Planned parenthood is a luxury to the new generation. When our parents had children, it was not a decision; it was a moral "duty" to society. To further analyze the individual factors of planned parenthood you must draw on the larger religious, social, and economic factors that guide your individual decisions (Mills, 1959). If one considers the broad social factors that shape, influence, and allow individual choices, you are using what C. Wright Mill's called the Sociological Imagination (Appelbaum and Chambliss, 1997). The insight provided by the Sociological Imagination brings new understanding to this particular event, the planning of parenthood.
The choice to bare children was never a topic for conversation in past generations. Religion as an institution had greater influence than it does in modern society. Families of the past were expected to follow religious teaching and were manipulated by the sociological expectations of the family definition. Birth control and abortion were "taboo" and social norms demonstrated the influence of religion in society.
A segment of a social network
Planned Parenthood volunteers help bring the fight...
Entrance to the Planned Parenthood Federation of A...Nowadays abortion clinics are common ground and "the pill" is the topic in high school settings. Due to today's norms, most people are not following the old religious standards of "go forth and multiply"; they have new wants and desires. Religious beliefs that were the core of cultural values became second to scientific research and renovation. The focus of society shifted from the unknown and unexplained to the known and scientifically proven. Technology and medicine modernized sociological institutions; what was "taboo" became the social norm. The possibility of genetic testing, the development of the birth control pill, and government legislation of "pro-choice" allow individuals to have choices on parenthood. Technology, which we cannot control as individuals, creates individualism, free will, and personal disclosure from what was once considered a social "duty" or basic "human...