Planned Parenthood: The Truth
You may know about Planned Parenthood, and the rumors that surround Planned Parenthood, or the recent vote to stop funding it from the house of republicans. There are always two sides to an argument. I might not have the exact same views as you, but that is the beauty of America, everyone has the right to their own opinion. Personally, I support Planned Parenthood and everything they do. Yes, that includes abortion.
The highest controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood focuses on abortions, but a 2013 study shows only 3% of the services at Planned Parenthood are abortions. The other 97% of services people take advantage of consist of STD testing and contraception at 35%, cancer screening taking 16%, and other health services at 11%. Voting against Planned Parenthood would make not only unplanned pregnancy, but also teen pregnancy a bigger problem.
In 2013 there were 273,105 babies born to females between the ages of 15 and 19, nearly 89% of these births occurred outside of marriage. If Planned Parenthood ended up being shut down abortions would still happen, just not in a cost effective way. People would start having abortions at family doctors, and abortion clinics instead, and back alley abortions will happen more often. Back alley abortions are not only unsanitary, but also dangerous for the woman in many ways. It risks women’s lives, because it can cut them inside and cause internal bleeding, as well as make it so they cannot have children when they are at a place in their lives when they are ready. People think if the government stops funding Planned Parenthood we will no longer have abortions, I hate to break it to you but abortion is legal. Wait, what was that? Abortion is legal! What? Yes, abortion is legal! How can that be possible? “It’s taking a human life!”, “ It’s the equivalent of murder!” Actually it’s not, it is an unborn fetus, likelihood is it hasn’t even gotten to the point of development to where it can obtain a gender yet. If we look into the terms of law, technically we do not get our rights until we are born. Not only that, but the fetus cannot function on it’s own. It has to stay inside of the pregnant woman for another 25-30 weeks at minimum.
For those of you voting against Planned Parenthood; here are some fun facts. No one at Planned Parenthood responds to an unplanned pregnancy with “you should get an abortion”, and abortions are not federally funded! Crazy we’re finally getting the facts straight. 74% of people who obtain an abortion reported their reason for having an abortion was that having a child would interfere with their education, work, or ability to care for themselves. Now let’s just take a minute to address the fact that people actually protest outside of abortion clinics and make people who go inside feel bad. Remember that fact from earlier? Oh yeah. Abortion is legal. I know it’s still totally mind boggling to me. Well actually not really. Don’t take me for a horrible person but personally I don’t believe a fertilized egg to be human. Whether or not it is fertilized doesn’t matter, I mean people eat chicken eggs all the time.It’s basically the same thing, what is inside a woman and gets fertilized to become a human if and when it is born? $8,000. How is it any different when it’s not fertilized?
But if we were to defund Planned Parenthood simply for this reason there would be much more we are missing out on. One of the many other services Planned Parenthood offers is a ‘Teen Council’. A member of the Teen Council told me a little bit about what it is and his experience with Planned Parenthood. Teen Council is a program where teenagers learn about anything to do with Sex Ed and talk about reproductive systems, menstrual cycles, sexual orientation, and have opportunities to go places and speak with political boards about certain social situations. The Teen Council member told me “My experience has been amazing. It is a very caring environment, very welcoming of everyone, and my mom actually works for Planned Parenthood and has told me that it’s a wonderful organization that helps teens get the right kind of care they need for sensitive issues like teen pregnancy, birth control, STD tests, and all sorts of services”.
Everyone has a different experience with everything. But I have not heard of one bad experience with Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is there to prevent us from making mistakes. Defunding Planned Parenthood might stop 80 abortions in 20 weeks but they are constantly trying to stop 8,000 simply with birth control. Now everyone is going to view this differently but if you take in the facts does the government really seem like they are making the right decision about defunding Planned Parenthood?
