Amid criticism, advocates for Planned Parenthood relay simple message about women’s health services

Twelve people sit in the waiting room of the Syracuse Planned Parenthood. A young woman wearing a North Face jacket stares down at a form on a clipboard. A young couple sits together and talks quietly. There’s a young man sitting alone next to a stack of brochures that say “Know Your Options” and feature a drawing of a condom.

The people are quiet, but the sound of an episode of “The Dr. Oz Show” blares from the television near the receptionist.

Outside, Syracuse residents Hank and Louise Donahue are praying for them. They hope that Jesus will convince the people inside, who they call “abortionists” and “sinners,” to open their hearts and change their minds, to join the fight for the millions of babies that, the Donahues say, are being killed by Planned Parenthood.

“We pray for the children in the womb. Protect them from the violence of abortion. We pray for those who are scheduled to die at the Syracuse Planned Parenthood. Save them from death,” they say in a prayer titled “A prayer for the closing of an abortion mill.”

By the Donahues’ account, praying works. About once a year, Hank said, a woman passing by takes a brochure, talks to them and converts to Christianity.

For more than 25 years, the Donahues have been praying outside the Planned Parenthood on East Genesee Street, less than a mile from the Syracuse University campus. Recently, however, the Donahues aren’t the only ones trying to end Planned Parenthood — politicians are consistently working to cut its funding.

Patients from all over the city and Onondaga County go to the East Genesee Street Planned Parenthood — the only one in the city — to get contraceptive care, sexually transmitted infection testing, health screenings, abortion services and a spectrum of women’s health care.

 

On a Saturday morning at the end of January, the Donahues are joined by seven other devoted pro-lifers outside the Syracuse Planned Parenthood. They stand in a line on the edge of the sidewalk, as according to New York state law, it is illegal to protest on private property.

They belong to different churches, Hank said, but they come together every Saturday at 10:30 a.m. to pray together and to fight the same fight.

“This is why we’re out here,” Hank said in an interview after the prayer. “To stop this slaughter.”

To the Donahues, abortion is responsible for most of the evil in the country — and Planned Parenthood, they said, is at the center of it, and is the devil itself.

“Colleges are complaining there’s not enough young people to come to college so they (have to) raise their rates,” he continued. “It’s just a numbers game; there’s not people.”

In total, about 3 percent of the services Planned Parenthood provides are abortion-related, according to Planned Parenthood’s 2014-15 annual report. The vast majority of their services — 76 percent — are related to STI testing and contraception.

On the fact that 97 percent of the services Planned Parenthood provides are not abortion-related, Hank said, it’s “horsesh*t.”

 

Decent access

New York state has relatively permissive laws regulating abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

Women seeking abortions in New York do not have waiting periods. They are not forced to look at an ultrasound before getting an abortion — nor are they required to go through counseling, which is often conducted without medically accurate information about the risks of abortion — according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that works to advance reproductive health.

Physicians in New York, according to the Guttmacher Institute, are not required to give patients misleading information before terminating a pregnancy in order to gain the patient’s “informed consent.”

New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo has supported funding Planned Parenthood as governors in other states have pushed to end state Medicaid contracts with the organization.

These actions were taken in response to a set of undercover videos filmed by pro-life organization Center For Medical Progress. The videos purported to show Planned Parenthood employees illegally selling fetal tissue for profit.

A Planned Parenthood analysis found that the videos were heavily edited, and Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards maintained in a hearing before the U.S. Senate that the fetal tissue was not being sold at a profit, but for reimbursement to use in lifesaving research.

On Jan. 25, a grand jury in Houston investigating the alleged crimes in the videos indicted members of the CMP instead of Planned Parenthood, the organization the jury was originally investigating.

There are 59 Planned Parenthood clinics in New York state, according to the Planned Parenthood website. Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina have two. Mississippi, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming have one.

There has been a strong push nationally to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood in the wake of the CMP videos. Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), who represents Syracuse, voted in favor of a bill that defunded Planned Parenthood in September 2015. President Barack Obama vetoed the bill, which would have also repealed the Affordable Care Act, in early January.

In 1970, New York state was one of the first to legalize abortion, three years before Roe v. Wade — which constitutionally protects a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy — came down from the Supreme Court.

Yet, when Cuomo introduced the Women’s Equality Act to the New York State Assembly in 2013, it failed to pass because of a controversial “abortion plank,” which essentially codified Roe v. Wade into New York state law and ensured that women could get an abortion within 24 weeks of conception, according to the New York Women’s Equality Coalition.

The bill was passed and signed into law in October 2015, when the provisions about abortion were removed.

“Just because you have decent access doesn’t mean it’s easy,” said Betty DeFazio, director of community affairs and public policy of Planned Parenthood of Central and Western New York.

A matter of health

Right before Katie Pataki came to SU to start her freshman year, her gynecologist in her Pennsylvania hometown moved to Canada and didn’t tell any of her patients.

So when Pataki, now a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, started school, she was in a new city where she didn’t know anyone — let alone any doctors — and she didn’t have a gynecologist to help her see if the birth control pill she was on worked best with her body.

“That’s the thing with birth control,” Pataki said. “You kind of have to try it out until you have to find the right one.”

Pataki decided to go to SU Health Services. There, she got a checkup and a refill on her birth control.

“They did everything I needed them to do,” she said. “They were great.”

There’s overlap between the services that SU Health Services and Planned Parenthood provide. Patients at both can refill and obtain birth control prescriptions, get emergency contraception such as Plan B and ella and receive Pap smear tests, breast and pelvic exams, STI testing and pregnancy tests, according to the SU Health Services website.

There are some gaps in what Health Services can provide. Health Services does not, for example, have access to birth control implants such as intrauterine devices (IUDs), said Ben Domingo, director of SU Health Services, in an email.

Health Services, unlike Planned Parenthood, does not provide abortion services. If a student were to go to Health Services seeking an abortion, Domingo said, they would be given a list of family planning resources to contact.

 

Pataki started taking birth control pills after graduating high school. She had irregular periods and was in a long-term relationship. For her, the decision was both medical and personal.

“It was just the right move for me at that right time,” she said.

When it came time to pay for her birth control, she said, her insurance company didn’t cover it. After fighting with her insurance company and finding a loophole, Pataki was able to get her birth control covered, she said.

Pataki still uses that loophole to cover her birth control.

“It felt very isolating knowing that a medication, which is good for my health and (that I) should be taking, would not be considered by my insurance company,” she said. “I was very upset there had to be a fight, like, why won’t this be covered?”

“It’s health, it’s about health,” she continued. “Saying birth control is something we use because we want to have sex with a lot of people is wrong. It regulates our bodies and that’s important for women’s health.”

SU’s new student health insurance plan, which is provided by Aetna Student Health, covers birth control and well-woman visits, such as cancer screenings and pap tests, Domingo said.

Under the ACA, some methods of birth control are covered without co-pays and others are not, according to the Planned Parenthood website. It mostly depends on the insurance company and what prescriptions are available without a co-pay under particular plans, DeFazio added.

In most cases, college students are on their parents’ health insurance plan, she said, which is an option under the ACA.

If a student cannot afford a service relating to women’s health at SU Health Services, that student could be referred to Planned Parenthood, Domingo said.

Planned Parenthood has more comprehensive options for patients whose insurance does not cover certain women’s health care options or for patients without insurance, which is why Health Services might refer students to Planned Parenthood, DeFazio said.

The number of SU students who use the Syracuse Planned Parenthood is unknown. When a patient comes into Planned Parenthood, they are not asked about schooling, so data about SU students and Planned Parenthood essentially does not exist, DeFazio said.

“It is important that college-aged students have access to reproductive health services because without them, it disrupts education,” DeFazio added. “And that has cascading economic effects down the line.”

A friendly face

Seth Quam stands outside the doors of the Syracuse Planned Parenthood almost every Friday or Saturday morning. He always greets patients walking in or out of the building with a smile.

“Hi, how are you doing?” he usually asks them. “Welcome.”

A few patients ask Quam why he’s there — why a tall, strong man like him is talking to them and guarding the front door.

“Oh,” he responds. “It’s just so you don’t have to deal with the protesters.”

As a patient escort, Quam, a junior citizenship and civic engagement and geography dual major at SU, is there to make sure each person walking to and from the Syracuse Planned Parenthood feels safe and comfortable when protesters line the sidewalk.

Every time Quam has been at Planned Parenthood, he said, there have been protesters. Some days, there’s a big demonstration, planned events that bring hordes of people to East Genesee Street to pray, to yell or to rally.

Quam recalled a time when he saw a man lead a group of teenage girls up and down the sidewalk yelling prayers and Bible verses, holding signs that said “Abortion is Genocide.”

“It is sad seeing that group of middle school-aged girls being indoctrinated into this ideology at such a young age,” he said.

Most of the time, Quam said, there are just a few people, a small group that prays while holding rosaries and pictures of the Virgin Mary.

“It’s almost impressive the stamina they have. One guy will just pray for a hour straight without stopping,” he said.

Occasionally, protesters will heckle patients walking in or out of the building. That’s when Quam just talks about nothing in particular to drown out the voices. During training to become a patient escort, he was told never to engage with protesters or tell them any personal information about himself.

“That way, they can’t undermine you or get under your skin,” he said.

Most of the people Quam, who first started volunteering at the Syracuse Planned Parenthood in October 2015, meets walking into or out of Planned Parenthood are not there to get an abortion, he said.

It can be courageous to step into a Planned Parenthood to begin with, Quam said, and protesters make the process unnecessarily difficult. Behind the building is a parking lot, and most patients — annoyed — just cut through the back to avoid dealing with the protesters out front.

“I’m not going to say I’ve rescued anyone from this tearful encounter they’ve had with the protesters, they’re not violent people, but they are discouraging,” Quam said. “I’m trying to use my privileges as a white heterosexual upper-middle class male to make it easier for some people who don’t have the same privileges.”