Yesterday and Today
October
October 16, 1916:
the first birth control clinic in America opens on Amboy Street in Brooklyn, NY.
Today
Today, Planned Parenthood’s more than
750 health centers in communities nationwide provide primary and preventive health care to nearly three million patients annually. Planned Parenthood birth control services help avert an estimated 486,000 unintended pregnancies every year.
1920s
Volunteers distributing birth control information in 1920s New York. Courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
Today Today, Planned Parenthood
is the nation’s largest sex educator, reaching more than one million parents and young people every year. And Planned Parenthood Online receives more than three million visits every month from people looking for trusted information that will help them stay safe and healthy.
Margaret Sanger outside of the Brooklyn courthouse in 1917. It wasn’t until 48 years later – in 1965 – that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting the use of birth control by married couples.
Today Today, Planned Parenthood
health centers provide affordable birth control to 2 million patients every year. But despite nearly a century of progress, Planned Parenthood is fighting against dozens of proposals in Congress and in the states to take birth control and much needed preventive care away from women.
1929
Sanger censored in Boston, 1929. Seven years later, in 1936, a federal court ruling found that birth control could no longer be classified as obscene. Courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
Today, birth control is used by 89 percent of women at risk of
unintended pregnancy, and 71 percent of American voters support access to birth control without co-pays. Planned Parenthood’s Birth Control Matters campaign played an important role in conveying Americans’ support for affordable birth control and in 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that birth control with no co-pays would be covered under the Affordable Care Act.
Hannah Stone and other members of the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (a precursor to Planned Parenthood) being arrested on April 15, 1929. Courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
Today, one in five American women has received care from a
Planned Parenthood health center at some point in her life. And despite the efforts of opponents determined to turn back the clock on women’s health and rights, Planned Parenthood is working tirelessly to ensure that women will always have access to the birth control and health care they need and deserve.