The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), despite coming under frequent attacks by pro-lifers, remains one of the most respected and well-funded organizations in the country.
Add the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to the equation, and you’ve got a billion-dollar industry in human fertility.
One would expect that the aims and agenda of such a huge organization would come under severe scrutiny, but Planned Parenthood has been immune from such questions, largely because its stated goals of population control and family planning are supposedly in agreement with America’s interests at home and abroad.
But is PPFA’s stated agenda the whole story? One way of determining PPFA’s real agenda is to study its history.
PPFA was founded with the establishment of the nation’s first birth-control clinic in 1916 by Margaret Sanger. The clinic was located in Brownsville, New York, a poor neighborhood of mostly Jews and Italians, establishing a pattern of targeting poor and minority populations for family planning.
The organization went through various name changes — the American Birth Control League (ABCL), the Clinical Research Bureau, the National Committee for Federal Legislation for Birth Control (NCFLBC), the Birth Control Federation of America — before becoming Planned Parenthood in 1942.
[http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5480&Itemid=48 Inside Catholic; ALL Pro-Life Today, 3Mar09]