Unplanned parenthood

The opposite of planned parenthood is unplanned parenthood. One approach reduces unwanted births, offers education for new parents and promotes family and social order. The other turns the clock back to days of back alley abortions, family frenzy and archaic religious codes.
We prefer planned parenthood and we endorse the work being supported in our community by Planned Parenthood of Northern California. Our families and young parents — and the rest of us — benefit greatly from the education and counseling programs for teens and parents-to-be; reproductive health services; HIV, pregnancy and sexually-transmitted disease testing; age-appropriate sex education, birth control information, emergency contraception and safe, clinic-based abortions.
The unplanned parenthood that some members of Congress wish for us by “de-funding” Planned Parenthood would rip a gaping hole in Sonoma County’s family planning and mother-and-child care programs. A few weeks ago, an anti-abortion group calling itself Center for Medical Progress released a “doctored” video of Planned Parenthood executives discussing how they handle human tissue donations from abortions. The anti-abortionist claims that Planned Parenthood was “selling baby parts” have been refuted but that hasn’t stopped some members of Congress, Republican presidential candidates and a few state governors from calling for a nationwide blockage of Planned Parenthood programs.
We try not to pay too much attention to the political screeching in Congress and the bellowing of grandstanding politico-clowns. But when valuable health and education programs for our young people and families are being threatened, we must speak up. We are not furthering an argument here either for or against abortion. (A woman’s reproductive rights should be left as private as possible and not subject to others’ political or editorial agendas.) Our concern is for preserving the full spectrum of health, education and counseling services where Planned Parenthood is a partner with local government agencies and other nonprofits. Human abortion may trigger a very large debate, but it is a very small part of today’s planned parenthood programs.
We have excellent planned parenthood programs here. Community clinics in Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Windsor, Sebastopol, Guerneville, Occidental, Forestville and elsewhere provide free, subsidized or insurance-covered prenatal, family planning and medical testing programs. In coordination with the county’s Public Health Department, unwanted teen pregnancies have been reduced, new mothers’ healthy outcomes have improved and overall health and social costs have been reduced. Even the high school graduation rate for teen mothers has increased.
Sonoma County offers such programs as Teen Parent Connections (TPC), Family PACT (Prevention, Access, Treatment, Care) and free and confidential counseling programs. Planned Parenthood of Northern California, locally based at the Santa Rosa Health Center near Memorial Hospital, logged 150,000 patient visits at 25 sites last year in its northern region.
Despite what Republican congressmen may think, planned parenthood is not just about sex or abortions. In fact, it’s not just for women. Family planning, healthy habits and community outreach is for all of us. There should not be any controversy for clinic-based counselors, medical providers, social workers, school educators, church leaders and community nonprofits to work together even where talk about sex, drug abuse, sexually-transmitted diseases and personal ethics might be engaged.
There were 5,140 births in Sonoma County in 2012, the year with the most recent statistics. Forty percent of these births were to first-time mothers and 5.1 percent were teens. The Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health (MCAH) Advisory Council of Sonoma County reported that teen and unwanted pregnancies are decreasing, fewer emergency hospitalizations are occurring and better access to care is being provided. This effort is supported by federal funds to assure the health and well being of women, children, youth and families.
How would eliminating these federal funds make us a healthier — or even a more moral — community?
— Rollie Atkinson