Senators Celebrate Planned Parenthood’s First 100 Years

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin today joined Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and 17 of her Senate colleagues in introducing legislation to recognize the importance of Planned Parenthood’s work on women’s health care and reproductive rights in America over the last 100 years.

Planned Parenthood will celebrate 100 years of providing care and information to millions of women about their reproductive health on October 16. The organization today provides a wide array of reproductive health services, including prevention and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, abortion care, cancer screenings, exams, birth control and prenatal care. Over the last decade, Planned Parenthood has also doubled the number of health services its doctors and nurses provide to men.

Senator Baldwin also stressed the importance of continued federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

“Over the last century, Planned Parenthood has provided essential care and preventive services to millions of men and women. Their work has helped solidify that every woman, regardless of where she lives, deserves the freedom to make her own, personal decisions about her health care, her family, and her body.” said Senator Baldwin. “I congratulate Planned Parenthood on all they have accomplished in the last 100 years, and I will continue to work so they can continue providing care to families all across the country for the next 100 years.”

Planned Parenthood is also the largest sex education provider in America, offering informational programs to 1.5 million people in schools and community centers across the country.

The bill would put into law the Senate’s recognition that Planned Parenthood has done groundbreaking work on women’s health and reproductive rights over its 100-year history.

Specifically, the bill would express the Senate’s view that Planned Parenthood is a safety net provider that reaches medically underserved people, should not be defunded or attacked for its role as a critical women’s health provider, and that Planned Parenthood “remains a critical thread in the fabric of our society.”

The bill’s cosponsors include: Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Al Franken (D-MN), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

Read the full text of the resolution here.