Nearly a decade ago, Planned Parenthood became the target of furious denunciations by conservative lawmakers, who insisted that the organization was engaged in the nefarious trafficking of fetal tissue to private groups. Having been a supporter of Planned Parenthood for many years, I was stunned by the monstrous accusations hurled at an organization that had served women in need for generations.
For better and for worse, much has changed since then. For worse, the U.S. Supreme Court rode roughshod over precedent and abolished reproductive freedom with its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson. The consequences have been far-reaching in states such as Texas, Alabama and Mississippi, which immediately outlawed most abortions. As a result, pregnant women whose lives are threatened by fetal anomalies have not been able to receive the health care they need, and women who do not want to carry a child to term have been forced to do so.
For better, a majority of Americans have voiced their opposition to restrictions on reproductive freedom. Even in red states such as Kansas, voters have protected abortion rights. The backlash against the Supreme Court’s decision has been so powerful that it propelled Democrats to surprising wins in the 2022 midterm elections.
It’s no surprise, then, to see Vice President Kamala Harris make a historic visit to a Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic. It’s a way for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign to highlight its support for reproductive rights. As the first sitting vice president to visit a Planned Parenthood facility, Harris can underscore former President Donald Trump’s role in creating an ultraconservative high court.
But there is more to it than that. This visit will help Planned Parenthood and similar clinics around the nation regain their stature — to recover from smears they never deserved. The accusations against Planned Parenthood clinics that cropped up a decade back were based on secret videos filmed — and doctored — by conservative groups looking to demean the clinics. While such clinics have long legally provided fetal tissue to researchers working on cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s, the videos were edited to make it look as though clinic employees were up to no good.
Among conservatives, the hostility toward Planned Parenthood was such that, in 2021, award-winning historian Jon Meacham was disinvited from giving a speech at Alabama’s Samford University, supposedly one of the state’s academically preeminent institutions of higher learning. Meacham’s crime? He had once spoken at a fundraising luncheon for Planned Parenthood.
Harris’ visit can help remind Americans that Planned Parenthood and similar clinics provide a vast array of reproductive services, usually to women who are uninsured or underinsured. Abortion has always accounted for just a tiny percentage of the work at medical facilities conservatives denounce as “abortion clinics.” For the most part, Planned Parenthood has done just what its name suggests: It helps women (or anyone else) plan their families by handing out contraceptives. So do other similar clinics.
It’s too late to restore those services in red states where clinics have shut down. The Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Jackson, Mississippi — known as the Pink House because of its paint job — closed as soon as the Dobbs ruling, in which it was the defendant, was issued. That leaves women in one of the nation’s poorest states without access to affordable reproductive services — not just abortions, but also contraception.
It’s not too late to keep reminding Americans that reproductive choice is a bedrock principle in this democracy. Even for affluent women, the Dobbs decision has meant uncertainty and inconvenience. For those with life-threatening pregnancies, the limits on abortion care have also meant trauma. For less-affluent women, the decision has been so much worse.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, rates of unintended pregnancy are highest for low-income women. Rates of unintended pregnancy, the institute says, are higher in the United States than in most other developed nations. Those statistics speak to the dire need for reproductive services — routine gynecological check-ups, contraception and abortion, among them — for women who are in lower-income brackets.
Harris should keep reminding Americans of that.
Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.
