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Letter from PP About WI Bombing

A (.pdf) note from Teri Huyck to our patients and supporters regarding Incident at Appleton Health Center:

“For 77 years, the dedicated staff at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin have worked to ensure that women and families will always be able to access affordable, high-quality health care in a safe and caring environment in which their privacy and dignity is respected.

“We care for 80,000 patients statewide who turn to us for medical exams, lifesaving cancer screenings, birth control and STD testing and treatment. Over 97 percent of the health care services we provide are essential, preventive care such as this. At three of our 27 health centers, we provide abortion care, a critical component of comprehensive women’s health care.

“Last night around 7:40 p.m. the Grand Chute Fire Department was called to our Appleton North Health Center. Police are telling us that a small, homemade explosive device was placed on an outside windowsill causing a small fire that burned out prior to the fire department arriving. There was minimal damage to one of the exam rooms. No staff or patients were injured or present. The health center will reopen tomorrow. Our primary concern today—as always— is our patients, staff and volunteers.

“Women deserve safe and compassionate care, and we are proud to provide it. Rest assured, our doors will remain open for the thousands of women who rely on Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin each year for high quality health care.

“We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the law enforcement agencies working with us to ensure Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin continues to be a safe and trusted health care provider for Wisconsin women and families.”

Sincerely,
Teri Huyck
CEO and President

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Domestic Terrorism

A bomb was planned at the Planned Parenthood of Grand Chute, WI. For those of you who don’t know, that’s about 5 minutes from where I live.

How can a person even respond to this kind of violence that would target poor and working class women who are trying to get their health needs met in a difficult economy? How do you explain to people who would bomb a health clinic that PP clinics don’t offer abortion services in the first place? How do you respond to a group that would plan bombs and kill innocent people – theoretically, even the fetuses they say they’re protecting – and who call themselves “pro life”?

How do you respond at all?

I am at the point now where anyone who apologizes for the inflaming and incendiary rhetoric aimed at Roe v. Wade & at a woman’s right to choose is not my friend, my family, or even someone I can talk to. I understand objections to abortion; I was raised Catholic after all, & am the youngest of 6. But this language around choice, the “army of God” mentality that’s been fed to people is so hurtful, so entirely wrong and beside the point.

When will those of you who vote Republican start telling your leadership that you will not vote for them until they stop with this rhetoric and these policies that target poor women especially?

This Planned Parenthood is so easily a place I might speak at or have a student intern at. The women who go there and work there could be friends.

I don’t understand violence as a response to what is sold as a moral objection. It just doesn’t make sense.

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In the Life: Parents of Trans Kids

What a cool video: an “It Gets Better” with the parents of trans kids. They’re part of the T-NET part of PFLAG, which focuses on those with trans children.

I wish I could communicate how amazing it is to see things like this happen, to see its prominence even on PFLAG’s website. When I first started working on trans advocacy – long before these kids in the video were born – you really had to hunt to find information on anything trans, but especially so on any family-related issues.

& While there is still a dearth of information on parents who are trans themselves, we have come a long way, baby.