Planned Parenthood: History, Legal Battles, and Advocacy

Introduction

The history of Planned Parenthood is voluminous and extensive, filled with controversy, legal disputes, and struggles for acceptance and federal funding. Even today, the organization faces threats of budget cuts from the federal government, and many people have turned to violence against Planned Parenthood and similar groups over the years due to opposition to abortion or other birth control options the organization is known for providing or advocating. What follows is a history of Planned Parenthood as well as some of the pivotal events and outcomes that have occurred over the decades. While Planned Parenthood has many detractors, it also commands a large and loyal base of support across the country.

The Founding of Planned Parenthood and Early Legal Struggles

Although the most significant judicial decision regarding abortion came with Roe v. Wade in the 1970s, Planned Parenthood has existed far longer than that. The organization was founded in 1916 when Margaret Sanger, her sister, and a friend opened the nation's first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. The country at that time was quite different from what it is today. Women could not vote, sign contracts, open their own bank accounts, or divorce abusive husbands. They also could not control the number of children they bore and could not legally obtain information about birth control. Many of the laws on the books at the time — several stemming from restrictive measures introduced in the 1870s — reflected a cultural context in which "family planning" was widely regarded as an obscene concept (Planned Parenthood, 2016).

Sanger was keenly aware of how damaging such rhetoric and laws were, and that awareness drove her convictions. Her own mother had endured eighteen pregnancies, of which only eleven went to term, and died in 1899 at the age of forty. Sanger had previously worked as a nurse with immigrant families on the Lower East Side of New York, where she witnessed firsthand the sickness, misery, and death that resulted from unplanned pregnancies and illegal abortions. The clinic she opened provided contraceptive advice to poor and immigrant women. Demand was staggering — lines would stretch and wind around the block. The local authorities responded swiftly and harshly: the clinic was raided, and all three women who ran it, including Sanger, were convicted of disseminating birth control information.

Sanger was not intimidated. She responded by founding The Birth Control Review, the first scientific journal dedicated to contraception. She appealed her conviction, and that appeal led to a more liberalized interpretation of New York State's anti-contraception statute. In 1923, Sanger opened the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in Manhattan, designed both to provide contraceptive devices to women and to collect accurate statistics proving the safety and long-term efficacy of those products. Also in 1923, she incorporated the American Birth Control League, widely seen as an ambitious effort to address global challenges such as population growth, disarmament, and famine. These two organizations eventually merged to become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) (Planned Parenthood, 2016).

In 1936, Sanger and her colleagues won their first major judicial victory. Sanger had arranged to have birth control products sent through the mail and notified postal authorities herself, prompting an arrest and a judicial review. Judge Augustus Hand, writing the opinion for the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, ordered a sweeping liberalization of the Comstock laws from the 1870s. The core of his ruling was that information about the dangers of unplanned pregnancies and the benefits of contraception could not be deemed obscene and therefore could not be lawfully suppressed. The decision's reach was limited, however, applying only to New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. It would take roughly another thirty years before its scope expanded more broadly.

In the shorter term, two important developments occurred in 1937. First, the American Medical Association recognized birth control as an integral part of sound medical practice and education. Second, North Carolina became the first state to recognize birth control as a public health measure, providing contraceptive services to low-income mothers through state public health programs (Planned Parenthood, 2016).

A major turning point came in the 1960s with the development of the birth control pill and the intrauterine device (IUD). Before these breakthroughs, a grant was awarded to research biologist Gregory Pincus, whose studies led directly to the oral contraceptive pill. The Food and Drug Administration approved the pill in 1960, and within five years more than one in four women had used it at least once. In 1962, Alan Guttmacher became President of Planned Parenthood and became a vigorous advocate for legal abortion, citing several compelling examples of why a blanket ban was harmful. Among them: thousands of women in the United States and Europe had taken the drug thalidomide between 1956 and 1962, causing severe birth defects in their children. A rubella outbreak in 1966 caused similar problems. Many women wanted to terminate pregnancies in these circumstances but could not because abortion remained illegal (Planned Parenthood, 2016).

These developments — and others — created mounting demand for legal abortion and expanded family planning options, and Planned Parenthood was at the forefront of that effort. In 1961, Estelle Griswold, a member of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, opened a clinic that dispensed contraceptives in direct violation of state law. When the state moved against her, the case ultimately reached the Supreme Court. Griswold v. Connecticut established that laws prohibiting the use of contraceptives by married couples were unconstitutional. This decision had a domino effect: ten other states liberalized their birth control laws, and Colorado addressed abortion directly in 1963, with thirteen other states soon following suit (Planned Parenthood, 2016).

Legislative Milestones and Presidential Involvement

The efforts of Planned Parenthood reached the presidential level during the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, for whom abortion and family planning formed part of his broader War on Poverty. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare created a program to provide contraceptive advice and services to low-income families and married women generally. Amendments to the Social Security Act stipulated that at least six percent of annual appropriations for maternal and child health be set aside specifically for family planning services. The United States Agency for International Development also began providing contraceptives as an integral part of its overseas development programs (Planned Parenthood, 2016).

President Nixon continued this momentum despite belonging to a different political party. Nixon asserted that any woman or family that wanted family planning services but could not afford them should receive those services without hesitation. In 1970, he signed Title X of the Public Health Service Act into law, making contraceptives available regardless of income and funding educational programs as well as contraceptive research and development. Congress later broadened the mandate to include community-based sex education and preventive services for unmarried teenagers at risk of pregnancy.

Progress continued into the 1970s when Hawaii repealed all laws criminalizing abortion, and the Syracuse, New York, chapter of Planned Parenthood became the first chapter to offer on-site abortions through the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, provided that a licensed physician performed the procedure. In 1971, Planned Parenthood launched an international program largely funded by the United States Agency for International Development, which eventually made it the "largest U.S. non-government provider of family planning services, reaching millions of women and men in developing countries" (Planned Parenthood, 2016).

Conclusion

Planned Parenthood has navigated more than a century of legal, political, and social struggle to remain a central institution in American reproductive health. From Margaret Sanger's first Brooklyn clinic in 1916 through landmark Supreme Court decisions, sustained attacks from political opponents, and acts of physical violence, the organization has continually adapted its strategies — legal, legislative, and advocacy-based — to expand access to contraception, abortion, and related health services. The debates surrounding Planned Parenthood reflect deeper national tensions over gender, autonomy, public health, and the role of government in private life, tensions that show no sign of resolution in the near term.