Interview Questions: Summary of Interview

Who: Lindsay Maas of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Michigan

  • Please tell us about your organization’s history. How did it start, what does it stand for, how has it evolved over the years?
  • PP has been around for 90-100 years Planned Parenthood Federation of America
  • It started as a grassroots movement because people needed affordable reproductive health services
  • It is now the largest provider of reproductive health services in the US and provides family planning services to anyone who walks through their doors
  • Over 800 centers in the US
  • Ann Arbor has the largest PP Health Center in the state of Michigan
  • What is your mission and philosophy?
  • Stands for providing services, education, and advocacy
  • Mission to improve access to reproductive health, information, services
  • Pro-Choice organization and defends a women’s right to choose and teens access to sexual education
  • What kind of services do you provide in the community?
  • Family Planning services and reproductive health services include birth control, pregnancy testing, STD testing and treatment, HIV testing, EC, HPV and Hepatitis Vaccines, LGBT services, Women and Men’s Health Services, Abortion Services, Cancer screenings, PAP smears, Vasectomies
  • Train high school students to be sex educators for their community
  • 97% of our services are preventative health care
  • In addition to medical services, PP also offers Community Education and Advocacy
  • What kind of problems do you face, while providing these services and how do you tackle them?
  • Budget Issues
  • 75% of patients are low-income, which means they are 150% below the poverty line
  • We need to be able to provide access to services they can provide
  • Receives very little State money
  • Federal Money – Title X Funding
  • Currently, we’re fighting to keep our Title X funding because without it, just in Michigan alone, about 90,000 women will be left without services (50,000 of them use Planned Parenthood)
  • Covers a full range of family planning services for low income people
  • Can also utilize Medicaid
  • *Recently the US House voted to eliminate Title X Funding
  • 50,000 PP Patients have nowhere to go and would eliminate all funding for PP, they wouldn’t even be able to accept Medicaid
  • Opposition from Pro-Life Legislators who are against the right to choose
  • Combat it by having rallies, marches, and supporting pro-choice legislatures
  • What are the things that can really help you reach out more and/or provide current services in a better and more effective ways?
  • Currently, the “I Stand With PP Rally”
  • 1 in 5 women use PP in their lives and when you threaten something that a majority of people use or will us, you can touch people on a personal base and they’ll put their hearts into volunteering or supporting
  • People want to be active about reproductive health rights
  • Tries fun events:
  • Get Down for Choice, Beer Tastings, Everyone wearing Pink and in pompoms to make it fun
  • What more do you think needs to be done in this area?
  • Things could always be done.
  • Work on a state-wide level but always looking to reach out to college students who will carry PP work into their future careers
  • Reaching out to lower income women
  • Detroit has the highest teen pregnancy rate
  • Reaches out these areas for elections
  • How does your organization vision itself in the near future? Any future plans, goals, improvements, expansion etc.
  • As PP grows and grows, more people will need quality, affordable health care especially as the economy tanks
  • Possible that the 3 MI affiliates could merge into 1
  • As people become more informed, they will become more involved in services and the 3 areas of PP will continue to grow and hopefully be more progressive
  • What kind of policy, structural and local change you will like to see coming in the future and how will that help?
  • “Prevention First” package has been pushed for 10 years (4 main parts):
  • Budget – needs more money
  • Every $1 spent on family planning saves $6.37 in Medicaid, prenatal, and the first year of a baby’s life
  • Access to Contraception
  • Currently, hospitals in MI do NOT have to give information about emergency contraception if they’re victims of sexual assault
  • Comprehensive Sex Ed in schools
  • Access to abortion services
  • Please share some inspiring stories that left an impact on you and others in your organization.
  • The other week a lady in Lansing came to ask for a sticker and ended up getting really emotional because she told Lindsay and another girl that PP saved her life and she’s been thankful for them everyday
  • “We’re not firemen and we’re not surgeons, but we save lives…and that keeps me going”
  • Please share anything else that we have not covered up till now, that you would really like to share and talk about.
  • Services to people with disabilities
  • Make it a point to serve the underserved communities
  • Especially people who don’t have the access or cannot physically get to the clinics
  • Have clinics in urban areas because it’s easiest for people to get to, especially people who have limited mobility
  • What kind of support would you like in the work that you are doing in the community? Who would you like that support to come from?
  • Right now, yes! The threat of cutting Title X funding has mobilized over a million more supporters than we normally have. We have phones ringing off the hook about how people can get involved and volunteer.
  • Lots of donations
  • Huge outpouring of support
  • This is a great uprising because after the election, we saw that Democrats and Progressives didn’t get out to vote
  • Over 200 people in the Walk for Choice in Detroit and today there’s the rally with over 600 people attending on facebook