Former Planned Parenthood President Faye Wattleton On Why We’re Still Fighting for Reproductive Healthcare
Planned Parenthood Federation of America was founded on October 16, 1916, when Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in Brooklyn, New York, with her sister Ethel Byrne and Fania Mindell. All three women were quickly arrested (and were then arrested another six times), but that was just the beginning of their fight to provide access to reproductive healthcare to American women.
Today the non-profit organization is still under attack: for example, President Trump is actively trying to defund Planned Parenthood by block Medicaid reimbursements, which would impact millions of Americans, and the administration is rolling back the Obama-era stipulation that employer-provided health insurance policies include female contraceptive coverage.
On the 101st anniversary of Planned Parenthood, the trailblazing Faye Wattleton, who was president of the organization from 1978 to 1992, looks back at how she became an activist, and why she’s not surprised that we’re still fighting for access to reproductive healthcare today.