The Society of Family Planning (SFP) is a left-of-center non-profit organization that promotes research on abortion and contraception.¹ Founded in 2005, the organization funds abortion research, creates a network of abortion providers, and publishes “clinical guidelines” on how to perform abortions and contraceptive services.² SFP also hosts an annual meeting for physicians and interested groups to discuss strategy for performing and expanding access to contraceptive services and abortion.³ It is supported by its partner organization, the Society of Family Planning Research Fund, which mainly handles grantmaking and conducting research for the SFP. Both are governed by the same staff and the same board of directors.

In 2019 alone, SFP disbursed over $2.6 million in grants to independent researchers and to Complex Family Planning Fellows, medical fellows who have an interest in abortion and contraception.^{4 5} SFP-funded research has faced controversy in the past, with studies allegedly leaving out critical variables to publish pro-abortion conclusions and resulting in serious harm to participating women.^{6 7 8}

SFP has also been involved in litigation to promote abortion. In June of 2020, SFP filed an amicus brief in a case against the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), arguing that abortion pills should be available by telehealth for individuals to perform at-home abortions during the COVID-19 pandemic.⁹ In 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a case on behalf of SFP to allow doctors to keep a stock of abortion pills on hand in hospitals and to make the pills widely available at pharmacies with a prescription.¹⁰

Organization Activity

In 2005, a group of 51 scholars and medical practitioners founded Society of Family Planning, claiming that the Society for Gynecologic Investigation and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine did not pay adequate attention to contraceptives.¹¹ One of SFP’s initial goals was to fund medical fellows to pursue their “interests in abortion” and research.¹² The group moved into a headquarters in 2008.¹³

Each year, SFP organizes a meeting for doctors and organization partners to discuss how to best expand and promote access to contraception and abortion.¹⁴ The conference features “skills-building” workshops for clinicians, for which doctors and nurses can receive continuing education credits.¹⁵ Aside from its annual meeting, SFP engages its members through publishing the Contraception journal , funding research, and providing “clinical guidance” for abortion practitioners.¹⁶

Research Activity

Society of Family Planning organizes the Clinical Research Network, a network of over 70 abortion sites which connect abortion providers to improve abortion “efficiency and access.”¹⁷ The Network provides technical assistance to abortion facilities, including Planned Parenthood, to help them develop and expand research programs within abortion clinics.¹⁸ The Network is overseen by the Abortion Clinical Research Network Working Group, featuring several prominent abortion advocates including Dr. Alisa Goldberg, an affiliate of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.¹⁹

In addition to promoting abortion through the Research Network, SFP provides guidance for abortion practitioners, publishing guides on best practices.²⁰ SFP’s recent guides include advice for providing gynecological care to transgender men, performing abortions at 24 weeks of pregnancy, and “inducing demise,” a euphemism for ensuring a fetus has been killed during an abortion to prevent any signs of life once the remains are delivered.^{21 22}

Most SFP activity comes in the form of grants made to abortion providers and researchers.²³ In 2019, SFP disbursed $2,684,386 in grant funding.²⁴ Around $1.27 million of these grants funded the Fellowship in Complex Family Planning, a two-year medical fellowship for doctors after residency to train clinicians on providing contraception and abortion services.²⁵ SFP provided the remainder of its grant funding to contraception and abortion providers and researchers across the country.²⁶

Political Advocacy

Society of Family Planning has been involved in litigation in the past, filing amicus briefs and lawsuits to expand access to contraception and abortion.²⁷ In June of 2020, SFP filed an amicus brief in a case against the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), arguing that abortion pills should be available by telehealth for individuals to perform their own, at-home abortions during the COVID-19 pandemic.²⁸ Several other organizations joined SFP in the brief, including Planned Parenthood.²⁹ In 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a case on behalf of SFP to allow doctors to keep a stock of abortion pills on hand and to make the pills widely available at pharmacies with a prescription.³⁰

During the COVID-19 pandemic, SFP pushed a left-of-center policy agenda to permit doctors to continue to provide surgical abortions throughout the pandemic, even in states which had suspended other elective medical procedures. SFP, in collaboration with other associations, released a statement in June 2020 arguing that gynecological surgeries including abortion are medically necessary and should be excluded from bans on elective procedures.³¹ An additional statement by SFP called abortion “an essential component of comprehensive health care.”³² Several medical associations, including the American College of Pediatricians and the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, opposed the statement.³³

SFP also developed a procedure for “no-test” abortions during the pandemic, which would allow physicians to provide abortion medication to patients without ever conducting a pregnancy test, pelvic exam, ultrasound, or lab work.³⁴ Under the SFP protocol, individuals could pick up medication and perform their own abortion at home, without the supervision of a medical professional.³⁵

Research Controversy

Society of Family Planning research projects often aim to promote and remove the stigma around abortion.³⁶ In 2019, SFP funded a study which claimed to disprove alleged links between abortion and increased risk of suicide.³⁷ The study was criticized for leaving out several key variables, including ignoring successful suicides and only studying attempts, excluding minors from the study, and including self-harm without the intention to die as an attempted suicide attempts.³⁸ Dr. Julia Steinberg, a former consultant for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, authored the SFP-funded study.³⁹ The study also revealed that suicide attempts do indeed increase in the first month after a woman has an abortion.⁴⁰

In late 2019, SFP funded a study to try to disprove the theory of abortion reversal, which argues that in a medication abortion, in which women are required to take two pills consecutively, pregnancy can continue if women do not take the second pill.⁴¹ Mitchell Creinin, a pro-abortion physician who led the project, admitted that he did not believe the study would work from the outset.^{42 43} Researchers abruptly halted the study when 25 percent of the women involved in the trial suffered abnormal, serious bleeding, with one patient even sent to the hospital for a blood transfusion.⁴⁴

In 2014, SFP collaborated with Washington University in St. Louis in a study to determine whether the use of Mirena, an intrauterine contraceptive device, immediately after delivery was safe and if it would result in greater usage of the contraceptive.⁴⁵ The study ignored guidance from Bayer, Mirena’s manufacturer, recommending that it not be inserted until at least four weeks after pregnancy.⁴⁶ Study participant Deanna Delancy sued Washington University alleging that the SFP-funded study injured her for life, resulting in her having two heart surgeries and a chronic blood condition.⁴⁷  Delancy further alleged that she had not been informed of the risks or purpose of the study when she agreed to participate under the promise of free birth control.⁴⁸

Funding

Society of Family Planning has received substantial funding from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, a pro-abortion grantmaking organization funded by left-of-center billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffet which has given $76 million to SFP and its research arm.⁴⁹

Founders

The Society of Family Planning was founded by a small group of scholars led by Philip Darney, a University of California-San Francisco researcher in abortion and contraceptive practice,⁵⁰ and Uta Landy, the national Director of the Fellowship in Family Planning. ⁵¹ Planned Parenthood credited Darney and Landy as “greatly responsible for the preparation of a new generation of abortion providers” in presenting the pair the abortion group’s highest honor, the Margaret Sanger Award, in 2012. ⁵²

Darney is a longtime Planned Parenthood activist and associate; in 1992 he was a U.S. delegate to the International Planned Parenthood Federation 40^th anniversary assembly in New Delhi, India. ⁵³ He has also sat on the board of directors of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. ⁵⁴

Landy is also a longtime abortion practitioner; her biography at the Bixby Center for Reproductive Health at UCSF credits her as the director of one of the first legal abortion clinics in New York and as a former executive director of the abortion advocacy group National Abortion Federation. ⁵⁵

The Society’s 18 founding members and 33 charter members decided to come together and worked to create an organization that provided support for abortion and contraception research through grants. This led to the creation of the Society of Family Planning in 2005 and the SFP Research Fund six years later. ⁵⁶

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