Planned Parenthood's Universal Care
Helplessness. It’s a feeling that Planned Parenthood (PP) works tirelessly to protect the public from—because your wallet shouldn’t determine your worth.
With all the blood pressure rising over healthcare reform in the last couple of years, it pays to take a closer look at Santa Cruz County’s locations of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM), the largest PP group in the country with sites spanning the coast of California to Northern Nevada. Despite all the headline-making controversy surrounding PP and the debate over abortion, which started when nurse and activist Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in 1916 Brooklyn, the nonprofit may be one of the most misperceived. It’s not just for women. It’s not just for abortions.
Planned Parenthood’s Westside Health Center in Santa Cruz and Watsonville Health Center are for anyone who walks through their doors.
Contrary to popular belief, 97 percent of what Planned Parenthood Mar Monte provides is preventive healthcare, with only 3 percent being abortion-related services. “Our main focus is making sure that people have access to the counseling, the healthcare, the medicines, and the options that they need to make healthy decisions,” says Fran Linkin, associate director of public affairs for PPMM. “We’re doing more every day to prevent the need for abortion than many of the people who spread the misconception that that’s all we do.”
Services Director Cathy Bright adds, “We proudly provide abortion services and believe that they must always remain legal for women, but we also believe that our role is to make those rare and so that fewer women have to face that choice.” She continues, “People are often surprised that we offer full service reproductive health, which means cancer screenings and colposcopy for women that have early cell changes of the cervix, and some of our Mar Monte centers do prenatal care.”
The two Santa Cruz County locations provide primary care for people of all ages dealing with all sorts of issues, in addition to female and male reproductive concerns. They deal with general physicals, immunizations, pediatrics, men’s health, diabetes and more. Both clinics treat the homeless, and disenfranchised youth, while providing comprehensive sexual education throughout the community.
Co-founded in 1971 by outgoing Councilmember Cynthia Mathews, who served as its first executive director, Santa Cruz Planned Parenthood merged with surrounding affiliates in 1994 to become Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. With one physician supervising at each local site, PP primarily works with mid-level providers; physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners, and midwives. The Westside and Watsonville centers saw more than 41,000 visits last year and currently operate with a combined total of only 67 staff members and 100 volunteers. PPMM offers sliding scale fees with some of the lowest rates in the county for primary care; private insurance, FamilyPACT, and Medi-Cal are also accepted.
Josefina Lopez works on the ground every day as the Westside manager in Downtown Santa Cruz. From babies in their car seats to teenagers to senior citizens, Lopez understands better than anyone Planned Parenthood’s motto “We’re here.” She knows the daily ins and outs of the center, encountering patients and protestors first hand. Lopez knows that patients often become advocates, and she recalls how one particular client responded to a an anti-abortion protestor: “She told them, ‘I wish you’d go [into Planned Parenthood] and maybe you’d get to know them and all the great things they do.’ And that’s what I’d want to say. If you come in and get to know us, you’ll see all the other services we provide.”
Various demographics find unwavering support at PP. Watsonville Health Center sees people who work in the fields that face risks due to exposure to farming chemicals. In 2005 the pioneering Westside Health Center became the first PP in the country to provide primary care for transgender patients. And this year PPMM won the Queer Youth Leadership Award for “Organizational Ally.”
Still, things have become more challenging in these economic times as PP is seeing funds, both from the state and from private donors, get redirected. Bright emphasizes that the nonprofit’s ability to stay afloat results in far-reaching success. “We don’t want to be in a position in which we have to turn people away because then they’ll simply present at the emergency room—and then we all have to pay,” she begins. “Common sense tells us that it’s a bit more bang for your buck if we’re able to take care of that person here at Planned Parenthood, early, than if they wind up in the emergency room at Dominican or at Watsonville Community Hospital.”
Unlike many large nonprofits, Planned Parenthood makes it so that your donations go toward your community’s PP health center, not a distant branch or a CEO’s salary; Santa Cruz donations go directly toward the Westside and Watsonville operations. A gift of $25 can buy 100 condoms, $120 can buy one annual exam with a cervical cancer screening, and $350 can buy comprehensive sexual education for 150 teenagers.
Regardless of the anti-abortion outcry that attempts to silence Planned Parenthood and its multifaceted work, Bright maintains that “whether it’s about comprehensive sexuality education, making sure that health care shouldn’t be a privilege for just people who have money, that women should be able to make decisions about their body, or that abortion should remain legal—we continue to just stay strong.” | Linda Koffman
Give: to Planned Parenthood through Community Fund online at cfscc.org or call 662-2000 or by mailing in the download PDF form here or on page 17 of the 11/25 Good Times.
