Oregon’s Planned Parenthood affiliates rocked by inner disagreements

The two new leaders of Oregon’s Planned Parenthood affiliates are pushing to dissolve the political arm of their organization in a move that has blindsided some long-time advocates and has them worried about the future of reproductive rights in the state. Oregon has two Planned Parenthood affiliates. They provide reproductive health care, including abortion access, but do not engage in political work such as lobbying or campaigns. Last week, the leaders of those two affiliates sent a letter to the two groups’ political advocacy arm. They informed the lobbying group’s governing board that they plan to dissolve Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon and restructure the organization to focus more on “health care and advocating for the needs of the Planned Parenthood affiliates and their patients.” Lauren Dake, OPB political reporter, joins us to talk about the rift in the organization.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The two new leaders of Oregon’s Planned Parenthood affiliates are pushing to dissolve the political arm of their organizations. The move has blindsided some longtime advocates and has them worried about the future of reproductive rights in the state. OPB political reporter Lauren Dake broke this story yesterday and she joins us now to talk about it. Lauren, welcome back.

Lauren Dake: Thanks for having me, Dave.

Miller: Often when we talk about Planned Parenthood, we talk about the medical services that they provide: primary care and mammograms and abortions. But can you explain the traditional division between this medical side, and the political advocacy side?

Dake: So first, there are two Planned Parenthood affiliate organizations in Oregon. There is the Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette, and that one has clinics in Portland, Salem, Bend, Ontario, and Vancouver, WA. And then there is the Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon, which has clinics in the Eugene/Springfield area, Grants Pass, and Medford. And both of those are nonprofits organized as 501(c)(3)s . A lot of people just call them the “c-threes”. And they’re the health care clinics like you mentioned, where you go to get your mammogram.

And then there is the advocacy arm, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, which is a 501(c)(4). They do the political work, the lobbying, the policy advocacy. And they exist to support the health care clinics, but they operate in the political world. They endorse and support candidates. They fund political campaigns. They play a role in setting the legislative agenda. And since the 1990s, they’ve been pretty influential in the state.

Miller: How much money have these two affiliates sent to the lobbying side, political advocacy side?

Dake: That’s a little unclear, actually. The affiliates told me yesterday that they send about $700,000. The advocacy arm said it was less than that, closer to $550,000. But all told, PPAO’s budget, or the advocacy side of this budget, is pretty small. It’s money from the affiliates, it’s grant money. Their total budget is about $1 million. Compare that to one of the affiliates budgets, about $36 million annually. What that tells me is that the money is not really the biggest driver in this decision to try to dissolve.

Miller: We’ll get to that in just a second. How big a lobbying presence has Planned Parenthood had in Salem over the years?

Dake: A pretty big presence. Salem, it’s all about relationships, it’s who you know. It’s a pretty small community, really. Big political names have been affiliated with this advocacy group of Planned Parenthood for decades. And supporters of the advocacy group really feel like they’ve been instrumental in ensuring that Oregon has the access to reproductive health care that it does. So for example, in 2017, Oregon lawmakers passed what they call the Reproductive Health Equity Act. That codified the right to have an abortion into state law. And that was a huge deal. PPAO, the advocacy group, was instrumental in lobbying and getting lawmakers to sign on to that.

More recently, in the 2022 session, right before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe, but if you’ll recall it was after the leak and people sort of anticipated that this was coming, lawmakers in Salem sent $15 million into this reproductive health equity fund basically to give abortion providers the ability to expand capacity. And again, it was those lobbyists who were quietly working on that behind the scenes to ensure that that happened.

Miller: So what’s the reason that the organizations gave for this change, the drive to get rid of this political advocacy side?

Dake: Well like you mentioned, this news came out yesterday, and I have not heard directly from either of the two CEOs. They’re both relatively new. What I was able to understand from the spokesperson is that they really wanted to narrow the focus, focus more on the healthcare providers side of it and their financial success. They want to dissolve this current political advocacy arm, and form another one that would focus more on lobbying efforts to increase provider rates, for example, and narrow the efforts to what might be considered less reproductive justice issues that sometimes the advocacy arm historically has focused on, and more basic funding straight to the clinics to ensure the clinics are on really stable financial fitting.

Miller: Regular listeners to our show may remember that both of Planned Parenthood’s Oregon affiliates have new leaders, and we talked to them both not long ago. Is this decision a sign that those new leaders want to take their organizations in a new direction?

Dake: I think people are certainly interpreting it that way. They might want to have a little bit more control over the advocacy side of it, might really be driving this. I have not spoken directly to the CEOs yet. But the board of PPAO ‒ of the advocacy group  ‒ is made up of 19 people, including the two new CEOs and 10 people that the CEOs appoint. So the CEO’s still have a lot of say under the current structure. And it’s this board that sets the legislative agenda and determines what they are going to lobby on behalf of. So it just seems to be a lot of political dynamics in play right now, that not all of are completely clear yet.

Miller: Jennifer Williamson, a former democratic state lawmaker and a former interim leader of the advocacy arm of Planned Parenthood, told you this: “At this point in time, with this much on the line with reproductive health care, this infighting is ridiculous.” What does she mean by infighting?

Dake: The CEOs sent this letter to say that they wanted to dissolve the advocacy group, and they sent it to the advocacy group board. And in response, they got this letter back that was very strongly worded, that basically said this decision was a miscalculation, that the new CEOs don’t understand the political landscape in this state. It argued that it’s the advocacy arm that has this infrastructure and the relationships that are needed to ensure reproductive health care is protected in this state. And I think that Williamson’s point here is that, at a time when states across the country are actively moving to restrict reproductive health care, these groups in Oregon, whose values are similar, should figure out a way to work in a cohesive fashion. They should figure out how to work together right now.

Miller: One of the points that the defenders of the advocacy arm have brought up is the speed of this effort to dissolve the board. What has the timing been like?

Dake: It’s all happened really fast. Last Friday, the new CEO sent the letter I was referring to alerting the advocacy group that they were going to dissolve their organization. And they said in that letter that they had already made this decision. They said that they would hold a listening session basically on Sunday, and that they planned to vote to dissolve last night, on Tuesday. The groups had a previously scheduled meeting.

That really blindsided people. One of the CEO’s has not actually even fully moved to Oregon yet, she still lives in California. So some of the advocacy group board members haven’t even met her. So then over the weekend, people fired back that other letter, there was all these exchanges happening, and one of the letters which I think is a real testament to the power of this advocacy organization, more than 150 people signed on to it asking the new CEOs to hit pause, to work together, and just figure out a different path forward. And that letter, the heads of Oregon’s two largest labor unions had signed on to it, labor unions obviously a huge political player in the state. It had a sitting Democratic congresswoman, a former governor, a lot of big power players.

So what happened was on Tuesday ‒ last night ‒ it sounds like the two CEOs said “okay, let’s hit pause, but only until this coming week, and we are going to dissolve then, but it won’t take effect until after the election.” And it feels like to some people, some of the advocates felt like yet this was another plan created in a silo without input from people who have been here longer and have a different opinion on what needs to happen.

Miller: Finally, I want to turn to the question of what the lobbying that is likely now going to go away would be in the service of. As we’ve heard a lot, Democratic lawmakers and champions of reproductive rights in Oregon, they have long pointed out that Oregon has the fewest restrictions on abortion care of any state in the country. With those rights already enshrined, what are the issues going forward that they’re envisioning might need lobbying at the state level?

Dake: Part of the advocacy group’s argument here is that they have the relationships and the political understanding to one, quickly mobilize to fight anything that might narrow reproductive healthcare. So a ballot measure shows up to restrict health care, it’s this group that can mobilize quickly to fight that. And that’s happened not so long ago in Oregon’s history. They say they’ll continue to plan to support pro-choice candidates. And they also plan to lobby for more provider benefits. There’s been talk of trying to codify the right to access an abortion in the state constitution, not just state law.

And I do want to say one more thing, just quickly. The advocates I spoke to said that they do think changes should happen with their organization. But they want to have those conversations about how to be a more cohesive body as a whole, rather than feeling like they’re being blindsided by the current approach.

Miller: Lauren, thanks very much.

Dake: Thank you, Dave.

Miller: Lauren Dake is one of OPB’s political reporters.

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