And why is this a news-worthy story? Pathetic. This paper has gone down the toilet.

oh yay!! puhleeeeeeeeeeeze ... our tax dollars pay for PP, whether we agree with their methods of ending pregnancy or not. THEY are big business and we all know it. Funny Ms. Williams referred to her interview period as long as a gestational period for a woman carrying a CHILD in her womb. The truth to be told most women who enter into PP will not see a 9 month gestational period because they will cut it short with alot of encouragement. I know they offer other free services but these are not what keeps them in operation. Do your research.

Sounds like we just heard from the 30% minority.

The comments on this article will be interesting...

Dear Mountain View Editor,
I feel sick to my stomach reading your endorsement of a Planned Parenthood Clinic in our neighborhood, and portraying Ms. williams as a "sweet old lady". Editor, be aware that Planned Parenthood in Mountain View, as they are in other various locations in our country, is a "killing facility" of unborn, defenceless, unique, special human beings. The statistics you referred to as to help poor people rather than performing abortions are totally misleading and incorrect. Planned Parenthood is in plain language and facts a facility that kills unborn babies without providing this information to troubled mothers to be, and they do it with our tax money. Please, please, please, DO NOT advertise or patronize such a horrendous place, a crime place, and such deplorable job.
A very concerned Mountain View resident.

I do know that were the only way for a responsible self-determined 20 year old man to get a vasectomy about 40 years ago. I still contribute every year...
Realized then that were enough humans to readily overpopulate the plant. Adoption is an alternative, if you MUST have a family.

welfare gone wild and berserk. I think programs like this are just waste of money. People need to take responsible for their personal actions. yes, I know, without programs like these, we would end up seeing young women with babies on the streets,blah,blah,blah..Everything needs to have an end point and a final goal. We can't keep playing these games forever. I need to retire at some point and I can't keep on working to support waste like this.

I expected to see religious-based knee-jerk reactions to this article, and I wasn't disappointed. Planned Parenthood does a lot to encourage giving birth safely, especially teens, yet the fundies like to focus on just one thing....

I agree....Editors, why is this newsworthy?!??!!

I do not support PP. It's just a cover up for abortions.
I speak from having visited there with my wife. Everything they "suggested"
pointed towards having us abort our unborn child.

Sad. Very sad.

This article is not worth my time........ I passed the PP in Sunnyvale today (on Fair Oaks), and as I was waiting for the light to turn green, an ambulance came up behind me, turned in the driveway and joined a fire truck already at the front door of PP........obviously and abortion gone wrong, and the poor mother probably fighting for her life, even though her baby was not given a fighting chance; I cried the rest of the way home. How can we claim to be civilized when so many insist that a pre-born human being is not a human being!!!!!! God help us!!!!!

Having a PP in Mountain View is such a plus for our community. I just wish it were located on Castro Street since it's such a thriving place of activitiy. Obviously PP is used mostly by white and affluent women from Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Palo Alto, and Atherton. Mountain View is just a convenient location for this white women to manage their abortions. I would just hate to think PP is a tool to control the under-privileged, less educated and poorer non-white population of our once great city.

Thanks for covering this, Voice! When I was fresh out of college searching for a job for months, this was the only place I could go for women's health care and birth control that I could afford. Lord knows what would've happened otherwise. I'm extremely grateful to them.

Perhaps some people have never been in this situation, but health insurance and healthcare when you don't have a job is just really an unreasonable cost. You'd have to pay at the expense of having food to eat. Planned Parenthood gives people another option.

People should read all of the article and learn more about what Planned Parenthood does, rather than making ignorant comments without reading it fully. I thought it was very well written and multifaceted.

Also, Lynette, you should really stop by there sometime and look at the clientele. It certainly does not cater to rich white women. Jeeze. There are low income people in MV, too, and it happens to be located in one of the more lower-income parts of town. Convenient for the population it is meant to serve.

Thanks for supporting my sarcastic point.

Hey everybody, if you need free health care, head down to PP. They'll take care of you, no questions asked!?!

This is a GREAT local story about a local personality. Perfect for the Voice! I was pleased to read it. Its so very refreshing to hear that when asked 70% of Americans support a woman's right to choose.

Mountain View is the only town that would put up with a Planned Parenthood, or the editor of this paper for that matter.

Like K, I have been in this situation and she is right. It's a great resource to our community.

It is just funny to think that the first time I ever contacted PP was completely unrelated to anything involving sex. As much as this is TMI, I do want to share my experience.

I had contacted PP when I was 19 because I had started lactating on a Sunday morning. I had never been and could not have been pregnant so I went to the only place I could go without being charged an arm and a leg. They found that I had a tumor in my brain, a prolactinoma. There was a possibility this would have affected my ability to conceive, which I still plan to do. The staff there was very patient and worked quickly and as it turns out, it was benign and that all my other parts were functioning fine. They told me that if I decided to try to get pregnant and had trouble, to come back and they would work with me. I was scared out of my wits, not because I was pregnant but because there was a distinct possibility I never would be and these people did all they could to make sure that this thing wasn't growing in my head, causing me to not be able to conceive and possibly press on my optic nerves and leave me blind. I don't even want to know how much this would cost or how long I would have had to wait had I gone to an emergency room.

Because of this, I was inspired to go to school for nursing and I will continue my education to eventually become a physician's assistant. Because of that, I'm still dirt poor. Even so, I gladly and dutifully donate to PP an encourage others to do so.

Planned Parenthood states that they are not 'selling' abortion and that they have counselors to offer all their clients alternatives to abortion. However, any survey of clients of Planned Parenthood, reveals a different story. The following survey reported by Human Life International, is typical:

* 60 percent say the counselor had "very strongly influenced them" to choose abortion as the best solution to their problem.
* 90 percent say that there was "a strong chance" they would not have chosen abortion if they "had not been so strongly encouraged to abort".
* Over 60 percent were hoping to find an alternative when they went to Planned Parenthood.
* 95 percent said the counselors gave "little or no biological information" about the unborn baby which the abortion would destroy.
* 80 percent said counselors gave "little to no information" about the potential health risks of abortion.

Is it just me, or is there something disturbing about a sweet little old white lady from Palo Alto advocating for abortions in a very ethnically diverse MV. I bet she is also a frequent user of the Day Worker Center