THE STOPP REPORT

PPFA's Responsible Choices 2000

Here it is, the last Ryan Report of the 20th century. It is also the close of our 15th year fighting the Planned Parenthood agenda. We were trying to think of a way to sum up our fight against PP and to explain why we are determined to continue the effort into the next century.

Then we got word that Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), was going to deliver a major public policy speech. When we received a copy of the speech, we decided the best way to let you know what PP is all about, and why we must fight it, is to let you read the speech.

PP frequently accuses us of telling half-truths and taking words out of context, so we decided to give you the entire text of Feldt's speech without interruption. This decision was difficult because of many of the outlandish claims made by Feldt. But we believe our readers are sophisticated enough to see through the rhetoric and to understand the real agenda of PP. The only things we have added to the speech are the subtitles. We felt this was necessary just to make it more readable and to make this issue of The Ryan Report more pleasing to the eye. Every word (except the subtitles) is from Gloria Feldt. Please take the time to read the speech and know what the enemy is all about.

"The Responsible Choices Majority: Three Challenges for 2000"

Gloria Feldt

President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
President, Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Delivered at
The Commonwealth Club of California
October 19, 1999
San Francisco

Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be with you in San Francisco today. The City of Love. That's appropriate for Planned Parenthood!

Yesterday, on the way from the airport, my cab driver asked what I was doing here, and I told him I was coming to the Commonwealth Club to talk about the elections next year. "Not voting," he said. "No one's listening to us."

I wasn't surprised by his reaction. I've heard it all too often in my travels across the country. This rejection of politics led Planned Parenthood to initiate a plan to reactivate America's pro-choice majority.

The Agenda

Beginning today, and until November 2000, we at Planned Parenthood will be talking to America about three challenges for the millennium.

• We will talk about protecting our rights, as a free people.
• We will talk about what we call our Responsible Choices Action Agenda as a way to build a more compassionate society.
• And we will talk about how you can take part in the democratic process to build a better world. Freedom

I'll start with freedom, because that's the foundation of this country. And freedom is one of the founding principles of Planned Parenthood.

San Francisco is a city that stands for liberty and responsible choices. You can't make responsible choices without liberty. And California's a state in the forefront on many reproductive freedom issues. Take your recent very commonsense legislation1 requiring that sexuality education be medically accurate.

You might ask, "Why did it take a law?" Shouldn't sexuality education be medically accurate?

Just as you might reasonably assume that public support for family planning to prevent unintended pregnancy would be a given, with all of us Americans quietly working together to ensure our freedoms, to be responsible, to be parents or not, to have access to contraception, to have access to sex education and abortion. In other words, to build a free and compassionate society in this most personal of areas.

We are struggling

But, back in Washington and all across the country, we (and you) are under assault. In this, the greatest democracy in the world, we are struggling, and some of us have even died, to ensure that people can think for themselves about parenthood, and make their own responsible choices about whether and when to be parents.

In 1999, in a country built on respect for the rights of the individual, we are struggling to ensure that women and men like you (or your sons and daughters), not the government, can responsibly choose when to have a child.

Those who work against us, to take away these rights, don't have to fight to ensure their own freedom of choice.

If your religion or your conviction says "no" to family planning, "no" to sex education, "no" to abortion, then you don't have to do any one of them.

If that is your responsible choice, I respect you. I would never take away your right to make your own choices about sex and parenthood.

The freedoms of those who would "just say no" are not at stake. They remain free to do whatever they want as individuals.

But what about the same freedoms for the 90 percent of Americans who believe that family planning services are important?2 That's right, 90 percent of Americans favor family planning!

What about the 82 percent who believe sex education should be required in schools? 3

What about the 67 percent who believe insurance plans should cover birth control? 4

What about the 66 percent who believe it is important to ensure that abortion remains accessible? 5

The majority of Americans, the "Responsible Choices" majority, support all of these.

But do our elected officials respect the freedoms valued by the landslide majority of Americans? Let's look.

Congress is against us

Only 30 percent of congress is pro-choice and then there's a 20 percent swing category. That leaves 50 percent firmly anti-choice,6 opposed to you and me having the right to decide for ourselves about sexuality and childbearing matters of the most deeply personal nature.

From the debates I hear in congress, they don't sound at all like they represent the "Responsible Choices" majority. They sound like they come from another era. Does anybody here remember the 1950's? Back then, June Cleaver could have gotten arrested for using birth control! 7

And too many of our elected leaders sound like deacons in a theocracy, not representatives of the people in the greatest democracy in the world.

Throw the religious people out

So, I'm here today to challenge you to participate in the democratic process and to tell candidates in election 2000 that we expect them to stand up for our individual freedoms. You know, the only antidote to bad outcomes in a democ-racy is more active involvement in the democratic process by the rest of us.

If we don't elect leaders who protect and defend the freedoms we cherish, then the leaders we elect might even take away the freedoms we already have.

The next president will appoint as many as three Supreme Court justices. Remember, the right to reproductive choice is based on Supreme Court decisions. Supreme Court decisions get reversed. It all comes down to five versus four.

Critical reproductive health issues will be dealt with at the state, congressional, and White House level after the next election. Anti-family planning votes will continue to happen if elected leaders believe the silent majority will remain silent.

This is our country. We are the body politic and we should expect control over our own bodies. Let's show them with our votes! We are the "Responsible Choices" majority.

"Responsible Choices." It sums up who we are and what we do at Planned Parenthood.

Choice is the value that defines our humanity, more than anything else. Barbara Jordan said reproductive

choice is "a fundamental right of a free people." 8

Planned Parenthood's Responsible Choices Action Agenda is the agenda of a landslide majority of Americans.

What Planned Parenthood is

Like most Americans, we at Planned Parenthood want to prevent unintended pregnancy. And we take action to make it happen.

• We work ... to provide family planning services in the U.S., and all over the world.
• We work ... for insurance coverage for contraception.
• We work ... to teach all teens responsible sex education and pregnancy prevention.

Like most Americans, we want to improve reproductive health care, so we take action to make that happen.

• We work ... to expand access to ob/gyn services.
• We work ... to ensure confidentiality of medical records.
• We work ... to give you better contraceptives.

And, like most Americans, we want to protect your right to choose abortion, and so we take action.

• We work ... to provide access to safe abortion.
• We work ... to guarantee the right to choose for everyone.
• And we work ... and some of us even die, to prevent violence at reproductive health clinics.

This is our agenda. A landslide majority of Americans support it.

Action needed now

Four planks in our platform require your special attention right now.

First, making sure every American has access to family planning services, including programs for the poor and uninsured, and contraceptive coverage for those who have insurance;

Second, medically accurate sex education;

Third, funding for international family planning;

And finally, bringing justice to "conscience" provisions for health care providers and facilities.

Get religious people out of medicine

When I mention that last point, people often have a quizzical look. What is now called a "conscience clause" is an exemption for health care professionals and institutions to refuse to provide care to you, if they disagree with the choices you've made. That means, for instance, you could be denied prescription contraceptives if a pharmacist doesn't believe in birth control. Or your daughter might not be able to receive family planning, abortion, or infertility treatments at a Catholic hospital. Even denied emergency contraception if she has been raped.

Now I have nothing against church-owned hospitals when they are one of many providers and you can choose to go or not go there. But increasingly, secular hospitals are merging with Catholic hospitals, becoming no longer the minority provider, but now the majority or only provider in your community. And in many cases, the first thing the new hospital does is drop many reproductive healthcare services.9 In rural communities, there may be no alternatives because the only hospital available has arrogantly put its conscience before yours, or your doctor's!

That's exactly what happened earlier this month in Gilroy, California. When South Valley Community Hospital merged with Catholic Healthcare West, all birth control, sterilizations, abortions, even condoms, became a thing of the past at Gilroy's only hospital. Let's call that what it is-unethical medical care. Yes, it is patently unethical to deny patients legitimate medical options. And they're getting your tax dollars to do it!

Whose conscience is most important? Isn't it time priority goes to the most important conscience of all ... yours?

In reality, the "conscience exemption" is nothing more than interference, with a sugarcoated name, in your own personal medical decisions. Do you really want someone you don't even know overruling decisions about what's best for your health?

Mandate PP sex education

As for medically accurate sex education, California is on the right track. What better way to prevent unintended teen pregnancies than to make sure our teens know how not to get pregnant if they have sex? Abstinence-only as a preventive won't work in the world you and I know. But look at the experience in countries where adolescents are given access to medically accurate information. In the Netherlands, France and Germany, for example, young people there delay sexual activity, and have far fewer unintended pregnancies, seven times fewer in the Netherlands, than adolescents in the U.S.10

Mandate that everyone must pay for PP's choice

And insurance coverage for contraceptives. Only a third of plans cover it now.11 But my goodness, the rush to cover Viagra took my breath away. Suddenly male sexual performance was more important than women's reproductive freedom.

Thank you Bob Dole. Who'd have thought?

Blame poor people's problems on their babies

And, international family planning. The cycle of poverty and oppression in developing countries will never be overcome if women in these societies can't make a choice about childbearing.

Last week, the United Nations recognized the Day of Six Billion. Six billion human beings are now on the face of the earth.

I challenge those who oppose family planning to deal with the harsh realities of unwanted children thrown into the world. Many with mothers who aren't even out of childhood themselves, facing the burden of parenthood, poverty and despair, and unable to make ends meet.

The real world

We at Planned Parenthood see the world as it really is, every day. That's our business. That's our mission. Inside our doors, we get to experience the excitement of helping couples bring healthy children into the world. But we must also deal with the confusion, the ignorance, the sorrow, the fear, and the loneliness that can surround sexual choices and unintended pregnancy. It's not some abstract theory for us. It's not some lofty morality lecture. It's not the fantasy that every family is the Brady Bunch.

Let's look at the real world. If we assume this room is representative of America, one in four of the women here have been our clients.12 One in four women at your office.

One in four of the women in your own family. And by the way, the men too.

This is the real world I'm talking about. The real world includes your own home and family. It exists in living color. The real world is about different kinds of people seeking different kinds of solutions to their health and reproductive needs.

Yet viewers of talk shows and political debates might think there are only two polarized sides to family planning and reproductive choice. They make the country seem divided in equal halves. It looks like one side has the righteous and the clergy, and on the other side are promiscuous welfare mothers and libertines.

Never mind that we have a large and active association of clergy supporting planned parenthood [sic].

And 70 percent of the voters, who come from a spectrum of social, economic, and political views, hold Planned Parenthood in high esteem.13

Remember, 90 percent of Americans support family planning!

There is certainly difference of opinion, but the country is not divided in half.

The only place where we Americans are split 50/50 is pregnancy.14 Did you know that in 1999, on the eve of the new millennium, half of our pregnancies are still unintended?

Common cause

I'd like for all of us to find common cause, even if we can't find common ground.

And the common cause is preventing unintended pregnancy. While there are exceptions, in general, members of congress who vote anti-choice, vote against the whole family planning package.15

Here, at the beginning of election 2000, I reach out my hand. To those of you who oppose abortion, come work with us to prevent unintended pregnancy.

Work with us to make every child a wanted child. Work with us to give citizens the resources to make wise choices about the most awesome responsibility they will ever bear: the responsibility of parenthood.

Come work with us. Help us continue to reduce the need for abortion.

The key to PP victory

Until they work with us, the struggle isn't over. We're in a stalemate. And if those of us who are pro-choice and pro-family planning aren't politically active, and vocal, and courageous, and positive, we will not be able to achieve true representation in Washington or anyplace else.

Do you think I'm exaggerating? Just remember the 1994 elections! Even though a landslide majority of Americans supported choice, somebody voted for a congress that didn't.

So how did it happen when 90 percent of Americans support family planning?

Overpopulation

When Americans go into the voting booths, all sorts of things are on our minds. Taxes. The economy. The environment. Foreign policy. Crime. But, here's a connecting thread. Through the Responsible Choices Action Agenda, Planned Parenthood will make it clear that issues about parenthood and sexuality reverberate through almost every aspect of our society and our world. They affect our environment through the load the earth must bear. They affect foreign policy through stressed populations feeling they must resort to violence. They affect the social fabric through neglected and abused children who grow up to be angry adults, criminals, or abusive parents.

Reproductive health issues affect everybody's freedom. Do you want the freedom to be responsible for your own body and life, or will you let government do it for you?

That, in a nutshell, is what election 2000 means for people like you and me. But what do we do to break the stalemate and to end the subversion of freedom. To get to where every child really is a wanted child?

Call of PP supporters to action

This is where we need your help. Become a part of our grassroots campaign! Volunteer through your local Planned Parenthood. Join the Responsible Choices Action Network, where we make it really easy for you to make your voice heard by your legislators. Use the card we've given you today to sign up! Or sign up on our website at plannedparenthood.org.

To get the latest updates on the issues, visit California's web site at ppacca.org. Or you can visit the national web site (that address again, is plannedparenthood.org).

Because in election 2000, we all must zero in on every candidate and make them tell us where they stand on responsible choices.

I can safely predict that if a candidate won't stand up for responsible choices on reproductive health during the campaign, he or she won't do so once in office.

Don't let politicians use evasive language or tricks, to shirk their responsibility. Don't let them play it both ways.

Because we're nonpartisan, we at Planned Parenthood are ready to support any viable candidate, from any party, who will stand up for the landslide majority of us. This year, we are mobilizing like we've never mobilized before. And a landslide majority is nothing for a politician to sneeze at. After all, we've seen them let noisy ideological groups set the agenda for too long.

Why? In part, because anti-choice extremists show passion.

Instead of raw passion, we are motivated by compassion. The two words are so close. And yet so far apart.

Passion is energy and fervor. But compassion is more. It includes a belief in individual freedoms, and a desire to alleviate misery and sorrow.

We are in trouble

I am proud that Planned Parenthood stands up for the freedom of others. But if the "Responsible Choices" majority doesn't get impassioned about its own freedoms under assault; if the "Responsible Choices" majority doesn't get impassioned about leaders who ignore us; if the "Responsible Choices" majority doesn't get impassioned about leaders making laws that lack compassion; then every loss we suffer will be our choice. Defeat will be ours, and we will have no choice.

Or we can choose victory! We can participate fully in the democratic process and meet the challenge to spread the message about compassion and freedom in election 2000.

We can challenge all leading candidates from all parties to have courage, and stand up for our freedoms.

Here is our challenge:

George W. Bush: Recant your arrogant statement that Americans' hearts are in the wrong place,16 and stand up for responsible choices.

Steve Forbes: What happened to you since your last race? View our issues from the standpoint of liberty, and stand up for responsible choices like you did in your first campaign.17

John McCain: You say your incarceration made you value America and its freedoms even more.18 What about the freedom to choose about family planning? Stand up for responsible choices.

Elizabeth Dole: Show the compassion in this debate that you did at the Red Cross, and stand up for responsible choices.

Al Gore: Bring the spirit you showed in Cairo19 to this campaign, and articulate the connection between the environment and family planning, and stand up for responsible choices.

Bill Bradley: You may have voted right,20 but now you need to make these issues a visible and important plank in your platform, and stand up for responsible choices.

If presidential candidates can be war heroes, they can be heroes for responsible choices. If they can be blessed by family fortune and privilege, then they can feel for those who are not. If they can be role models for women, then they can listen to the responsible choices desires of the women who have brought them this far.

Compassion, but not religious compassion

We should demand nothing less than compassionate leaders who support individual freedoms ... up front.

As for us, we will hold compassion in our hearts, as we join this struggle. For our ultimate victory is not the legislative scorecard. Our ultimate victory is in the good we can do for those in need.

Join us in making election 2000 be one where we can all rise higher. Help make this change of the calendar be a change of the civic soul.

And if our actions bring this nation and world to a place of compassion and truth, where individual freedoms are truly honored, then we will all be proud of what we have done to meet the challenges of the millennium.

Thank you very much.

End Notes:

1. California Code Chapter 234 section 1(51553) et seq.
2. Lake Sosin Snell Perry poll conducted for PPFA (1997).
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. Planned Parenthood Action Fund: Responsible Choices Congressional Scorecard, January 1999.
7. See, e.g., Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
8. "Clinic's Funding Reportedly Rests on Court Decision," Dallas Morning News, October 19, 1990, p.24A.
9. "Hospital Mergers and the Threat to Women's Reproductive Health Services: Using Antitrust Laws to Fight Back," National Women's Law Center, May 1988, Washington, DC; also "Religious Hospital Mergers & HMOs: the Hidden Crisis for Reproductive Health Care," Family Planning Advocates of New York State, 1997, Albany, NY.
10. Felice, M.E., Feinstein, R.A., Fisher, M.M. et al. "Adolescent Pregnancy-Current Trends and Issues: 1998." Pediatrics, Feb. 1, 1999, p. 516.
11. Snowe: Contraceptive Coverage Fundamental in Resolving Health Care Inequities, Government Press Release, July 21, 1998, Federal Document Clearing House.
12. 1992-93 Service Marketing Survey conducted by Schulman, Rocca & Bucuvalas for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
13. Lake Snell Perry & Associates with Market Strategies, Planned Parenthood Federation of America National Survey, October 1988.
14. "Contraception Counts: State-by-State Information," Issues in Brief, Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1998.
15. Planned Parenthood Action Fund Responsible Choices Congressional Scorecard, January 1999.
16. "Bush on Abortion: 'Should be Banned, but Votes Won't Allow It,'" The Associated Press, March 18, 1999.
17. "Forbes is Flip-Flopping, Buchanan Says," The Washington Post, Feb. 5, 1996.
18. "Paying the Price, Sen. John McCain Knows What Freedom Costs," The Tuscon Citizen, July 3, 1999.
19. "Wise Steps for Population Stability," The Milwaukee Journal, Jan. 24, 1994.
20. "Senators Ask Administration to Retreat from Abortion Restrictions," The Associated Press, Nov. 4, 1987.

The foregoing was Gloria Feldt's speech in toto. STOPP added the subtitles.

STOPP Reaction

There you have it. Did everyone notice that there was not one mention of God in the entire speech? STOPP has been saying for years that Planned Parenthood is spreading the religion of Humanism. The idea that God is inconsequential and that man is all that matters. Man is in control and all that is important is man's freedom. Taken as a whole, this speech, meant to rally the troops for the next century, is the best confirmation of STOPP's claims. It would be a fitting speech for the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

The speech was an impassioned plea by the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This is a speech given by an organization in trouble. Feldt trumpets all these polls and all these statistics and then laments that PP is not winning. She wonders why.

Perhaps, Mrs. Feldt, it is because your polls and statistics are wrong. Perhaps you do not really understand the American people and do not understand what we parents and grandparents really want for our children.

This was not a victory speech. It was not, as one would expect, a recount of all the victories of the 20th century and a call to move ahead in confidence to the 21st century. It was a lament. The dictionary defines lament as "grief or sorrow expressed in complaints or cries; lamentation; a wailing; a moaning; a weeping." That description fits this speech.

It is strange that this speech comes at a time when most political analysts are pointing to the pro-abortion gains in congress. This year was one of the best PP has had in quite a while. It managed to increase Title X spending without any restrictions. It managed to get foreign aid bills passed without the "Mexico City Policy" attached. It managed to hang on to mandatory coverage of birth control for federal employees and moved closer to mandating this coverage for all Americans.

It could have been expected, then, that PP would use this major speech by Feldt to trumpet its successes in this session of congress and call for more of the same next year. Feldt did not do this.

All STOPP supporters should know what Gloria Feldt apparently realizes. Despite some momentary setbacks, we are winning the battle with Planned Parenthood. This organization, once revered and respected almost universally, is now coming under fire from all sides.

Feldt is aware, we are sure, that there are many members of congress who are seeking ways to end the funding of Planned Parenthood. She sees that the relentless telling of the truth by supporters of STOPP, and other groups, is beginning to have its effect.

As we complete our 15th year fighting Planned Parenthood, we should take heart from this speech and from all the actions that ordinary citizens and elected officials are taking against Planned Parenthood.

We should thank God for the victories he has given us in the 1990s and pray that we will follow His will in the next century.

Specific Issues

There are just a couple of specific issues mentioned in Feldt's talk that we believe deserve special mention.

Feldt said, "The freedoms of those who would 'just say no' are not at stake." This is not true. As the people of Jacksonville, Florida, will tell you, if you as a community decide that you want your children taught the "just say no" message, Planned Parenthood will bring you to court to force their programs on you. Planned Parenthood uses the type of rhetoric Feldt used in her speech to badger people into silence. But we will not be silent. Yes, our freedom to raise our children as we see fit is at stake and we must not take a back seat.

Feldt used the speech to invite us all to join Planned Parenthood in a common cause. She said, "And the common cause is preventing unintended pregnancy."

Of course, she doesn't want to talk about the only effort that will really work to prevent unintended pregnancy-the clear and universal message to our children to save sex for marriage!

In making this call, Feldt revealed her belief that Planned Parenthood is in trouble. She actually said, "Until they work with us, the struggle isn't over. We're in a stalemate."

What Feldt was saying is that if we do not give in, if we persist in our beliefs, if we continue to spread God's word, Planned Parenthood cannot win! The struggle will never be over unless we abandon our God.

This is our call to action. If the only way PP can win is for us to join them, then we clearly need to persist in the struggle and spread the truth about Planned Parenthood.

The Real PP Agenda

Planned Parenthood likes to bill itself as a women's health organization. It likes to say that its primary mission is to make women more healthy. You would think, then, that this would be emphasized in this major policy speech. It was not.

Instead, look at what Feldt lists as the major work of Planned Parenthood (see page three). You will recognize here the traditional Planned Parenthood agenda-sex education, contraception, confidential services (especially for minors), and abortion!

That's it. That's what this organization has always been about. It is what STOPP has been claiming for years and now you can read it right from Planned Parenthood.

The next time your local Planned Parenthood tries to say that it is really for health care for women, pull out a copy of this speech and tell them that's not what their president says. Tell them the exact words used by Feldt and then demand that they admit the truth.

We hope that Feldt's speech has been enlightening. When people ask why we oppose Planned Parenthood, we tell them that it is because PP is only concerned with sex education, birth control and abortion. It targets our children and comes between parents and their children. And it does it all with our tax money.

This speech by Gloria Feldt confirms all we have said. It is a rallying cry for those who oppose PP to renew our efforts and to persist in the fight. Thank you Gloria.

December 28

We are approaching the holiday season and everyone at STOPP headquarters wishes all our supporters a very merry Christmas and a happy and holy New Year.

Each year, many Christians use December 28 as an opportunity to call their local community's attention to the horrors of abortion.

It is the day on which the Catholic Church celebrates the "Feast of the Holy Innocents." An appropriate day to remember the millions of babies slaughtered each year by abortion.

But you do not have to be Catholic to commemorate the death of innocent children. STOPP supporters of all faiths are encouraged to make this a day in front of the local Planned Parenthood office. Most children are off from school that day, so it is a perfect time to invite your children to be with you and witness to the sanctity of all human life.

We hope that, as we celebrate the gift of Jesus' human life on Christmas, we all remember that He came to save us. In some small sense, we can let the world know that Jesus did not come in vain by standing up and witnessing for the innocent victims of abortion.

So make your plans today and join with thousands across the country, and around the world, to remember the innocents on December 28. It is a great way to end the century.

A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Holy New Year from everyone at STOPP!

This month's action items

• Let your elected officials know that Planned Parenthood is targeting all of them in the upcoming elections. Give them information on PP so they will be armed with the truth.
• STOPP has a video series on Planned Parenthood that is ideal for use in educating your neighbors and your politicians. It includes nine talks on three video tapes and can be purchased for $39.95 from our resource department.
• Circulate copies of Feldt's speech (you may make copies of this edition of The Ryan Report). Use letters to the editor to inform people of PP's true agenda and the fact that they are targeting our children
• Begin a weekly picket of your local PP facility.
• Invite Jim Sedlak to speak in your town in 2000. Call 540-659-4171, ask for Rozann.
• Send a tax deductible donation today to help us keep fighting Planned Parenthood.
• Pray that God will lead us in our work and that we will always have the courage to do His will.

Back issues of the Ryan Report.