Facilities and funding
Planned Parenthood began as the National Birth Control League, which was founded in 1916 under the leadership of Mary Ware Dennett. The organization was later renamed the American Birth Control League under the direction of Margaret Sanger. The League was influential in liberalizing laws against birth control throughout the 1920s and 1930s before changing its name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. in 1942.
The founding of Planned Parenthood is most specifically associated with Margaret Sanger, a birth control and family planning advocate jailed numerous times for breaking New York's Comstock Laws against disseminating birth control information. Sanger had fled to England to avoid arrest at the time the National Birth Control League was founded by her friend Dennett. She was a socialist and an advocate of the availability of birth control to all women, regardless of race or social class. Sanger also supported eugenics

History and organization
Planned Parenthood and its predecessor organizations have provided and advocated for access to birth control since the founding of the National Birth Control League in 1916. The modern organization of Planned Parenthood America is also a strong advocate of legalized abortion. This advocacy includes contributing to sponsorship of abortion rights and women's rights events Planned Parenthood supports and provides FDA-approved abortifacients such as Mifepristone.
Planned Parenthood also opposes abstinence-only education in public schools, due research which demonstrates that abstinence-only education is not effective in preventing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Instead, Planned Parenthood favors (and offers) comprehensive sex education, which includes discussion of both abstinence and birth control.

laws requiring parental consent or notification for girls under the age of 18 (or 17 in some states) to have an abortion
laws requiring an ultrasound before abortion (many Planned Parenthood clinics perform, but do not require, ultrasounds)
laws requiring a waiting period (ranging from a couple of hours to a day or more) Stand on political and legal issues
Planned Parenthood has been accused in several cases of agreeing not to report cases of statutory rape to the authorities,

Controversy and criticism
Planned Parenthood regional chapters have been active in the American courts. A number of cases in which Planned Parenthood has been a party have reached the Supreme Court of the United States.
Notable among these cases is the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, where Planned Parenthood is the Southeast Pennsylvania Chapter, and Casey is the late Robert Casey, who was a pro-life Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania.
The ultimate ruling was a split plurality, in which Roe v. Wade was upheld in an opinion written by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, and David Souter, all of whom were Republican appointees to the Supreme Court, with Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens (also Republican appointees) concurring with the main decision in separately written opinions. The Supreme Court also struck down spousal consent requirements for married women to obtain abortions.
Dissenting were Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Byron White, all of whom were Republican appointees except for Justice White. Justices Blackmun, Rehnquist, and White were the only justices who voted on the original Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 who were still on the High Court to rule on this case, and their votes on this case were consistent with their votes on the original decision that legalized abortion.

Other notable cases

Abortion
Birth control
Reproductive rights