The Deal With Planned Parenthood

By: Prathusha Yeruva

“I’m not sure we need a half a billion dollars for women’s health.” Jeb Bush spoke these unfortunate words at the Southern Baptist Convention, igniting criticism from many Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, who tweeted that he was “absolutely, unequivocally wrong”. Bush responded by tweeting “@HillaryClinton what’s absolutely, unequivocally wrong is giving taxpayer $ to an org whose practices show no regard for lives of unborn.”, and that is where the problem starts. Regardless of how one feels about abortion, it’s important to remember that abortion consists of only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s operations. Defunding Planned Parenthood is essentially the equivalent of high fiving cervical cancer.

The controversy over Planned Parenthood started when several videos displaying executives selling fetal issue were posted online. However, the organization has said that fetal tissue is never to be sold, although some people may choose to donate it for the sake of medical research. These videos, whether or not they should even be taken seriously, are proving to be detrimental. Governor Bobby Jindal declared that the state of Louisiana would end its contract with it’s Planned Parenthood clinics. New Hampshire also cut funding to the organization when the videos were released.

It’s ridiculous how many times Republican legislators have tried to pass restrictions on women’s health issues. This past June, they tried to get rid of Title X, which is the only federal grant program that is fully devoted to providing Americans with preventative health and family planning services. It’s especially difficult to forget the time that they threatened to shut down the government if they couldn’t change the Affordable Care Act so that it would allow employers to deny birth control access.

Even after putting all that aside, it’s really important to acknowledge the fact that abortions conducted by Planned Parenthood are not even funded by the government. All the money that the government puts into Planned Parenthood goes toward treating STDs, distributing contraception devices, and cancer screenings. Planned Parenthood is essential to poverty-stricken communities, almost 80% of people using Planned Parenthood are making annual incomes of only $18,500 or less. After understanding this, it’s easy to see that this is all just out of the Republicans’ fury for progress in women’s health, as Elizabeth Warren put it, the vote on Planned Parenthood was just “a piece of a deliberate, methodical, orchestrated, right-wing attack on women’s rights”. It will take a lot of time, effort, and luck to make abortion legal in this country, but it shouldn’t take that much effort just to ensure that low income women can have a place to get cancer screenings done.