ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9603290114
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-2 EDITION: METRO
SOME PEOPLE in these parts may have a hard time thinking of Kathryn Haynie of Roanoke as Kathryn Parker of Charlottesville. But, then, some people have a hard time thinking of her as anything other than names that can't be printed in a family newspaper.
As executive director of Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge, Inc. for 15 years, Parker - until recently, Haynie - has been at the storm center of local debate over legalized abortion. She has been the target of hate mail and curses, protests and vilification. She's had her ethics, her honesty and her motivations questioned in countless letters to the editor of this newspaper, and in other forums.
But one thing isn't questioned, not even by adversaries who think she has horns: She's been a highly effective director of her agency, seeing it through several difficult transitions - the latest of which was its decision last year to become a provider of abortion services.
She's also been, unquestionably, a highly effective spokesperson and advocate for women's reproductive rights, including the right to choose abortion.
Next month, Parker will be leaving the top post at Planned Parenthood to move to Charlottesville, there to join her new husband, retired businessman F. Troost Parker III.
Good riddance, those in the anti-abortion leagues may say. But many more people around here will bid her farewell with affection and respect, and in recognition that she has accomplished a great deal in the Roanoke Valley and beyond.
The irony that her critics are loath to concede is that her efforts have prevented countless more abortions than have all the local protests of anti-abortion activists. Like Planned Parenthood itself, Parker became involved in reproductive care and counseling to help prevent unwanted pregnancies.
In the face of school systems too timid to teach effective sex education, an ambivalent culture that glamorizes promiscuity while attaching shame to the use of contraception, and a growing poverty-driven subculture that affirms childbirth outside of marriage, Parker has fought the good fight for prevention of unplanned pregnancies through education, counseling and contraception.
In a recent survey, her agency was judged by school personnel, by leaders of civic, religious and community organizations, and by health-care providers as having the most successful local program for preventing unplanned adolescent pregnancies.
This newspaper has at times lamented how political Planned Parenthood has become. But we have only respect for the kind of health care and information it provides, day in and day out, to women and families from a broad swath of Virginia, most of them poor and with few options. We can only imagine with horror what this community would be like if Planned Parenthood weren't around.
Its work has been Parker's calling, a worthy and difficult endeavor. For the talents and professionalism she brought to it, and as she embarks now on a new life out of the line of fire, she deserves our community's gratitude.
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