Newsroom
PPHS is an excellent resource for reporters covering reproductive rights and public policy, birth control options, sexuality education and family communication, abortion, and/or the reproductive health needs of women, men and teens in the West Virginia, North Carolina, and/or South Carolina.
To request an interview or background information, contact our Public Relations Department at pr@pphsinc.org or (919) 833-7534.
Supreme Court Decision Serious Setback for Women's Health:
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Federal Abortion Ban
On April 18, the U.S. Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote upheld the first-ever federal law banning abortion. The ban, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in 2003, criminalizes abortions in the early second trimester of pregnancy that doctors say are safe and the best to protect women's health.
This is a pivotal ruling for women's health and safety. For the first time, the Supreme Court told women that, when their health is at risk during pregnancy, deciding what to do is no longer up to them and their doctors.
As Justice Ginsburg said in her dissent, the Court's actions " cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away" at women's health, safety and freedoms.
Planned Parenthood's top priorities are the health and safety of our patients. We will work to ensure women are provided with the best and safest care under this dangerous law.
Sign the Planned Parenthood pledge TODAY and urge politicians to stop playing with women's health.
Comprehensive Sex Education:
It's time!
According to a recent report by the Guttmacher Institute, more than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex ("Premarital sex `normal' in U.S.," Times Union, Dec. 20). The study also shows that even among women born in the 1940s, nearly nine in 10 had sex before marriage.
The results of this study are of no surprise to those of us who work at Planned Parenthood Health Systems. The study is, however, a timely and important reminder of the importance of family planning services, services that help sexually active women and couples to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, or to plan for healthy and wanted pregnancies.
Each year, Planned Parenthood Health Systems's eight health centers provide North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia residents with annual exams and Pap tests, birth control information and supplies, pregnancy testing and options counseling, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.
The Guttmacher study also highlights the dangers posed by the Bush administration's "abstinence-only-until marriage" sex education initiative. Billions of federal dollars already have been spent trying to teach our young people that condoms don't work, birth control fails and sexual activity outside of marriage causes long lasting psychological damage.
As this research shows, both young people and adults need factually based, comprehensive sex education - sex education that teaches about abstinence, as well as how to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections and how to build healthy, mutually respectful relationships.
Through comprehensive sex education and access to reproductive health services, people are empowered to make responsible decisions about their sexual health.
Crisis Pregnancy Centers:
A strategy of deception, an assault on women’s health
Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) are fake “clinics” that have been known to use anti-choice propaganda, medically inaccurate or incomplete information, and intimidation tactics to dissuade women from having abortions.
Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) recently released a report detailing the false and misleading information provided by Crisis Pregnancy Centers. The report found that an overwhelming majority (87 percent) of CPCs reached in the investigation provided misleading, medically inaccurate information about abortion. Furthermore, the report proved that Crisis Pregnancy Centers have received $30 million of our tax dollars to tell patients that, among other things, suicide, breast cancer and infertility are much more likely to occur following an abortion.
CPCs often withhold essential, medically accurate reproductive health information from women who are led to believe that they are visiting a neutral and objective health care facility. Despite the fact that the women and teens who come to them are clearly sexually active and at risk for unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection, CPCs lecture them about abstinence instead of discussing contraception, if they provide any sexual health information at all. Women and teens need accurate information based on their individual health needs and the best science available.
Women who enter Crisis Pregnancy Centers are walking into a trap. They expect to receive neutral comprehensive medical care and instead are greeted with manipulation and ideology designed to coerce and scare them. Crisis Pregnancy Centers threaten the public health of women across the country.
In order to make choices that are right for them, women and teens need access to accurate information about all of their reproductive health and treatment options. Planned Parenthood Health Systems provides our patients with a full range of medically accurate information about our services, as well as comprehensive unbiased education on all pregnancy options, including carrying the pregnancy to term, adoption and abortion. PPHS is committed to helping women and teens make informed and responsible decisions.
For more information on CPCs, please click here.