Keeping Its Doors Open for Everyone… No Matter What

Jenna Tosh watched the erosion of reproductive rights in America for years and knew Roe vs. Wade would one day be overturned.

It was still “a gut punch” for the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood California Central Coast when the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, leaving states free to outlaw it. 

“We knew this day was going to come… and yet actually losing these rights is unprecedented and it’s devastating,” Tosh, who turned to Planned Parenthood for affordable and confidential contraception as a New York high school student, says.

While abortion will remain legal in California, many other states have already lost access to safe and legal abortion. As a result, the Planned Parenthood affiliate – the main if not only abortion provider in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo counties – had already seen an increase of 1,000 percent of patients traveling from out of state just weeks after the court decision.

Patients are scrambling to find the soonest access to abortion, Tosh says, and “it’s scary, it’s alarming, and it’s really tragic.”

Founded in 1964, Planned Parenthood California Central Coast also provides breast and cervical cancer screenings, sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, birth control, gender-affirming hormone care, and other primary preventive health services. It operates six health centers in the three counties and engages in education, outreach, and advocacy.

The medical provider’s largest organizational priority is to advance health equity. One of the ways it does that is by providing “culturally and linguistically relevant care” to diverse patient populations. They have trilingual staff, for example, to better serve the large number of Mixtec migrants from Mexico who only speak their native indigenous language.

“We make sure that every person that comes to us finds not only compassion but a real sense of belonging at Planned Parenthood,” Tosh says.

The Central Coast affiliate also takes pride in having kept its doors open during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing trans and nonbinary individuals on estrogen and testosterone therapies to continue their hormone care without disruption. Many other providers had initially closed their doors.

“We have a mantra that our doors stay open. We say that because we’re often under attack,” Tosh says. “That’s a mantra we’ve truly lived these past few years.”