Street roots., March 30, 2018, Page 5, Image 5

RICH ARD S, from page 4
Parenthood for affordable birth control and
cancer screenings, and even tried to strip
away maternity care benefits. Not only that,
they’ve taken steps to allow employers to
deny birth control coverage to their
employees, undermined programs that
prevent teen pregnancy, rolled back
protections for transgender people and
survivors of sexual assault, stacked the
administration at every level with people who
are radically anti-science and anti-abortion.
The unintended consequence, however, is
that these attacks have energized and
engaged millions of people across our
country who are fighting back. I hope that
will be the lasting legacy of this moment: the
activism and grassroots organizing it has
inspired.
J.Z.: So many o f the battles against Planned
Parenthood and other women’s health access
points have been projected through the lens of
abortion, when these are matters o f complete
health care for women, particularly women
experiencing poverty. After a century, we’re still
fighting for health care and
reproductive rights. What do
you want to see happen to get
us beyond this cycle?
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o f « the la st
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fo r granted« I t has ssew?
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keep p u sh in g forward^ and
w o rk in g to expand r e p r o
dsactlw h e a lth and rig h ts
In places lik e O regon
where we h a w the chance
to keep snaking progress
and p ro vid e a Worth Star
fo r the rest of the country«
C.R.: You are absolutely
right. More than three-
quarters of Planned
Parenthood patients live at
150 percent of the federal
poverty level or below. For a
lot of our patients, we are
the only health care provider
they see - without us,
there’s no one else. In order
to get beyond this cycle, I
would like to see our leaders
in this country recognize
that abortion is part of
women’s complete health
care, and to understand that
access to reproductive
health care is also an
economic issue for millions of women. I’ll
never forget the student I met in Iowa who
told me she was about to become the first in
her family to graduate from college, and she
was graduating thanks to two things:
scholarships and birth control.
J.Z.: I was struck when reading about the
young woman, a senior in high school, who
said fou r years ago she was really shy. B u t after
working with Planned Parenthood, she could
talk about anything to anybody. A nd it struck
me that the stifling o f women’s health care, and
ju st the “abnormalizing” o f women’s physicality
and sexuality, has a much more significant
impact than ju st appeasing objections to sexual
behavior. What are your thoughts on this?
C.R.: I believe we will never change our
politics until we change our culture. That’s
especially true when it comes to the shame
and stigma around women’s health and
sexuality, which is so pervasive. But the
ground is beginning to shift. We are
experiencing a groundswell of women
speaking out like never before about
everything from abortion to miscarriage to
sexual assault and harassment. They’re
challenging people’s attitudes and
assumptions and normalizing women’s
experiences. And once that change begins, it
can’t be reversed. As my mother used to say,
you can’t un-ring a bell.
R E U T E R S /G A R Y C A M E R O N
Planned Parenthood Federation president Cecile Richards testifies before the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform on Capitol H ill in Washington, D. C., Sept. 29, 2015.
J.Z.: In several instances, you reference cases
when people really change their m ind about
these issues that seem carved in stone - either
fo r or against, around reproductive rights.
What is the key to m aking people see this
divisive issue in a new light?
C.R.: Well, for a lot of people in this
country, reproductive" rights are actually not a
divisive.issue. Nine in 10 women have used
birth control. One in five women have been
to Planned Parenthood. For millions of
people, this is simply part of life.
When it comes to the issue of abortion,
we’ve found that there is more common
ground than it sometimes seems. That’s part
of the reason why, a few years ago, Planned
Parenthood stopped using the labels “pro-
choice” and “pro-life.” This was a
conversation folks in the reproductive justice
community had been having for years: If you
ask someone whether they identify as “pro-
choice” or “pro-life,” many say they identify
as both or neither. But if you ask them
whether they believe a woman should be able
to make her own decisions about ending a
pregnancy, a lot of people, regardless of their
own personal views on abortion, say yes, of
course. That’s something that has been
proven in states like Mississippi, North
Dakota and South Dakota, when voters
overwhelmingly rejected proposed bans on
abortion. People are capable of more
complexity and nuance on this issue than we
give them credit for.
J.Z.: The section on Dr. George Tiller is
particularly moving, especially that he found
out later in life, after he went into health care,
that his father has been providing abortions for
women who had no other options available to
them. A nd they were coming to George hoping
to fin d sim ilar services. (Tiller was murdered
while attending church services in 2009.) Can
you speak to the message o f George Tiller’s
story?
C.R.: George Tiller was an incredible man,
and one of the things that made him so
remarkable was that he loved and respected
his patients. He understood that they knew
what they needed and deserved the right to
make their own decisions about their health,
lives and futures. To me, the message of
George’s story is the same as his motto:
Trust women.
J.Z.: You reference in your book a vote, I
think in the early 1910s, by the Portland City
Council, done in secret to ban the pamphlets on
birth control published by Margaret Sanger, the
founder o f Planned Parenthood. Today, Oregon
is viewed as one o f the most liberal states when
it comes to women’s health care access and
abortion access, and Portland considers itself
ahead o f the curve. Meanwhile, other states are
curbing access to care. Should we worry, given
your experience, that the pendulum could swing
back, even in a state like Oregon?
C.R.: Oregon has a long, proud history of
activism on reproductive rights. Back in the
early 1910s, when the Portland City Council
took the vote you mention, the women in
town made pamphlets which read, “Shall five
men legislate in secret against 10 thousand
women?” They were definitely ahead of their
time!
If we’ve learned one thing over the last
year, it is that we can’t take anything for
granted. It has never been more important to
keep pushing forward and working to expand
reproductive health and rights in places like
Oregon where we have the chance to keep
making progress and provide a North Star for
the rest of the country. That’s one of the
reasons why I’m so looking forward to
coming to Portland on April 10, when Andi
Zeisler and I will talk about all of this and
more!”
J.Z.: You’re leaving Planned Parenthood, but
I can’t imagine you’re retiring. What’s ahead
for you?
C.R.: I’m leaving Planned Parenthood, but
I’m definitely not leaving this movement. I’m
going to be fighting for reproductive health
and rights as one of the 11.5 million
supporters. Beyond that? Well, I have this
new book coming o u t...
joanne@streetroots.org; Twitter @jozuhl