Local Planned Parenthood CEO calls health care reform ‘bittersweet’

The way Darrah DiGiorgio Johnson sees it, women’s rights — particularly with regard to their reproductive health care — is an ongoing civil rights struggle.

Commenting on the recent amendment to the House’s health care reform bill that would deny the use of federal subsidies to purchase abortion coverage in policies sold by private insurers, Johnson — the president and CEO of the second largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the United States — said Planned Parenthood considered the action “extraordinarily bittersweet.”

“Health care reform in this country is long overdue and all of us have been waiting for it, but to have 60-plus Democrats vote for that amendment which was taking the status quo of abortion care for women in the United States and reversing it, was extremely difficult,” said the Carmel Valley mother of two.

“It’s a law of the land that a woman can access a right to make a decision about her own body. The amendment was a very sneaky, slimy move on the part of anti-choice advocates and House members to get this issue — abortion — carved out of a whole health reform bill which we all believe is important for this country; and to hold the whole reform bill hostage is, depending on what side you are on, either brilliant or sneaky and slimy.”

Johnson said her organization “will try to talk to the White House to influence the Senate…not to turn back the clock.”

As part of its grass root outreach, Johnson’s San Diego affiliate is the only affiliate in the country that has a designated “Republicans for Choice” coordinator.

Johnson, 38, has worked for more than 10 years in counseling and women’s reproductive health. Now, as CEO of her San Diego, Riverside and Imperial Counties affiliate, she has 19 clinics and a staff of more than 500 under her watch.

Last year, operating on a $50-plus million budget, the affiliate provided services for some 290,000 patient visits by women and men. Under Johnson’s leadership during the past four years, it has grown 50 percent in patient visits.

The former elementary school teacher chose social work and counseling, a concentration she figured would allow he to work directly with women and have an impact on women’s struggle for equal rights.

“I worked with domestically abused women for awhile, then I went back [to college] to get my master’s degree and was waitressing when I applied for a job at Planned Parenthood as an educator to teach health education in the community,” she said. “And I got the job.”

Planned Parenthood’s focus is on offering services to prevent unintended pregnancies.

Most patients — 90 percent — visit the clinics for family planning services, including contraception, testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, and cervical cancer screening. Less than 1 percent go for sterilization services. And 6 to 8 percent of patients go to receive abortion services offered at four of the affiliate’s 19 clinics.

For men, the clinics offer various services, including HIV testing, partner treatment, vasectomy counseling and vasectomy surgery.

The affiliate also offers sex education to schools and pro-choice presentations on college campuses and in community-based organizations.

In addition, the affiliate serves migrant workers and low income residents in the Coachella Valley and provides cross-border programs in Tijuana, Mexico.

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider and advocate with 91 affiliates operating 850 health care centers throughout the U.S.

Dating back to 1916 when Margaret Sanger, a nurse, opened America’s first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York, Planned Parenthood’s core mission has always been to provide unfettered access to affordable reproductive health care, education and advocacy for all women, regardless of their life circumstances.

In Sanger’s America, women could not vote, sign contracts, have bank accounts or divorce abusive husbands.

They also had no control over the number of children they bore nor could they obtain information about birth control because of laws that made contraception illegal.

Sanger’s mother had 18 pregnancies, bore 11 children and died in 1899 at the age of 40.

Joining Planned Parenthood, Johnson felt she had found her niche.

Her initial job as a Planned Parenthood community educator was to provide age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education in schools and communities.

She also earned her master’s degree in counseling and, when she was 26, was diagnosed with and began treatment for thyroid cancer. Becoming a cancer survivor before she turned 30, she said, further convinced her that we have to do all we can do to help others during our time on this earth.

Shortly after her diagnosis, she was promoted to serve as the president/CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Mercer Area (Trenton, N.J.) affiliate, becoming one of the youngest CEOs in Planned Parenthood’s history.

In 2006, after a national search, she was recruited to head the organization’s San Diego affiliate.

About 70 percent of the affiliate’s patient visits are subsidized by the state’s FPACT program. Contributions, patient fees, private contracts and insurance reimbursements also fund the affiliate’s work.

Although the affiliate has not experienced any serious acts of violence or threats at any of its 19 clinics, security for patients and staff is always top-of-mind because of bombings and murders by anti-abortionists that have occurred at other Planned Parenthood clinics in other parts of the country.

“We have armed security guards at many of our locations,” Johnson said. “We have cameras and we have very highly secure buildings.”

Johnson said the adversity women face accessing equal rights and reproductive health care only makes her more motivated to fight.

“The same women who have abortions are the same women who have loving, wonderful families in other parts of their lives,” she added.

“Personally, to me, it’s offensive that we still live in a country where those rights can be so easily be toyed with. So each year as these issues happen, people like me … get more invested in this work, makes us more fired up, we feel more passionate about going to the office every day … and we need more people to come out and stand up for it.”

For additional information on Planned Parenthood’s history, locations and services, visit: www.plannedparenthood.org.

Tags: Darrah DiGiorgio Johnson, Health care reform abortion amendment, Imperial Counties Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood health care reform, Riverside Planned Parenthood, San Diego Planned Parenthood, SDNN, Stupak abortion health care reform, Stupak Amendment health heare reform

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