Planned Parenthood was started as a birth control clinic.

Planned Parenthood traces its origin to the birth control movement led by Margaret Sanger who opened the first birth control clinic in the US in 1916.

Planned Parenthood traces its origin to the birth control movement led by Margaret Sanger who opened the first birth control clinic in the US in 1916.On October 16, 1916, nurse Margaret Sanger and her sister Ethel Byrne and activist Fania Mindell opened the country’s first birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn. A few days later, the police raided the clinic and shut it down, and charged the three women with crimes related to sharing birth control information.

Although the Brownsville clinic was shut down, Sanger went on to travel the country and it ushered the beginning of a movement in the United States. In 1923, Sanger opened the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in Manhattan to provide birth control devices to women. She also incorporated the American Birth Control League, a new organization that studied the impact of population growth, disarmament, and famine. The two organizations eventually merged to become Planned Parenthood® Federation of America, Inc. The following decades were revolutionary - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the sale of birth control pills in 1960 and eventually more and more states legalized birth control.

In 1970, Planned Parenthood of Syracuse, New York, became the first PP clinic to offer abortion services. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is the largest group of abortion providers. Planned Parenthood affiliates operate more than 600 health centers across the United States and are also the nation’s largest provider of sex education, as per the organization's official website.