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Isle Family
Planning Centers
supported

Planned Parenthood chief in
S.F. says the San Diego group
should stay away

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

Family Planning Centers of Hawaii is doing "a damn good job" and it's unfair for Planned Parenthood of San Diego to try to establish a competing program, says the San Francisco program's executive director.

Dian Harrison, who heads Planned Parenthood of Golden Gate, said she is proposing to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America to add the Hawaii centers as an affiliate of her organization.

Family Planning Centers formerly was Planned Parenthood of Hawaii but was disaffiliated in 1998 in a dispute with the federation over mainland governance and management of local activities.

Planned Parenthood of Hawaii then had an agreement with the Golden Gate organization for assistance. Harrison said she opposed the disaffiliation.

"It's always been our sense that there needed to be an affiliate in Hawaii run by the people who live in Hawaii, not by some organization outside of Hawaii who might not have an understanding of the culture and everything that goes on."

Barry Raff, Family Planning Centers of Hawaii executive director, said he had been talking to Harrison about some sort of agreement when he learned Monday that San Diego was requesting the Hawaii "turf," as the federation calls it.

Mark Salo, Planned Parenthood San Diego executive director, said all it did was ask "to be part of the process that brings Hawaii into the Planned Parenthood Federation." Since it's a national organization, he said, "There should be a Planned Parenthood presence in all 50 states."

Salo said it's essential that all 50 states have a Planned Parenthood presence and if it is done in Hawaii through San Francisco, rather than San Diego, "then we we will be successful ... Any affiliate in good standing in the United States could be a partner of Hawaii."

Harrison said an alliance with the Hawaii program would allow it to continue developing without fear of someone taking over the turf. "If we were really concerned about providing services to women in needs, politics shouldn't be part of it," she said.