Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood was founded in 1916 by Margaret Sanger as the American Birth Control League, becoming Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. For the majority of its history it provided contraception, gynecological care, STI testing and treatment, and reproductive health services to millions of low-income Americans who lacked access to private medical care. Abortion services, while an important component of its work after Roe v. Wade (1973), have consistently represented a minority of its total health services. The Roe v. Wade decision transformed Planned Parenthood's political profile. As the nation's largest institutional provider of abortion services, it became the named target of the anti-abortion political infrastructure that Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell Sr., and others were building from 1973 onward. The Moral Majority's fundraising materials, sermons, and political organizing consistently named Planned Parenthood as the institutional embodiment of the culture of death they claimed to be fighting. The 'crisis pregnancy center' movement — the network of fake clinics built to intercept women seeking abortion services — was constructed explicitly as a counter-institution to Planned Parenthood, designed to replicate its presence while redirecting patients away from abortion services. By 2020, crisis pregnancy centers outnumbered Planned Parenthood clinics by more than three to one nationwide. The Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Family Research Council all produced policy infrastructure for defunding Planned Parenthood at the state and federal level. The fifty-year campaign to defund, restrict, and ultimately eliminate Planned Parenthood culminated in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling (2022), which overturned Roe v. Wade and immediately triggered the closure or severe restriction of abortion services across more than half of American states. Many of these states moved simultaneously to defund Planned Parenthood entirely from Medicaid reimbursements, cutting off reproductive health care for low-income patients regardless of the specific services they sought. Planned Parenthood provided cancer screenings, contraception, STI testing, and general gynecological care to millions of patients who had no other affordable option. The Religious Right's campaign against it was framed entirely in terms of abortion, obscuring the breadth of care its patients lost when clinics closed. The organization it most resembled, in terms of the populations it served, was a community health clinic. The organization the Religious Right said it was, was something else entirely.

Documented themes

• Opposition / Resistance
• Anti-LGBTQ
• Abortion Politics

Connections from Planned Parenthood

• triggered → Religious Liberty as Legal Strategy Pivot (2014) — Planned Parenthood's role as the nation's largest abortion provider made it the institutional focus of the Alliance Defending Freedom's post-Obergefell legal strategy. The 'religious liberty' framing — in which refusing to provide or insure contraception and abortion services was a protected exercise of faith — was specifically designed to create legal mechanisms for defunding Planned Parenthood and enabling providers, insurers, and employers to refuse participation in reproductive health services. The Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case (2014) established the RFRA precedent that allowed employers to exclude contraception from insurance coverage; ADF and related organizations then used that precedent to build a legal framework for state and federal Medicaid defunding campaigns targeting Planned Parenthood specifically.

Connections to Planned Parenthood

• Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) influenced (2022) — The Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling (2022), which overturned Roe v. Wade, was the culmination of fifty years of Religious Right organizing against Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights. The immediate effect was the closure or severe restriction of abortion services in more than half of American states, with many states simultaneously moving to defund Planned Parenthood from Medicaid reimbursements. The ruling represented the full institutional payoff of the anti-Planned Parenthood campaign that the Moral Majority, FRC, ADF, and allied organizations had sustained since 1973.
• Family Research Council opposed (1983) — The Family Research Council, from its founding in 1983, made defunding Planned Parenthood a central institutional priority. FRC produced policy research, legislative testimony, and advocacy campaigns directed at removing federal funding from Planned Parenthood through the Title X program and Medicaid reimbursements. FRC's sustained lobbying contributed to multiple congressional efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and informed the state-level campaigns that followed Dobbs.
• Moral Majority opposed (1980) — From its founding in 1979, the Moral Majority named Planned Parenthood as the institutional face of abortion in America and organized politically for its defunding and dismantlement. Falwell's fundraising letters, sermons, and political organizing consistently targeted Planned Parenthood as the embodiment of the culture of death. The Moral Majority's anti-abortion political infrastructure — voter registration, candidate scoring, direct mail — treated opposing Planned Parenthood as a defining organizational purpose.

Sources

• Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation — Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2020)