Wattleton, Faye (1943—)

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Wattleton, Faye (1943—)

President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) from 1978 to 1992 . Name variations: Alyce Faye Wattleton. Born Alyce Faye Wattleton on July 8, 1943, in St. Louis, Missouri; daughter of George Edward Wattleton (a factory worker) and Ozie (Garrett) Wattleton (a seamstress and preacher); graduated from Ohio State University Nursing School, 1964; Columbia University, New York, M.S., 1967; married Franklin Gordon, in 1973 (divorced 1981); children: daughter Felicia Gordon (b. 1975).

Faye Wattleton was the first African-American, the first woman since founder Margaret Sanger , and the youngest individual to serve as president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). For 14 tumultuous years as the leader of an organization that advocates women's reproductive freedom, Wattleton was embroiled in a national controversy over legalized abortion, especially during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. With unflagging clarity of vision and eloquence, Wattleton articulated the tenets and goals of the PPFA's pro-choice platform in a professional and nonthreatening manner. Carefully discerning between "pro-choice" and "pro-abortion" throughout her tenure, she kept the focus upon the essential rights of women to make choices about their own bodies without the intrusion of government or the courts.

An only child, Faye Wattleton was born on July 8, 1943, in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of George Wattleton, a factory worker, and Ozie Wattleton , a seamstress and itinerant fundamentalist preacher. Ozie was one of Faye Wattleton's role models, along with Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy. Although the family was poor, they lived their politics, stressing the importance of helping those who were less fortunate than they. Missionary work was an important part of their lives.

Wattleton entered Ohio State University Nursing School at age 16 and earned a bachelor's degree in 1964, becoming the first person in her family to do so. After graduation, she found a position as a maternity nursing instructor at the Miami Valley Hospital School of Nursing in Dayton, Ohio. There, she was exposed to the aftermath of illegal abortions, the memory of which would later inspire her to ensure the availability of legal abortions. In 1966, Wattleton

moved to New York to study at Columbia University on a full scholarship; a year later, she received an M.S. in maternal and infant health care, with certification as a nurse-midwife. While a student at Columbia, she interned at Harlem Hospital, where the importance of access to safe abortion became even more apparent to her.

Returning to Dayton in 1967, Wattleton worked as a consultant and assistant director of Public Health Nursing Services for the city. Asked to join the local Planned Parenthood board, Wattleton became its executive director less than two years later. Under her leadership, the number of clients tripled, and the budget increased from less than $400,000 to just under $1 million. In 1973, she married Franklin Gordon, a social worker raised in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Two years later, she became a mother as well as the chair of the national executive director's council of PPFA. She was appointed to the presidency in 1978, which surprised many who thought she lacked the experience to assume such a highly visible, highly paid position in the largest voluntary health agency in America. As it turned out, however, Wattleton was an ideal choice as a speaker for Planned Parenthood. According to Contemporary Black Biography, "She effectively bridged the gap between the organization's mostly white, middle- and upper-class membership and the mostly poor women being served in the clinics. Her race helped her to challenge complaints that Planned Parenthood was helping to promote genocide by providing birth control to black women." Wattleton argued that the greater threat was black women bearing numerous children against their will.

Wattleton soon began to change the direction of Planned Parenthood, which until then had been recognized primarily for its 850 clinics in 46 states, serving some 3 million each year with everything from infertility counseling and birth control to prenatal care. Wattleton thought Planned Parenthood should also assume a strong advocacy role for women's rights and reproductive freedom, especially at a time when conservative opposition to the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision by political groups such as the Moral Majority and the Right to Life movement was strengthened by the support of Republican administrations. Although abortion continued to be protected under the law, conservative groups succeeded in getting the Hyde Amendment passed in 1977, which severely restricted federal funding for the controversial procedure. And by 1989, the Supreme Court's Webster decision enabled states even greater power to restrict abortion.

Diffusing the political battle to several fronts, the Reagan administration fought to repeal the U.S. family planning program, Title I of the Public Health Service Act. President Reagan also attempted to enact a requirement that federally funded clinics receive parental consent before distributing contraceptive devices to minors. Wattleton, however, argued that parental notification would merely lead to an increase in teen pregnancies. The administration also proposed a rule to prevent abortion counseling by federally funded family-planning agencies. Meanwhile, conservative opposition to Planned Parenthood began to express itself in more extreme and sinister ways through the burning and bombing of clinics in Minnesota, Virginia, Nebraska, Vermont, and Ohio. Wattleton herself had been targeted by hate mail and death threats, necessitating the hiring of bodyguards.

As family planning services and their funding were threatened, Wattleton worked even harder to bring PPFA into public view, making numerous guest appearances on radio and television talk shows to rally support. Although the organization lost a few corporate sponsors as it heightened its political visibility, private donations increased dramatically. Under Wattleton, the organization's budget tripled. Film personalities and Hollywood executives demonstrated their support publicly, and the organization participated in massive rallies in the nation's capital and elsewhere. On each occasion, Wattleton stood at the forefront delineating Planned Parenthood's goals and arguing that PPFA was working to level the playing field in terms of access to health care between the rich and the poor, since the poor were especially vulnerable to reductions in federal funding.

Equal access was not the only issue raised concerning reproductive choice and freedom. Wattleton attempted to locate the reproductive issue in a wider context of federal neglect. In her view, the Reagan-Bush administration tried to dismantle programs designed to confront not only the issue of inadequate health care but also homelessness and poor education. Thus, sex education and information about contraceptives became crucial elements of PPFA's platform. While using the media to promote those issues, Wattleton also co-authored the book How to Talk to Your Child About Sex, which sold more than 30,000 copies. In her view, children needed to be taught about sexuality before they became adolescents. She attributed the increase of teen pregnancies to children's contradictory exposure to sex.

Wattleton's professional prestige continued to soar as she accumulated honors and awards, including the 1986 American Humanist Award and the Jefferson Award for the Greatest Public Service Performed by a Private Citizen in 1992. She also became a member of numerous organizations, among them the National Academy of the Sciences' Institute of Medicine's Study Committee on the Role of State and Local Public Health Departments, the advisory committee of the Women's Leadership Conference on National Security, and the President's Advisory Council on the Peace Corps.

Amidst dissension in PPFA's ranks regarding its public role in reproductive rights battles, however, Wattleton resigned from her post in 1992. The following year, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 1995, she established a women's policy think tank, the Center for Gender Equality, to promote a national dialogue on the economic, political, and educational aspects of women's lives in addition to health and reproductive rights.