Planned Parenthood Action Center Blog
Putting the Independence in Independence Day
Tags: Health Care Reform , Health , Planned Parenthood , Reproductive Rights
On July 4, America will turn 233 years old. Barack Obama is our president. Light those fireworks, people. Happy Independence Day!
But wait. What does it really mean to be independent in America? At Planned Parenthood, it means
• guaranteed quality, affordable health care for all Americans
• being able to afford birth control and other preventive health care, including breast and cervical cancer screenings, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections
• giving young people the reliable, accurate information they need to make responsible decisions and stay healthy
• having access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion
Let’s make every day “independence day.” Planned Parenthood is working to ensure that family planning and reproductive health care services are available to everyone who wants and needs them.
Shamans, herbalists, and other “Daktari wa Mitishamba,” as they are referred to in Kenya, sell their services in almost every community, including in the heart of ultra-modern Nairobi. The Daktari wa Mitishamba often tell women who wish to end an unwanted pregnancy to find the mutongu plant (also known as Sodom’s Apple, or Solanum incanum) and insert it vaginally.
Other women simply take matters into their own hands with a crocheting needle.
Anna* works in Juja, a small city about 20 kilometers east of Nairobi. She is a registered nurse who has operated a reproductive health clinic for the last two years with the assistance of Planned Parenthood. “One woman came here too late,” Anna said. “Unfortunately, though I did my best, I couldn’t help her, and she eventually died of septicemia.”
At a clinic in the town of Thika, I met Mary * a Planned Parenthood-trained nurse who has treated more than 60,000 patients since her clinic opened in 1992. Mary’s clinic is next door to the practice of a traditional herbalist. The herbalist tells women seeking to end their pregnancies to find a mukengeria weed (also known as a tropical spiderwort, or Commelina benghalensis) and insert it vaginally. “These girls pay him more than 5,000 Kenyan shillings (about $67) for this advice,” she said. “Afterwards I help them. Then they always come back for help with family planning.”
Editor’s Note: Last month, Kenyan women traded sex for peace.
*Names have been changed for privacy.
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This week, The New York Times reported that 53 percent of American women have used a vibrator. And 81 percent of women who’ve used one have done so with a partner.
Surprised?
Unfortunately many of us hear only about the risks and dangers of expressing ourselves sexually. We don’t get a lot of stories about the pleasures of sex — or its benefits for that matter. The truth is that having sex play can be a profound pleasure and a positive and powerful force in our lives. A healthy sex life — with or without a partner — has been associated with
- • better reproductive and sexual health
- • better general health
- • better sleep
- • reduced stress and tension
- • increased self-esteem
- • a more youthful appearance
- • better fitness
- • a longer life
What’s not to like?
Learn more about understanding sexual pleasure.
Today is National HIV Testing Day. HIV tests are a normal part of health care. Nationwide, more than 850 Planned Parenthood health centers provide a wide range of reproductive health care to millions of people every year — including HIV testing.
Up to one out of four people who have HIV don't know it. Knowing if you have HIV can be essential to your health. If you know you have HIV, you are more likely to get the care you need to keep from developing AIDS. If you know you don't have HIV, you can learn what you need to do to protect yourself and your partner(s) from getting it.
Can’t decide if you should get tested? The Check will help you figure it out.
This week, Chris Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault against his former girlfriend, Rihanna. Unfortunately, Rihanna is not alone. Many people are in hurtful, unsafe, or violent relationships.
It can happen to anyone — students, doctors, teachers, celebrities, and construction workers — whether they are women or men; teens or adults; straight, gay, or bisexual.
Here’s what you need to know:
• Abuse is never OK in a relationship.
• People can hurt their partners verbally, emotionally, sexually, or physically.
• If you feel you are being treated badly, you probably are.
• Help is available.
Is your relationship unsafe? Find out.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline has more information and resource listings.
Nearly one in three teens is abused in a relationship. Dosomething.org is a place where you can fight back.
Remember, Rihanna has a right to feel safe in a relationship, and so do you.
I look down when I walk the streets of Kibera. Not because this Nairobi slum, one of the largest in the world, is a depressing place. Not because more than one million people are living here without hope. I look down because if I don’t, I might slip and fall into the sludge and waste that runs down every street.
I’m in Kibera as the newest member of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America International Program, to check out a project that’s dramatically changing the lives of thousands of women and children. I’m visiting the offices of Carolina for Kibera (CFK), a nonprofit organization that the PPFA International Program supports.
In a cramped office located at the edge of the slum, CFK Director Salim Mohamed explains that funding from PPFA has enabled CFK to hire peer educators who work with young women and help them understand the connections between unprotected sex and HIV. The funding has also allowed Mohamed and 22 colleagues to dramatically increase counseling and HIV testing for Kibera residents.
Mohamed introduces me to Ben Haggai, the head peer educator for CFK. About six feet tall and athletic, Ben lives in Kibera. He speaks softly but with authority. Ben tells me that the peer educators have been instrumental in getting young people to attend conflict resolution meetings.
I learn that many peer educators remain working for CFK even after they grow older. For example, one peer educator received a scholarship from CFK to become a laboratory technician, and now works at the CFK medical clinic in the Batwakera section of the slum, which sees about 1,000 patients per week for a broad range of primary care. The medical clinic will soon begin offering critical post-abortion care services to women, using equipment and supplies donated by PPFA.
Despite the dirt and poverty, Kibera is not a sad place to be. Virtually every resident sells everything from lumps of coal to shoes to electronics from small stalls. And a small chorus of children trail behind visitors merrily singing, “How are you? How are you? How are you?”
How am I? Happy that the PPFA International Program is making a difference.
Happy Pride!
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June is LGBTQ Pride Month! It celebrates the lives of women, men, and teenagers in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning/queer communities, their continuing fight for equal rights, and the progress that they have already made to gain them. In 2000, President Bill Clinton designated June as “National Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” in honor of the LGBTQ communities nationwide who had been celebrating the outcomes of the Stonewall Riots for more than 30 years. The Riots were a historic uprising against police harassment by drag queens and other gay and lesbian people that took place outside The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in June 1969. It is considered by many to be the origin of the contemporary LGBTQ rights movement.
Growing up in New York City, I had the privilege of living in an environment in which diversity of sexual orientation and gender identity was the norm. From a very young age, I had friends with two mommies or two daddies. I knew women and men whose gender representation didn’t correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth. All these folks were part of the social landscape of NYC, and I never thought twice about it.
Now that I’m older I realize that not everyone is as fortunate as I am. Homophobic hate speech and discrimination are still a very real part of LGBTQ life. And even though violence against LGBTQ people — and people perceived to be LGBTQ — is the nation’s third largest category of hate crimes, current federal hate crimes laws do not protect them. On top of that, the federal government continues to deny same-sex couples more than 1,100 federal privileges that opposite-sex couples gain by getting married in America.
Pride Month is a time to reflect on the LGBTQ struggle for equality, the advances that have been made, and battles yet to come. And it’s time to celebrate sexual and gender diversity in our lives. Check out plannedparenthood.org and Teen Talk for more information and conversation about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues, and don’t forget to watch our Pride 09 video!
Happy Pride Everybody!
Father's Day in Nigeria
With Father's Day right around the corner, I caught up with one of the few but proud men who work in the PPFA International Program. Francis is the team leader for our Nigeria Country Program and the proud father of four kids — three daughters and a son, ranging in age between nine and 24.
In Nigeria, early marriage is still quite common for young girls, and education and economic opportunity can be hard to come by. In the conservative communities that Francis works with, even talking about family planning is taboo. Most women can’t easily reach Francis and his team, so they figure out ways to reach women on their turf. For example, they train hairdressers to provide sexual health information and contraceptives.
Francis himself is the 10th child but the first son in his family because, he said, “The environment under which we are raised places value on boys over girls.” In other words, many Nigerian families continue to have children until they have a son.
Perhaps it was being raised around so many sisters that made Francis want to commit himself to the mission of Planned Parenthood. He sees his work at Planned Parenthood as not only meeting the reproductive health needs of women, but also helping to change attitudes and beliefs. “Protecting women’s rights is fulfilling to me,” Francis said.
When I asked Francis whether they celebrated Father's Day in Nigeria, he said yes, but it wasn’t as big a deal as Mother's Day. When I asked why, he said, “Our mothers are precious to us. While we know our mothers are our mothers, we believe our fathers are our fathers.” Then he flashed a bright smile and laughed.
As a father of three girls, Francis has made it his duty to instill in his daughters a deep sense of worth and importance. “When I’m raising my daughters, I don’t want them to feel inferior because they’re girls, because I know they’re equal,” he said. “I always made it clear to them that both my son and my daughters meant everything to me. My daughters don’t think anyone’s superior to them — they think like me, that nothing is impossible just because you’re a girl.”
Last year, Francis watched his middle daughter graduate from law school at the top of her class. “You can imagine the satisfaction I got from watching her graduate,” he said. “It’s the greatest gift I’ve been able to give my daughters — to not feel inferior to any man.”
Happy Father’s Day from Nigeria!
When I was a kid, Father’s Day was a very low-profile holiday. My dad was the run-away kind, so there was not a whole lot to celebrate when that day rolled around. When I came out during my early 20s, Father’s Day got even more remote. It had nothing to do with me.
But after working a decade as a buddy for people with AIDS, I needed to find relief from being so often at the endings of life. I wanted to be at a beginning. So at the ripe old age of 48, I jumped at the chance to co-parent a sunny, blonde boy of four.
Devin will be 23 in October. Being one of his dads exorcized a lot of demons for me. Figuring out how to help a kid learn how to navigate life turns out to be a great way to learn how to be generous to yourself. It also taught me other profundities. For many years, for example, I felt bad for me because my father took off. Now, I feel bad for him.
It took a while for Father’s Day to come into the life of this middle-aged, fatherless, non-reproducing gay guy. It seems that there are all kinds of way fathers and sons find each other in these remarkable times.
What Do Three Million Women, Men, and Teens Know that Congress Still Doesn’t?
Tags: Health Care Reform , Birth Control , Planned Parenthood , Reproductive Rights , United States
I know what you’re thinking. The answer is going to be something terrifying about the economy and the recession. But the news I’ve got to share with you isn’t even remotely terrifying: more than 90 percent of the health care provided by Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers nationwide is preventive and primary — including contraception, cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and immunizations.
That’s right. Planned Parenthood community health centers provide primary and preventive care to a wide variety of Americans. Who knew? Well, the three million patients who visit Planned Parenthood every year know, and more than four million Planned Parenthood supporters, activists, and volunteers know. But Congress hasn’t gotten the memo.
It’s been all over the news: A fancy Princeton University professor talked about it with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow a couple of weeks ago. And NPR, Redbook, US News and World Report, and even the Seattle Post-Intelligencer are gabbing about this, but Congress is still in the dark!
Here’s what we want Congress to know: Each year, Planned Parenthood health centers provide more than 850,000 breast cancer exams, nearly one million Pap tests, and more than three million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. And the list of services goes on and on and on.
But you don’t have to take my word for it; check out what these folks have to say about us.
As President Obama and Congress move forward with health care reform, Planned Parenthood will keep reminding them that we are an essential community health provider — and it should stay that way.
Learn more about our work on health care reform.
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