Pamela Maraldo -Catholic daughter of an Italian mushroom grower041793 Planned Parenthood A Federation Held Hostage By Abortion
Pamela Maraldo -Catholic daughter of an Italian mushroom grower
Pamela J. Maraldo, the new president of
Planned Parenthood, is working hard to alter the image of the organization. Ms. Maraldo hopes to move it
" beyond the abortion-rights crucibIe that has Consurned its energies in recent years and transform it
into a leading provider of health care for women
By TAMAR LEWIN
In the simple equation of public image, Planned Parenthood equals abortion rights. And Faye Wattleton, the past president of the organization, equals Planned Parenthood.
But the new president, Pamela J.
Maraldo, is working hard to change the old equations. When she took over Ms. Wattleton's midtown Manhattan office in February, she hoped to begin reshaping the Planned Parenthood Federation: moving it beyond the abortion-rights crucible that has consumed its budget and energies in recent years, and transforming it into the leading provider of health care for women.
Hostage to Abortion Rights
She and the organization's board reasoned that a White House and Congress less hostile to abortion rights would clear the way for a broader agenda.
Instead, Ms. Maraldo has had to devote much of her energy in her first weeks on the job to stepping into the role that her tough, telegenic predecessor played as the nation's leading spokeswoman on abortion rights.
When Dr. David Gunn was shot to death last month by an anti-abortion demonstrator outside a Pensacola clinic where he performed abortions, Ms. Maraldo was deluged with strategy meetings, calls from the news media, television appearances and press releases. Four days after the shooting, Planned Parenthood took out full-page newspaper advertisements seeking donations to its new clinic defense fund.
Combat With Catholic Church
"We obviously had to do all that, and it was very exciting for me to see how fast this organization can move," said Ms. Maraldo, who spent the previous decade as chief executive of an advocacy group for nurses.
Becoming the leading defender of abortion rights was not the most obvious career path for the Catholic daughter of an Italian mushroom grower in Kennett Square, Pa. But Ms. Maraldo does not seem concerned that her views have already made her the target of a homily by John Cardinal O'Connor of New York.
"I didn't take the job to do combat with the Catholic Church," she said. ,,But the Catholic Church is an institution that has not factored in the development of women - economic and social - in American society, and I'm not uncomfortable about saying that."
Slightly Camera Shy
What does make her uncomfortable Is television - the medium in, which Ms. Wattleton, fast on her feet and cool in the heat of hostile debate, was a forceful presence.
"Before I got here, I didn't understand the need to be a, public person,. the need to go on television when a doctor who performs abortions gets killed by an anti-abortion demonstrator in Pensacola," Ms. Maraldo said. "I didn't understand quite what a, leap Into the public eye this job would be."
Ms. Wattleton, who is six feet tall, possessed a poise and presence that seemed made for television. Indeed, she resigned from Planned Parenthood to become the host of a syndicated talk show, although that plan has fallen through.
Ms. Maraldo finds the medium both alien and a bit alarming, though she is making an effort to accommodate the cameras. While she does not yet paint her fingernails to match her outfits, as Ms. Wattleton did, Ms. Maraldo has begun to use a clear polish. Still, she still seems thoroughly uninterested in the mirrored dressing room that adjoins her office.
"I'm a fairly nice-looking person, so I never gave it a lot of thought," said Ms. Maraldo, who is 45 years old.
Stark Contrast In Personalities
Her personal style could not be more different from that of Ms. Wattleton. Where her predecessor was cool and precise, Ms. Maraldo is warm and informal. Where Ms. Watt. leton spoke in careful cadences, Ms. Maraldo is prone to statements like, "It's a the-whole-is-greater-than-thesum-of-the-parts kind of thing.
Just how to make this work in front of a camera puzzles her,
"The first time I saw myself on television, I thought I looked like Howdy Doody, moving around all the time," she said. "But then I was on the CBS overnight program, and I thought I should have sounded more passionate."
Adding to her difficulties, Ms. Mar. aldo got braces in November. "My dentist said it was no big deal, but It
is," she said. "Even though you can't see them, they feel funny, and I don't feel like I'm talking like my real self."
Personal-Professional Blur
She sounds a bit wistful about what she gave up when she left her job running the National League for Nursing, an advocacy group that she transformed in 10 years from a nearly moribund organization with a $5 million budget into a powerhouse that spends $20 million a year to improve the lot of nurses.
"A lot of my closest friends are there," said Ms. Maraldo, who is single. "People like me have had a gradual blurring of the line between personal life and vocation. I have the luxury of being friends with people I work with, and having work that's about the same stuff I would be talking about after work anyway."
One thing Ms. Maraldo would be talking about is health-care policy. Although she spent several years as a hospital nurse - first on the cardiology unit at the New York University Medical Center, then as an oncology nurse at the Memorial Sloan-Ketter. ing Cancer Center - most of her career has been devoted to policy rather thin patient care.
Fire In Her Belly,
While never achieving the celebrity of Ms. Wattleton, Ms. Maraldo is widely known in the nursing world for advocating, and winning, basic changes in health-care regulations that brought power and status to the nursing profession. Among other things, she got nurses appointed to the commission that accredits hospitals, and she created a new group to, accredit home-care services.
Leah Binder, a friend and former colleague of Ms. Maraldo at the nurs. ing league, said: "She has a fire in her belly about empowering women. When the Planned Parenthood job came along, she talked about it with me, because I've been strongly pro. choice for a long time, and she thinks of me as this raging feminist.
"But actually, she's the raging feminist, and the same issues of women controlling their own lives that she cared about at the nursing league carry over into this new job. It's not so different."
Fosters One-Stop Clinics
Ms. Maraldo at first refused to talk to the search firm that was looking for someone to succeed Ms. Wattleton in the $225,000-a-year president's job because she felt she lacked expertise in reproductive health.
But while she is still learning about the legal and political issues sur. rounding abortion - meeting with Dr. Sheldon Segal to discuss RU-486 the French abortion pill, and reading a constitutional analysis of abortion rights by Laurence Tribe, the Harvard Law School professor - she is fluent and forceful in selling the idea that Planned Parenthood can be a major player in women's overall health care.
"We know that 70 percent of the
The new president of Planned Parenthood toils to write her own agenda.
women who enter the health-care delivery system come in with reproductive health issues, like contraception or Pap smears," she said. "Most pa. tients want one-stop shopping. If they come in for a breast exam or a Pap smear, they'd really like the person who examines them to help them to take care of their flu, too.
"Planned Parenthood is in a *good position to do that, with nurses or physician's assistants who will be the Marcus Welbys of the future, doing primary care and really getting to know their patients,"
Beyond Young and Poor
It was that philosophy that made her attractive to the Planned Parenthood board.
"We were terribly impressed with how she articulated the direction in which this organization should be moving as an established network of providers of women's health care " said the the board's chairwoman, 'Jacqueline S. Jackson, "which was exactly where we had thought we should be going, too.
Ms. Maraldo said that one of her goals would be to help Planned Parenthood clinics persuade clients not to Switch to private gynecologists as they grow older and more affluent.
"A lot Of Women come to us as young adults, and we want to retain them," said Ms. Maraldo. "But we are going to have to convince them
we are capable of serving women who are not young and poor."
Planned Parenthood's nearly 1,000 clinics nationwide are run by 168 in. dependent affiliates that control which services they offer. Though only about a third perform abortions, Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, doing 130,000 of the country's approximately 1.5 million procedures each year.
Weathering a Money Crunch
While the Planned Parenthood Fed. eration gets a portion of its money
from its affiliates, it also does its own fund raising. But after the Supreme Court's decision last year reaffirming the right to abortion, followed by' the election of President Clinton, donations to the Planned Parenthood Federation dropped off so drastically that the organization earlier this year reduced its budget by 25 percent, to $27 million from $36 million, and laid off 34 employees.
"Some people apparently think that abortion is no longer an issue," Ms. Maraldo said. "The public has to understand that the battle's not over, that it is a battle for America's soul. Some rights are nonnegotiable. We have to educate people that if you can take away women's rights one day, the next day it's Jews, the next day it's blacks, and the next day it's Italians. Pro-choice means a broad social agenda."