I worked for planned parenthood for 6 years, in a clinic and in an administrative setting. While I certainly didn’t care for the “baby” instead of “fetus” language of this article, the content of the article was largely representative of my experience as a PP employee.
There was a constant pressure to see more patients, spend less time with each patient, and get patients out the door as quickly as possible. PP made no effort to hide their priority of expanding and opening new clinics while the current ones remained beleaguered and unable to keep staff more than a year. I did not experience unsafe working conditions like this article relays but if other PP employees say it then I believe it. It seemed evident that much of the donations were going towards legislative work (which, don’t get me wrong, is incredibly important) at the expense of improving clinics and staff well being.
During my time that PP, there was always this ever present fear of being attacked by outsiders, either politically or physically. I remember one training where we were told that if we were unsure of whether something we wanted to tell a patient was appropriate we should imagine whether we would want that same statement to be recorded and made public. This constant hum of being on the defense, of being watched, of always looking over your shoulder permeates all of PP. It leads to a culture of secrecy and insulation. There is a strong unspoken sentiment that any criticism of the org (whether coming from inside or outside of PP), regardless of it’s legitimacy, is fodder for the right and can be used to attack abortion rights. Essentially, the vibe was “don’t complain because republicans will use that against us and you don’t want to hurt the cause do you?” Doesn’t that sound manipulative to you?
Please don’t let your support of and commitment to abortion access cloud your ability to acknowledge that PP is capable of making mistakes and has a significant track record of doing so. Acknowledging this does not mean that you do not support PP; it’s makes the movement stronger when we can take accountability for our mistakes and work to redress harm. This is why we must acknowledge that Margaret Sanger partnered with eugenicists and contraception was tested without consent on Puerto Rican women and institutionalized women.
Refusing to acknowledge historical and current harms does not protect modern abortion access. Instead it makes us look foolish at best and outright violent at worst. Don’t put your head in the stand. You can support PP (as I do) and ALSO acknowledge its harm - both things can be true at once.
Also if your rallying cry is “trust and believe women” it’s not a good look to outright dismiss what these employees say in the article. You can’t only trust people when it’s convenient or aligned with your values. You have to trust people even when what they are saying is hard for you to accept.
We know anti-abortion is not about saving babies. While it is about control, keeping women less educated, less likely to become financially independent, etc. , I have not heard anyone talk about how this movement may be linked to the national deficit. I might be messing up what I’m about to say here, but:
A financial advisor said that for the deficit to come down you either raise taxes or increase productivity. In my mind, they are forcing births to create more able bodied working tax paying Americans. I hope I’m making sense. I am sleep deprived. I would love to hear your thoughts.
My biggest beef with Katie Benner's article about Planned Parenthood is that she did not emphasize the degree to which Planned Parenthood's financial difficulties are because right wing politicians have been putting pressure on them for years with the express goal of shutting them down. In Texas, they did shut down clinics when they forbade the use of Title X funds. And now Planned Parenthood of Texas is having to spend money that would be going to care on legal fees to respond to lawsuit that false accuses PPGT of fraud. The tragedy of it is that Texas Planned Parenthood no longer performs abortion, but the bitterness and vitriol has not stopped. This is all about spite. As the book by Serwer so aptly says, it's all about the cruelty.
It didn't even occur to me that that doctor could get arrested for going out of state even if she *didn't* go to Louisiana. That's just crazy.
I'm wondering if Planned Parenthood can change its bylaws so that it can give more money to clinics, or else establish a subsidiary that is just for funding clinics.
I see that both you and some commenters (Joan G below, also) pose minors with pregnancies as always being rape victims. This is not necessarily true. Consenting sex is possible between minors. Sex between a minor and an adult is statutory rape as a matter of law and properly so. A minor cannot practically be considered to have had consensual sex with an adult. But sex between minors, even preteens, is possible and may be capable of generating a pregnancy and under no circumstances should a minor female be required to bring it to term and give birth. I would go further and say that the girl should not be allowed to bring it to term and give birth. This should be an obvious threat to her health and welfare. The details of such circumstances should be addressed by those supporting reproductive rights to prevent such pregnancies and better confront these circumstances for advancing these rights and good relations between the sexes.
Jessica, this is the email I sent to the author of that hateful article in the Times, Kate Benner. I wrote it in a fit of fury.
In your piece, you state, “ Last year, a nationwide patient survey drew an overwhelmingly positive response, with most describing their visits as good or very good, though the survey represented only about 6 percent of the patients seen.”
Your writing is a lesson on how to organize topics and place emphasis so as to totally disparage the focus of the article.
Having spent 15 years with the Maryland affiliate, I know that Planned Parenthood, like every healthcare provider, particularly one’s of its size and scope, makes mistakes. How much research did you do into other healthcare providers of similar sizes? How many conversations with the staff of those places?
Because of the terrible stigma on anything to do with sex in this country, many women who come to Planned Parenthood, whether for birth control, routine gynecological care, or an abortion don’t respond to surveys. They also don’t write glowing praise for the same reasons.
But you Ms. Benner, have chosen to write an article which provides fuel to those who would rather see women bleed out in parking lots then get the treatment they need, would rather see 12-year-olds give birth to the child of their rapist than have an abortion, would rather force a woman of any age with the sense to realize they don’t at this moment have the ability, the resources, the support to adequately raise a child, to give birth to that unwanted child.
You say that you follow the tenets of ethics that demand “fairness and accuracy.” You have violated both of those in this piece of writing. “Accuracy” is not selective; “fairness” is absent when reporting is done to focus on negatives.
This is what happens when you elect republican politicians. Hatefulness, cruel bans, and disdain against women and girls. Republican states wanting to charge women with murder for having an abortion. This is all so ridiculous. I can't believe this is happening in America. For Shame on republican politicians!!!! Vote them out!!
The transphobic NYTimes can go die in a fire. It is causing more harm than good. And anybody still employed there is complicit in the harm it’s doing. May they all step on legos barefoot for the rest of their lives.
I worked for planned parenthood for 6 years, in a clinic and in an administrative setting. While I certainly didn’t care for the “baby” instead of “fetus” language of this article, the content of the article was largely representative of my experience as a PP employee.
There was a constant pressure to see more patients, spend less time with each patient, and get patients out the door as quickly as possible. PP made no effort to hide their priority of expanding and opening new clinics while the current ones remained beleaguered and unable to keep staff more than a year. I did not experience unsafe working conditions like this article relays but if other PP employees say it then I believe it. It seemed evident that much of the donations were going towards legislative work (which, don’t get me wrong, is incredibly important) at the expense of improving clinics and staff well being.
During my time that PP, there was always this ever present fear of being attacked by outsiders, either politically or physically. I remember one training where we were told that if we were unsure of whether something we wanted to tell a patient was appropriate we should imagine whether we would want that same statement to be recorded and made public. This constant hum of being on the defense, of being watched, of always looking over your shoulder permeates all of PP. It leads to a culture of secrecy and insulation. There is a strong unspoken sentiment that any criticism of the org (whether coming from inside or outside of PP), regardless of it’s legitimacy, is fodder for the right and can be used to attack abortion rights. Essentially, the vibe was “don’t complain because republicans will use that against us and you don’t want to hurt the cause do you?” Doesn’t that sound manipulative to you?
Please don’t let your support of and commitment to abortion access cloud your ability to acknowledge that PP is capable of making mistakes and has a significant track record of doing so. Acknowledging this does not mean that you do not support PP; it’s makes the movement stronger when we can take accountability for our mistakes and work to redress harm. This is why we must acknowledge that Margaret Sanger partnered with eugenicists and contraception was tested without consent on Puerto Rican women and institutionalized women.
Refusing to acknowledge historical and current harms does not protect modern abortion access. Instead it makes us look foolish at best and outright violent at worst. Don’t put your head in the stand. You can support PP (as I do) and ALSO acknowledge its harm - both things can be true at once.
Also if your rallying cry is “trust and believe women” it’s not a good look to outright dismiss what these employees say in the article. You can’t only trust people when it’s convenient or aligned with your values. You have to trust people even when what they are saying is hard for you to accept.
We know anti-abortion is not about saving babies. While it is about control, keeping women less educated, less likely to become financially independent, etc. , I have not heard anyone talk about how this movement may be linked to the national deficit. I might be messing up what I’m about to say here, but:
A financial advisor said that for the deficit to come down you either raise taxes or increase productivity. In my mind, they are forcing births to create more able bodied working tax paying Americans. I hope I’m making sense. I am sleep deprived. I would love to hear your thoughts.
My biggest beef with Katie Benner's article about Planned Parenthood is that she did not emphasize the degree to which Planned Parenthood's financial difficulties are because right wing politicians have been putting pressure on them for years with the express goal of shutting them down. In Texas, they did shut down clinics when they forbade the use of Title X funds. And now Planned Parenthood of Texas is having to spend money that would be going to care on legal fees to respond to lawsuit that false accuses PPGT of fraud. The tragedy of it is that Texas Planned Parenthood no longer performs abortion, but the bitterness and vitriol has not stopped. This is all about spite. As the book by Serwer so aptly says, it's all about the cruelty.
It didn't even occur to me that that doctor could get arrested for going out of state even if she *didn't* go to Louisiana. That's just crazy.
I'm wondering if Planned Parenthood can change its bylaws so that it can give more money to clinics, or else establish a subsidiary that is just for funding clinics.
I see that both you and some commenters (Joan G below, also) pose minors with pregnancies as always being rape victims. This is not necessarily true. Consenting sex is possible between minors. Sex between a minor and an adult is statutory rape as a matter of law and properly so. A minor cannot practically be considered to have had consensual sex with an adult. But sex between minors, even preteens, is possible and may be capable of generating a pregnancy and under no circumstances should a minor female be required to bring it to term and give birth. I would go further and say that the girl should not be allowed to bring it to term and give birth. This should be an obvious threat to her health and welfare. The details of such circumstances should be addressed by those supporting reproductive rights to prevent such pregnancies and better confront these circumstances for advancing these rights and good relations between the sexes.
Jessica, this is the email I sent to the author of that hateful article in the Times, Kate Benner. I wrote it in a fit of fury.
In your piece, you state, “ Last year, a nationwide patient survey drew an overwhelmingly positive response, with most describing their visits as good or very good, though the survey represented only about 6 percent of the patients seen.”
Your writing is a lesson on how to organize topics and place emphasis so as to totally disparage the focus of the article.
Having spent 15 years with the Maryland affiliate, I know that Planned Parenthood, like every healthcare provider, particularly one’s of its size and scope, makes mistakes. How much research did you do into other healthcare providers of similar sizes? How many conversations with the staff of those places?
Because of the terrible stigma on anything to do with sex in this country, many women who come to Planned Parenthood, whether for birth control, routine gynecological care, or an abortion don’t respond to surveys. They also don’t write glowing praise for the same reasons.
But you Ms. Benner, have chosen to write an article which provides fuel to those who would rather see women bleed out in parking lots then get the treatment they need, would rather see 12-year-olds give birth to the child of their rapist than have an abortion, would rather force a woman of any age with the sense to realize they don’t at this moment have the ability, the resources, the support to adequately raise a child, to give birth to that unwanted child.
You say that you follow the tenets of ethics that demand “fairness and accuracy.” You have violated both of those in this piece of writing. “Accuracy” is not selective; “fairness” is absent when reporting is done to focus on negatives.
You are a woman. How can you do this??
Excellent!!!
So glad to hear PP flooded the NYT with letters regarding the article. I wrote a few myself ;)
I feel like Barbara Kruger’s artwork, Who Becomes a “Murderer” in Post-Roe America? is perfect for this moment:
https://nymag.com/press/2022/05/on-the-cover-of-new-york-magazine-barbara-kruger.html
Thanks, Jessica for your comprehensive reporting. I’m keeping up with my monthly donations to Planned Parenthood.
This is what happens when you elect republican politicians. Hatefulness, cruel bans, and disdain against women and girls. Republican states wanting to charge women with murder for having an abortion. This is all so ridiculous. I can't believe this is happening in America. For Shame on republican politicians!!!! Vote them out!!
The transphobic NYTimes can go die in a fire. It is causing more harm than good. And anybody still employed there is complicit in the harm it’s doing. May they all step on legos barefoot for the rest of their lives.
R'Amen!