By J. Shadé Quintanilla
In the aftermath of last week’s horrific shooting, Planned Parenthood is moving forward and keeping their doors open to patients. According to Sherri Bonner, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley, the attack in Colorado Springs has not scared the group from continuing its services, but renewed their sense of commitment to the thousands of women and men they provide healthcare and sex education for.
“We’ve been here, nationally, for more than 100 years,” Bonner said. “You don’t make it that long without a whole lot of resiliency, and that’s what we have as an organization.”
Business has gone on as usual for Planned Parenthood in the San Gabriel Valley since the attack. All centers were operating last Saturday, just a day after shooter Robert Dear took the lives of a police officer and two civilians at a center in Colorado.
In response to the attack, some regional chapters have upped their security measures at their clinics. In New York, the NYPD counter-terrorism unit has been stationed outside the group’s headquarters in Manhattan and police officers have been deployed to all the centers in the area.
Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement on Monday that the organization has been increasing security at their centers “over the last few months as inflammatory rhetoric about Planned Parenthood increased.” Some of the new security measures have included increased patrol by security guards and upgraded monitoring systems. The group has also trained their employees on how to protect themselves in cases like Friday’s siege.
“Our health center staff around the country have long been trained in security protocols,” Ferrero said, “and that training helped our brave staff members in Colorado Springs work with local law enforcement to prevent this tragedy from being far worse than it was.”
All staff at the targeted clinic were able to get away unharmed.
Clinics in Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley have security measures in place to ensure the safety of patients and employees. The CEO of the regional chapter was unable to detail the security protocol in an effort to protect patients and staff, but she noted the regional chapter has had protections in place for a long time.
“The safety and security of our patients is absolutely our number one priority. Our focus is on helping women, protecting the health and safety of women,” Bonner said.
Unlike Planned Parenthood clinics in other states where “inflammatory rhetoric” has been spouted by state and local politicians, the San Gabriel Valley chapter has luckily not experienced as much backlash. The local community has been supportive of Planned Parenthood, Bonner told Beacon Media News, and it has built good relationships and partnerships over the years while acting as safety net for many residents in the area.
Clinics in the San Gabriel Valley provide free STD-testing and treatment, well women exams, cancer screening and birth control. Some of the health centers do provide abortion services, but the organization reports that only three percent of their services go towards the controversial procedure. While Planned Parenthood’s abortion service is a hot topic in politics and allegedly the reason why the gunman took siege over the Colorado clinic, Bonner hopes that politicians will stand by the organization’s mission to provide reproductive health care.
“We would hope that everyone would stand with women accessing basic health care in America,” she said. “This is really about access to health care. It’s not about politics.”
