Lucy Gellman Photo
Looking down at her glowing, warm cellphone and up at a hall of over 200 before her, Pierrette Silverman made a commitment to Planned Parenthood of Southern New England: $250 , or as she sees it, one diagnosis and treatment of a precancerous condition.
Or seven emergency contraception pills. Or 20 flu vaccines. Or 50 chlamydia treatments.
Silverman is vice president of education and training for Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (PPSNE), an affiliate of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) that receives federal funding for primary care services like breast health and ovarian cancer screenings, Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) and pregnancy testing, vaginal and pelvic exams, and distribution of oral contraceptives and IUD placement. Without federal dollars, Planned Parenthood also provides access to safe and legal abortion.
Monday night, she and PPSNE president Judy Tabar were leading a charge at College Street Music Hall: help raise a mid-evening $20,000 for Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (PPSNE) as it moves into its second century, and expands its provision of reproductive healthcare services to a more global audience. The occasion, which drew over 220 people to drink, dine, donate, and discuss the organization’s future earlier this week, was a centennial celebration for Planned Parenthood. Over $100,000 raised from the event, where tickets cost $50 – 100 a head, will go toward the organization’s daily operations and provision of reproductive healthcare services.
Silverman, with panelists Moret, Lithwick and Satcher.
While celebratory in tone, attendees noted that the event comes at a moment when reproductive rights are fighting an uphill battle, and need to be actively protected. (Not coincidentally, this year also marks the 25-year anniversary of the Anita Hill testimony in the Clarence THoams confirmation hearings.)
“I feel an urgency around this election, the issues Planned Parenthood stands for, fights for,” said Karen DuBois-Walton, executive director of the Housing Authority of New Haven Housing Authority and one of PPSNE’s board members. “I’ve never felt this much fear around an outcome [of an election]. It’s [access to reproductive healthcare] a very real, present issue … and this stuff, Roe V. Wade, is not far behind in our history. I hope that folks will remain vigilant, come out, and vote.”
“The risk has always been that we take Roe V. Wade for granted,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy on his way to the stage, where fellow U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal was speaking on the proposed Women’s Health Protection Act, which seeks to stop proposed TRAP legislation in its tracks. “This fight is not close to over. All of this manufactured furor over Planned Parenthood shows how very raw and real this is.”
Tabar.
That remained the bottom line for Silverman, Tabar, and a star-studded lineup of public health advocates including Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick, Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health David Satcher, and Urban Policy Strategies President Marta Moret. As attendees found their seats and affixed celebratory purple “100 Years” pins to their outfits, panelists took the stage to deliver a message: while stepping into what Tabar called a “bold, incredible second century for Planned Parenthood,” the organization and its affiliates must remain vigilant, identify its allies, and continue to actively support care at its 16 satellite facilities across Southern New England.
“I want to sound a cautionary note,” said Lithwick, who has spent years reporting on the Supreme Court. She referred almost immediately to how easily Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, a narrow 5 – 3 decision, could have gone the other way. “The notion that this [protection of remote, non-surgical facilities providing reproductive care and abortions] is sealed in amber for all time could not mistake the facts on the ground more. I think it’s very easy to get complacent … I think was a skin of our teeth win.”
Moret and Satcher used that as a sort of jumping off point, noting not only how far Planned Parenthood has come, but how hard it will need to work in both the next 100 years and, more realistically, even the next five or 10, as rates of maternal mortality keep rising, racial health disparities grow, and new, increased populations of immigrants and refugees start using Planned Parenthood with new and different reproductive health needs.
“Access to health care is still a major issue,” said Satcher, focusing on how women of color often faced an uphill climb when trying to get reproductive, pediatric, and other basic healthcare services. “It’s time for us to really get serious about developing and putting in place a health care system into place that works for everybody equally.”
With its initiatives, Tabar maintained, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England is working towards that better system with a mix of individual donations where something like $100 covers three emergency contraception pills, $1,000 covers two long acting reversible contraception implants (i.e. intrauterine devices), and $100,000 covers 5,000 cycles of oral contraceptives, and programs like PPSNE’s youth advocacy, teaching and mentorship initiatives.
“Our vision is a world where reproductive rights are basic human rights, where access to reproductive healthcare doesn’t depend on who you are or where you live,” said Tabar, who is stepping down from her position next year and encouraged attendees to give at the event. “There are a lot of barriers to equity. Things like race, sexual orientation, gender gender expression, geography, immigration status, and mental and physical health. All of those barriers get in the way of equity. And we absolutely in this country, in America, and in this affiliate, if we want to ensure true equity, that is what we need to be fighting for in this next century.”
Echoing those words as she spoke later in the evening, messages of encouragement scrolled across a scrim behind her, celebrating Planned Parenthood’s milestone. As Silverman led the charge with her $250, several new messages popped into the frame.
“For our first woman president!,” read one for $100.
“From a nasty woman who votes,” read another donating $60.
“To defeat the protesters,” came from a third donating $5,000 and eliciting a smattering of laughs from the crowd.
Rowe.
Not everyone was so optimistic about the future of the organization. Barrie Rowe, 41, who had come into New Haven “from Connecticut outside New Haven” to object to the event, spent the evening outside on College Street with six fellow protesters who called the organization “an agent in America’s holocaust” and maintained that PPAF founder “Margaret Sanger hated black people” and supported “killing babies.”
“I’m here to spread awareness of what goes on by Planned Parenthood,” Rowe said, alternating between signs that read “Stop The Child Sacrifice” and “Hitler’s Holocaust/America’s Holocaust” juxtaposing images of dead concentration camp victims and photoshopped fetuses. “This is a child sacrifice of 3,500 precious lives here in New Haven and all over the country. This is a very important issue to me because we are going to be judged one day. Because of the child sacrifice, the blood of these babies is on America.”
Inside, Moret was wrapping up, and beaming at the crowd.
“In the next 10 years, Planned Parenthood is going to have a much more global place in the world,” she said.
To listen to an episode of WNHH’s “Kitchen Sync” about TRAP legislation and measures like the Women’s Health Protection Act, click on or download the audio above.
