By Katie Quinlisk 

Planned Parenthood celebrated on Sunday its 100th anniversary since the first birth control clinic opened in Brooklyn, New York. While my timelines, inboxes and feeds were filled with pink posts, exclamation points and balloon emojis, this day was not universally celebrated. Due to its role as a national female health provider in a grossly polarized country, Planned Parenthood has become an increasingly controversial organization.

Planned Parenthood was introduced to me in several different ways. Planned Parenthood’s first clinic was opened at 46 Amboy Street by Margaret Sanger, who was a nurse, the daughter of Irish immigrants and the ringleader of the birth control movement of the 20th century. I first encountered Sanger’s name in my high school theology class. During my senior year at my Catholic, all-girls high school in the Philadelphia suburbs, I took a mandatory “Sex and Marriage” course, and its existence seems increasingly cringe-worthy as I get older.

For homework, during a unit on Natural Family Planning, we were required to read an excerpt from Sanger’s 1921 article “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.” The assignment’s intention was clear. In this article, Sanger points out several benefits of the widespread availability of birth control. One of those benefits was eugenics, or selective breeding. Because this excerpt was introduced without historical context, we misinterpreted Sanger’s attempt to appeal to the eugenics movement for support. We discussed it in class the next day using key phrases like “deplorable,” “twisted,” “unethical” and “dead babies.” My teacher offhandedly mentioned that Sanger went on to forge what is now Planned Parenthood. That was the end of the discussion.

The second time I came across Sanger’s name was at Fordham, during my “Feminist Theory in an Intercultural Context” class. But here, Sanger’s name meant something different.

We discussed Sanger among women whom my professor deemed to be her counterparts, including Betty Friedan, Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Sojourner Truth and Susan B. Anthony. We discussed her role as the fiery pioneer of a massive cultural movement, and we talked about how Planned Parenthood irrefutably changed the landscape of the American family structure and female experience.

I firmly believe that the anniversary of Planned Parenthood is a feminist holiday, even though I am a Catholic school-educated woman who was raised in the conservative Philly suburbs. Despite years of religion classes that demonized birth control and the female body, a handful of pro-life high school assemblies, yearly school-sponsored trips to D.C.’s March for Life and last year’s media frenzy, this past Sunday I celebrated Planned Parenthood’s 100th anniversary. I celebrated its birth, and I wished it many more happy and healthy years to come.

Planned Parenthood is undeniably a success story. As detailed in Sanger’s memoir, Planned Parenthood’s mission began in 1912 when a 28-year-old poverty-stricken mother named Sadie Sachs died from an attempt to perform an abortion on herself. Just before her death, with Sanger as her nurse and her witness, Sachs begged her doctor for help. She asked him how she could prevent another pregnancy she could not afford. To this, her doctor replied with a laugh, “You want to have your cake and eat it too, do you?”

This was the attitude towards contraception and women’s health in the early 1900s. Sanger recognized that this attitude bound women to what Sanger called “biological slavery.” Her goal was to give women access to reproductive choices, and educate women about their anatomy at a time when discussion of contraception was deemed obscene and unlawful.

She did just that. Sanger championed the Birth Control Doctrine. She published birth control pamphlets, opened the first women’s health clinic in 1916, founded the American Birth Control League in 1921 (which later became Planned Parenthood) and organized research behind the birth control pill which debuted in 1960.

With these innovations came a cultural shift: sexual liberation for both genders, smaller families and female empowerment. Women were no longer mere vessels for procreation and child-raising. With resources like Planned Parenthood, American women had the power to embrace their sexuality and put motherhood on hold for other things they wanted, such as a college education, a professional career and political power.

Today, Planned Parenthood continues to provide these resources and more. Its centennial celebrates 100 years of access to not just birth control, but pap smears, breast exams, HPV vaccinations, HIV tests and treatments, emergency contraception, pregnancy tests and screening, sexual education, STI testing and treatment, prenatal services, access to abortions and adoption referrals. Its anniversary celebrates 100 years of education and resources and marks the beginning of a cultural shift towards women’s liberation and empowerment.

Celebrate the birth of Planned Parenthood and everything its centennial means for women. Donate as they struggle due to recent political defunding, sign up for their newsletter, attend events hosted by your local chapter. If anything, perpetrate the Planned Parenthood culture — the culture of female empowerment through choice and education. Celebrate this feminist holiday by supporting a woman’s right to choose, because condemning Planned Parenthood ultimately is not pro-life, it is anti-women.

Katie Quinlisk, FCRH ’18, is an English major from West Chester, Pennsylvania.