is so not about you. Taking her rights away for what you believe in sounds like an injustice. It is as if we as a society do not accept that a woman can understand information and make an informed decision. As if she needs Mike Pence et al to help her decide. Well, while that nonsense continues, I will continue to do what I feel a physician is supposed to do, help my patients.
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@samuel Then as a physician, you know perfectly well that the young girl or woman bearing that cluster of cells is herself a viable, meaningful, important life. The “fetus“ you refer to, that cannot survive outside of her living body, is OF her body. It is her decision to make, not yours.
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Congratulations to your appointment, Dr. Wen.
Pro-lifers force their opinion on all women. Pro-choicers do not force pro-lifers to have abortions. The hubris of pro-lifers is shameful.
Fingernails and hair have DNAs. It is conceivable that one day scientists can develop a baby from such DNAs. Would you forbid cutting fingernails and hair because such actions constitute prevention of life creation?
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Dr. Wen, welcome! Planned Parenthood is an abortion prevention agency. Keep that message out there fo us.
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I am a highly-educated woman and an atheist, so this is not about religion. I do not understand why PP has never been about giving women COMPLETE information about whether or not to have an abortion. There are millions of women who desperately want children but cannot conceive. Women are going to China and other foreign countries to adopt children. If women who go to abortion clinics were educated about bringing a fetus to term and giving it up to someone who would lovingly care for a child, then women could make informed decisions. BTW, the research seems to be clear about a fetus being a living organism. So I have a problem using my tax dollars to fund killing a fetus.
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@lpngleo
Your tax dollars are not being used to fund abortions. I’m a 67 year old man, I’ve educated myself. So should you.
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@lpngleo
As a highly-educated woman you know COMPLETE information about anything is not possible and if it were could not be shoved into the brain of a preoccupied woman and you do not have and do not know anyone who has COMPLETE information about pregnancy and what it means for a woman to terminate her own.
Just playing a low down self righteous game with ulterior motives.
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@lpngleo And I have a problem having my tax dollars going to the killing of thousands of already living children in th Middle East.
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C,mon,no one has politicized Planned Parenthood more than PP and its Democrat and Feminist base. The groups main purpose is to serve as an abortion factory and anyone who is not disturbed at the revelations which staffers have admitted on camera is not living in the real world.
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@marki And my question would be, have you ever been to a clinic? Several in my family have sought out their services and none of them had anything to do with abortion.
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@mark
In my twenties when I didn't have health insurance I went to Planned Parenthood for my annual exams. It was the only health care I got in those days. I've never had an abortion or been pregnant, largely because I went to PP and got excellent health care and contraception.
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@mark
Actually, Planned Parenthood's main purpose is to provide basic health care. When I was uninsured in my 20s and 30s, I was a patient at PP for more than ten years, in two states. I got annual checkups, Pap tests, and birth control. I did not have a regular physician at the time, and I received excellent care. I never had an abortion. You are seriously misinformed about PP and what it provides.
5
"What I have a problem with is when they — or the government — impose their will on women’s bodies and health."
Yet the abortionists routinely impose their will on the helpless baby in the womb - to the point of killing it.
The hypocrisy is beyond words.
5
Why does pro life end with birth?
Why not also include a ongoing fight to STOP WAR, especially wars started by the USA, and run by the Congressional Military Industrial Complex that receives most of our tax dollars!
Why are mainstream and evangelical Christian Churches not questioning the wars, the death, the money and protesting to end our wars?
Hypocrisy, hypocritical hypocrites.
53
perfectly stated. thank you
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@Richard How do you know they're not? Most of their children are the ones fighting after all. Don't you think it they know how bad it is?
1
I am going to take this opportunity to encourage you, Dr. Wen, to continue to consistently promote the idea of Planned Parenthood as an abortion prevention agency. It makes no sense for opponents of abortion, who are also very often opposed to providing assistance to mothers and children when they need it, to also try to eliminate the family planning services provided by PP. Abortion is such a very small fraction of what you do! Best wishes to you going forward.
26
@Jeana it's your perception of Planned Parenthood that must change. What you're suggesting is already the marketed name of the organization and also it's goal. Get onboard!
7
Does it seem that seemingly everything has become politicized? My father told me that in polite conversation one does not talk politics, sex, religion, and perhaps a few others I have forgotten. What it left was the weather, which is now a political football with global warming. Perhaps at times "coming together in what we can agree on" may seem a cliche, but I see no alternatives except the hysteria our nation has descended into. No hubris, moderation in all things, middle of the road I love. Civil conversation, discussion, respect, may lead to solutions nobody is happy with, but at least that will allow us to live together in a better harmony? There must be solutions as we cannot go on like this. I notice that these comments seem to focus on abortion, the most inflammatory issue when public health might be a better place to start. Where I live people seem to mind their own business and trust that neighbors and the country as a whole is muddling along best they can. We trust each to know what is best for them, not my way or the highway.
11
" Individuals can have their own views about abortion. What I have a problem with is when they — or the government — impose their will on women’s bodies and health. It’s insulting when people describe their anti-choice stance as “pro-life” — what I do is promote life and the well-being of women and families and communities. "
That's why abortion is about a woman's equal right to access whatever medical care she wants & needs.
Even in 1973, I wondered why the *men* on the court didn't see the issue that way rather than make it about *privacy*. I think if they had, we would have a ratified ERA and, while some would still vehemently oppose abortion, we would be much further along on this issue.
That's why whenever a politician talks about being pro-choice, they need to talk about women's rights & equality.
26
We just go round and round the mulberry bush.
Fundamentally, there are people like me who feel the government has no right to require a pregnancy to advance to birth - with limitations - despite the wishes of the women who bear the risks of both pregnancy and child rearing, and other people who feel that the government must at all costs protect the rights of the unborn.
We can't resolve it without simply deciding on a position of compromise and moving on. Since it is a political wedge issue we will not do that.
Pregnancy, birth control, reproduction are politicized because it secures votes. Until it doesn't we will live with "women's health" issues - as if "women's health" were some subset of real human health.
25
@Cathy
Agreed. Strictly from personal experience, I feel like the biggest problem comes from passionate single-issue voters/activists from the (kinda sorta) pro- life side constantly twisting the debate and refusing to resolve it until they get everything they want, no matter who or what else suffers.
10
Congratulations on your new position Dr. Wen! As a nurse case manager, I spend a lot of time offering education to patients in with a goal of enhancing health literacy. In simpler terms, I support women in taking charge of their bodies.
Sadly, many women still believe that the path to personal and socioeconomic prestige is having more children.
I'm excited to learn that according to your stats, 70% consider birth control over unplanned pregnancies! These 70 % may be reading the NYT. How do we reach the other 30%?
31