[Overview to Interview]

Starting in 1916 in Brownsville Brooklyn, the first birth control clinic opened with the idea of starting Planned Parenthood. A woman named Margaret Sanger, grew up in Corning, New York with eleven siblings, and a mother in terrible health conditions. Her mother suffered a total of seven miscarriages throughout her life before dying at age fifty. After traveling to Europe and studying birth control methods because it was illegal in the United States, she came back to her home and started her business. At first, it was very popular amongst women because they could receive the information and health they needed. After only nine days, the police shut it down and arrested three women, including Margaret Sanger. She spent thirty nights in jail before she went on to educate the rest of the country and share the education all women needed. In 1923, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America was founded. Since then there have been many court rulings trying to stop the spread of this organization. It took thirty years from that point on for birth control to be accessible and legal for only married couples. In 1973, Roe vs. Wade was put in place and it lasted for decades. Until 2022, everything changed once again. I decided to interview my mom as she started working in 2002 and has seen the evolution and fight for women’s health care rights. This interview goes into the depths of how her work has changed and expanded, and what she has experienced in the past couple of years.

[Biography]

I am interviewing my mom, Courtney Henderson. She grew up in Richmond, Virginia in a dominantly Republican area, and now works as a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood.  Her father, my grandfather, was an OBGYN, and also a pro-choice Republican as well as the rest of her family. She graduated from a private high school in 1990 and went on to study English here at James Madison University with a minor in secondary education. After graduating in 1994, my mom got certified to teach high school, but she could not find an available job at the time. After searching and still no luck, she went on to get her EMT license and decided she enjoyed the medical profession. She then decided to go into nursing, so she could teach and be in the medical field as well. She originally thought she wanted to go into cardiology, but once she got to clinical, she found her love for obstetrics and gynecology. Her first job was at Henrico Doctors Hospital in 1999 after graduating med school in 1998. After staying for around 4 years, she had my older sister as a premature baby and realized she could not go back to a full-time job. She finally got into working at Planned Parenthood because a friend told her about a part-time job opening. She began working there in 2003, fell in love with her job, and has been there ever since. 

 

[Transcript: Interview with Courtney Henderson, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Charlotte Henderson, 3/16/24.]

 

CH: All right. All right, it’s recording. Hi, this is Charlotte Henderson, and I am here interviewing my mom, Courtney Henderson.

Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

 

Mrs. Henderson: Sure. What would you like to know?

 

CH: Just when you graduated high school and how you started working at Planned Parenthood.

 

Mrs. Henderson:  Okay, so I graduated high school in 1990. I went to James Madison University, also graduated in 1994 with a bachelor’s of English, bachelor’s in English, and minor in secondary education, thinking I was going to teach high school English the year that I graduated, there were not any jobs available to teach English in the high schools where I was located. So I took a year off, decided I was really kind of more interested in the medical field, got my certification as an EMT to ride with the ambulance, and then ultimately decided I was going back to nursing school so I had to get a second bachelor’s in nursing. I went on to get my master’s of nursing and have been a nurse practitioner, practicing gynecology for the past 24 years and I have been with our local Planned Parenthood office since 2002.

 

CH: All right. Do you think you would be in the same workforce today if a high school teaching job was 

available at the time when you graduated?

 

Mrs. Henderson: Well, I guess it’s kind of hard to look back and think what would have been.

But I ultimately, I think I just always had an interest in medicine. When I started JMU as a freshman, I actually was a pre med major, but then dropped that as my interests kind of changed. So I think probably ultimately, I would have ended up in medicine somehow.

But the nice thing about medicine is you also get to teach, and that is what I did through JMU.

So I’m actually doing both teaching and practicing medicine.

 

CH: Gotcha. What made you want to go into this field of work with all the controversial opinions surrounding it?

 

Mrs. Henderson: You mean specifically at Planned Parenthood?

 

CH: Yes, at Planned Parenthood.

 

Mrs. Henderson: Okay. You know, I actually did not even think about the controversial subject of abortion at the time that I was hired. I just knew they were a great source of medical care in our community, and they offered a lot of services that I had a specialty in once I joined, certainly back in 2002. There has been a lot of controversy since then and still remains even worse in this day.

 

CH: Gotcha.Growing up, has your opinion on women’s rights ever changed? And coming to Planned Parenthood, has it changed at all?

 

Mrs. Henderson: No, my opinion has not. You know, with really any subject, abortion care or other controversial subjects, you just kind of have to realize that people are going to have different opinions, and that is okay. My opinion has always been that women, and all people, for that matter, should be autonomous over their own bodies and should be able to make their own medical decisions with their healthcare provider.

 

CH: Yeah, going off of there, was there ever a time you had questioned going to work for Planned Parenthood.

 

Mrs. Henderson: At the time, not one day have I ever questioned myself going to work for any reason.

 

CH: Have you ever been looked at differently because of your occupation from any of your friends or family?

 

Mrs. Henderson: Family, no. Friends, I don’t believe I’ve been looked at differently because my friends know me on a personal level. I certainly do have friends, not many, but I do certainly have friends that are pro life, and that is okay with me, and we do not let it get in the way of our friendship. So do I think they look down on me for working at a place that does provide abortions? No, not at all. And I think part of that is also because they know Planned Parenthood does a lot more than offer abortion services.

 

CH: Yeah. Has working at Planned Parenthood ever caused you any trouble, or has anyone ever said anything hateful towards you throughout your work experience? Not from friends or family.

 

Mrs. Henderson: You mean in the office?

 

CH: Yes. Like, especially in the upcoming years as things have become a lot more controversial.

 

Mrs. Henderson: No. In the office, nobody since I started working there in 2002 has ever said anything hateful as far as my office offering abortion care. If anything, people have been extremely supportive of the work that we do, extremely thankful, whether they are there for abortion services or not. We also offer primary care services, We offer gynecology services, We have offered obstetric services, taking care of women throughout their pregnancies in the past. So the patients there again, whether they are there for abortion services or for other services, if anything, have always been extremely thankful to us for actually being there and offering all of the services that we do offer.

 

CH: Gotcha. Going off of that. Have there ever been any protesters or anything outside of your office, like as you’re walking in or anything like that?

 

Mrs. Henderson: Absolutely, yes. Many. Most of them, I would say, are very mild mannered, just standing outside. Some of them that are.

 

CH: Yeah.

 

Mrs. Henderson: There’s one in particular that I believe travels all over the place in protest of abortion. You know, but they are not allowed to come onto our property, so they stand on the sidewalk. You know, some say things. Some try to give patients pamphlets as they drive into the parking lot, but they have not caused harm or threatened harm where I work. Some protesters have certainly threatened and caused harm at other Planned Parenthood establishments throughout the country, but not at the one I work at.

 

CH: In the past couple of years, have things changed? Like, when you first started working in 2002, were there protesters outside? Like, has it gotten worse in the recent years?

 

Mrs. Henderson: You know, there have always been protesters, even since 2002, because, again, all people are going to have different opinions. But I would probably say they are a little bit more frequent now, but the type of protesting they do is the same.

 

CH: Gotcha. What was work like when Roe versus Wade was overturned?

 

Mrs. Henderson: Well, for years and years and years, our administrators have been preparing for the what if and what if RV Wade got overturned. So there was always that preparation in the back of our minds as to kind of how we would handle it going forward. And we really kind of never thought it would actually happen, but it did. And we have, in fact, grown, if anything, because Virginia is one of the last southeastern states standing with no current restrictions. So we have grown. We are seeing more patients for abortion care that are actually having to travel from other states to receive the care that they need. In addition to abortion care, we have also grown because patients needing other services, whether primary care or gynecological, are coming to us in support of the work that we do.

 

CH: Has Planned Parenthood ever, like, has it changed a lot since you’ve been through all of the controversy, like, as far as where you work?

 

Mrs. Henderson: Like, changed, like, aside from, like, growing?

 

CH: Yes.

 

Mrs. Henderson: Not really. I mean, you know, we’ve changed over the years.

When I started in 2002, it was really kind of only gynecology. Then we expanded to obstetrical services. Then we expanded to comprehensive primary care.

 

CH: Yeah.

 

Mrs. Henderson: So we are treating everything from abortion to gynecological issues to hypertension and diabetes. But specifically, have our services changed since RV Wade got overturned? No, we have had the same services. We are just expanding our hours, and we have expanded the amount of providers that we have so that we can meet the demands from the people in our state and our local area, as well as women from other states that need care.

 

CH: Going off of that, as you said a little earlier, Planned Parenthood has been preparing for the fact that if and when Roe v. Wade did get overturned, you know, you’ve been preparing for the what ifs. How, or in what ways did y’all prepare for that? And, like, did it come as a shock when it did happen?

 

Mrs. Henderson: Well, I think it shocked not only us, but a lot of other people in the country because, you know, human right was, you know, our constitutional right was taken away. But how have we prepared?We have had to prepare financially just in case those services were to be restricted.So we have had to figure out, as we are a nonprofit organization, we have had to figure out how we are going to continue to make money as a nonprofit if certain procedures are taken away.

 

CH: Yeah. Do you remember exactly what the day was like when Roe v.Wade was overturned? Like, going to work and everything, like, the morality of it all?

 

Mrs. Henderson: It was really kind of a state of disbelief from everybody in the office, but, you know, and many were worried about will they continue to have a job, that kind of thing.But again, we do, you know, we offer so many other services that our administrators and our CEO really, really just supported everybody. They offered time to kind of talk through the political changes that were happening, and they really made sure everybody knew that worked there, that their jobs were secure and nobody was going to be losing their job based on that one decision, that we were still going to be there for the people in our region and offering the medical services that we have always offered.

 

CH: Yeah. Do you know if or have you heard anything about, you know, the more southern states? Do you know any jobs that have been affected down there, like what people ended up doing or anything like that?

 

Mrs. Henderson: Well, I don’t know specifically about specific jobs down there, but I do know that there are many offices in certain states that have had sanctions put on them that some offices have had to close down. Some doctors really are not able to kind of offer the full. Offer their full scope of practice because they are worried about legal ramifications.It has also affected schools in the south that people seeking medical degrees, you know, may choose to go to a school without these sanctions if they really kind of ultimately want to be able to offer a full scope to women.

 

CH: Yeah. All right, well, thank you so much for chatting with me about all of this.

 

Mrs. Henderson: Oh, thank you for asking these very important questions.

 

CH: Of course.I loved listening to all of that and everything. It was really cool information.

 

Mrs. Henderson: Well, good.And just, you know, the take home is, again, that, you know, people are just going to have different opinions, and having different opinions is okay, and that is what shapes our society.

 

CH: Yeah, I agree.

 

Mrs. Henderson: You know, but unfortunately, medical care should not be political. It should really just be between, you know, the person and their healthcare provider. And that is really kind of what we stand by, and we will help people make any decision that is right for them at that time in their life.

 

CH: Yeah, that’s great. All right.