People's 'Why I Care' Feature Goes to Lena Dunham Promoting Planned Parenthood

February 20th, 2015 11:04 PM

People magazine featured HBO star Lena Dunham in its half-page feature “Why I Care: Personal Stories About Giving Back.” The headline in the March 2 issue was “The Girls creator, 28, supports access to birth control and reproductive rights.”

Dunham, naturally is “giving back” to the abortion industry. A photo caption read “Dunham, who hosted a Planned Parenthood event in January, says she feels ‘compelled’ to help.”

At the bottom of the article, People helpfully instructs: “For more information, go to plannedparenthood.org”. The article was basically an advertisement:

I was very lucky because my mother was the first to ask ‘What do you need regarding birth control, condoms, the pill?” But in college, I saw how many women didn’t have someone to talk to or the resources to get birth control [more Sandra Fluke-onomics] – and Planned Parenthood became that place.

It’s been 42 years since Roe v. Wade, and there is still a nonstop attack on a woman’s right to choose and make decisions about her body. What I love about Planned Parenthood is it is focused on destigmatizing abortion and birth control. A huge part of Girls is an attempt to shift the stigma around women talking about their sexuality. Women are ashamed of things that were in their past – I don’t want that to be the case anymore.

There was more information on Dunham from reporter Liz McNeil at People.com:

While Girls creator Lena Dunham is comfortable talking about sex, that wasn't always the case.

"Someone at school told me about it," Dunham, now an ambassador for Planned Parenthood, tells PEOPLE of learning all about the birds and the bees at 7 years old – and wanting her mom, artist Laurie Simmons, to tell her that what she heard wasn't true.

"I said 'Oh my God, Mom, this girl, Amanda, told me this insane thing that sex is when a man puts his penis in a woman's vagina,' " recalls Dunham, 28. "I had expected her to say that was absurd, but I saw from the look on her face that it might actually be true and I fell into a deep depression."

Up until then, Dunham had another idea altogether. "I was convinced I had figured it out because I thought if a man and woman put their arms together, the sperm and egg met through the pores of their skin," she says. "That didn't seem too scary for me."