I can only speak on facts, statistics and experiences. I held my friend’s hand as she cried in the waiting room waiting for results to come in from her cervical cancer screening. I anxiously awaited a phone call from another friend who exclaimed, “The over-the-counters were wrong, I’m not pregnant!” I was excited to receive three boxes of free condoms to divide and place in heavily gay-trafficked businesses in Atlanta. And I was thankful for them when I learned that they helped guide my friend’s 17-year-old sister to the right resources for adoption options.
Planned Parenthood is vital. Without it, nearly 390,000 people could experience significantly reduced health care access, according to a report published by the Congressional Budget Office. Conservatives want to say that if Planned Parenthood shut their doors other local institutions would be able to take up the slack; but this is impossible while they’re simultaneously and historically trying to slash Medicaid. How can you push policy to defund both Planned Parenthood and Medicaid, yet assume there are other affordable options out there for impoverished communities? Intersectional race and gender go into the need of these services, but we’ll save that for another day. Planned Parenthood is a necessary, essential organization that we must continue funding.
The common logic behind defunding Planned Parenthood is that no more Planned Parenthood will equal no more abortions, or at least a significantly less amount. However, this assertion can easily be proven false. Without proper funding abortions could actually increase as low income women lose access to birth control and family planning. As these women lose this access, the abortions continue however in non-clinical spaces. This puts women in greater risk for injury and disease, and in the long-term can end up costing more money for medical treatment.
The argument that “Planned Parenthood preys on the socioeconomically disadvantaged” is simply wrong. They have nothing to gain from harming women, far from it. As investigation after investigation has shown, they do not “sell” or profit from aborted fetuses. Planned Parenthood is one of the only places where a woman can, without judgment, discuss her options moving forward with a pregnancy she may not wish to continue. Planned Parenthood is a safe place for women to make the decisions about their own health care. Not to mention, the Congressional Budget Office also estimates 2.6 million Americans would face significantly reduced access to healthcare.
Again, I can only speak from facts, statistics, and experiences. I know the facts, I know the myths, and I know the arguments against the truths of Planned Parenthood and how destructively skewed they really are. It is fine for you to have an opinion, or to not have one, but it is not fine to turn those opinions into life-altering, myth-sending mindsets that affect the lives of so many. You cannot tell people there are “other options” than Planned Parenthood while simultaneously working to defund Medicaid and Obamacare (those other options).
I know that people conveniently care about race and poverty when Planned Parenthood is mentioned, but not when we talk about the death penalty or police brutality or mass incarceration. I know people are quick to talk about the ‘murder of thousands’ when we are discussing abortion, but not when we are discussing the drones in the Middle East that kill thousands yearly. I know that people love to hate on Planned Parenthood when it is not them who is without money, resources, support, and insurance, and when it is not them who is stuck in a systemic cycle of racial injustice that does not allow them the resources for proper sex education and contraception knowledge.
The move to defund Planned Parenthood is a war on women, it is a war on women of color, and it is a war on poverty.
