NEWS: It's Over

Growing up in the Chicago suburbs in the mid-90s = NO access to services like Planned Parenthood. That was a drag, and I'm lucky my parents were somewhat understanding (read: didn't beat the shit out of me) when I had to ask for birth control. This is wonderful news, and having worked for PP from '96 to '02 in Phoenix, I think they do wonderful things.

Great record. What a voice...

Good to hear that as americans we still have the right to choose how we want to live and knowing that there is help out there if one chooses to use it! I would much rather see a woman, couple, or rape victim get an abortion than to see an abused (wether physically ot mentally) child wondering around in need of some support..I wonder if the christians have that avenue covered?! Those fuckers need to get off the soap box, get a job and stop themselves from getting into other peoples lives..mindless fucks...

Wow this is really great to hear...

I also love all of Bitch PhD's articles~ I've long been a supporter of Planned Parenthood, and women's reproductive rights.

There really needs to be more Planned Parenthood centers in some places. As far as I know, there is only one in my state, and they have to have bars across the windows because of problems they've had.

It's good to see common sense is slowly starting to come back. It saddens me that some people only see PP as an abortion clinic. My fiance was once called a Satanist in front of a Planned Parenthood. He had taken a friend of his to get her birth control. This was right before the bubble laws went into effect and the protesters would block the doors. Being 6'1", 280 pounds and a former high school defensive lineman helped clear a path. The mostly male group protesting asked his opinion on the abortion issue. His response was "When I can give birth, I'll let you know."

My fiance is Christian and doesn't personally believe in abortion. He does believe in a womans right to chose though.

According to research done by Steven Levitt, most babies that are aborted would have ended up being criminals anyways. Way to protect the general population Illinois!

Sadly I live in the back water state of Kansas. Where they are more worried about getting rid of abortion then they are about educating the children already here.

I am glad to see that somewhere is getting it right.

lets hope now that now they are there, they dispense good knowledge as well. One of my former girlfriends told me a story once from when she was 16 and went to the friendly family planning clinic about advice for suitable birth control. There was a number of pill based options and she wanted to know which one was best for her. They offered her straight away that nasty intravenous one (which medically speaking should not be given to women while in the middle of puberty.) she almost instantly had 'side effects' from it...after the 6 months had elapsed she back to them and said she hated it, it made her ill feeling, her menstrual went a.w.o.l on it, she had mood swings and generally wished she had never taken it. They responded that was part of the normal side effects. They offered her Diane 35 and in the same breath told her that it will make her breasts fuller and help keep her skin blemish free.
Call me Old fashion if you will, but was it unreasonable for me to think that they could have also told her that the mantle of birth control responsibility does not solely have to be on her shoulders?..that there is male oriented birth control as well? and that the male version not only helps prevent pregnancy, but also contracting sexually transfered infections and diseases?..is it old fashion of me to also think that doing a full consultation may have been useful in determining what would have been best for her? And that suggesting a known aggressive birth control method on a junior girl who had never used birth control before maybe not a good introduction to the topic for her?
I support the idea of birth control knowledge education, I support clinics like this one that tries to genuinely help empower people to take control of their reproduction and chose when to become parents. What i don't agree with is they often push the products that are most subsidized, products that can give daily side effects for months even though the girl in question may not be actually having sex for that time frame, she just wanted to know she is protected if she does from pregnancy and often hand out cheap prescriptions without looking into the girls medical history.
The story ended with her getting pregnant anyway. She did in fact use the pills she was given and she wondered how this could happen? She returned to the same national organisation and stated her case. They responded with "Did you take it everyday at the same time?..did you stay away from foods such as grapefruit? had you been on any antibiotics? " She replied in turn with " I was never informed that i needed to saty away from certain foods and other medications and take it precisely at the same time each day?..i didn't know that its effectiveness could be drastically lowered from certain things." They responded back with "You should have gotten proper medical knowledge of this product first and not just a prescription from a doctor and started taking it." They then couldn't see why she started to cry...it was because they were the same people who gave her the pill. They had so many people through their door she was just a number and they had forgot her..if they had ever checked her history they would have discovered she had been to see them every 6 months for a year and half and known what other methods they had given her, known what knowledge she had already been given.
My point is that often these establishments, even though they are trying to do a good thing, still get things wrong from time to time, they are only humans...but their practices need to be regulated and uniform.

If anything should be planned, it's parenthood.

I'm so happy about this

Yay!

I have to go through them because my insurance won't cover it due to my mom's job. I remember in high school I had to keep the fact that I was on the pill low key because she could in fact lose her job over it.


It pisses me off how people enforce their beliefs on others when it has NOTHING to do with them. Life could be so much easier for everyone if everyone would just chill out a little. I mean, I could see if people stopped me from taking a pill that slowly killed me; but it's ot affecting my health or anyone else's.

GRAWAR!

Me too.

Good for Planned Parenthood.

That's really unfortunate. My experiences at all of the Planned Parenthoods I've been to has been the exact opposite of what you described.