Arguments Against Planned Parenthood

Throughout the past few years, the organization Planned Parenthood has gone through an overabundance of controversy and fabrications. Planned Parenthood is one of the world’s largest healthcare providers, offering sexual education and reproductive health care to over five million women and men worldwide every year. The majority of the group’s opposition contests it for the notion that they provide unwarranted and immoral abortion procedures. However, only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services are abortion procedures. The rest of the the organization’s amenities include STI/STD testing, cervical cancer screening, breast exams, Pap tests, and more immensely crucial healthcare facilities for the men and women of America. Last year, a string of heavily

Generally, the largest reason for wanting to defund the organization is the idea that they can be an independently wealthy entity without federal funding that may be going to illegal activities, such as selling fetal tissue. This accusation stems from a string of heavily doctored videos that were documented, edited, and exploited by an anti-abortion group, Center for Medical Progress. The videos, which centered around an undercover man representing a tissue-buying company entrapping Planned Parenthood doctors into implying they profit off of the transporting of fetal tissue. Since the buying and selling of fetal tissue is illegal under 42 U.S. Code 289g-2, which is the prohibition on selling and buying human fetal tissue, many people in American began to take a second look at the organization, including legislators and past-supporters. However, it has been thoroughly investigated and found that less than 1% of Planned Parenthood centers were involved in this crime. Therefore, defunding the entire organization would go without

Gina grew up in inner-city Providence, Rhode Island. When she got pregnant at 19, she was still living with her parents and finishing up school. I chose to interview her because she has gone through a situation involving Planned Parenthood when she was becoming a young mother. Due to her social and economic status, she did not feel prepared to have a child at this age or provide him with the life that would be expected for him. She visited Planned Parenthood multiple times before making a final decision on whether she would terminate her pregnancy. I asked Gina what the biggest reason was for wanting to get an abortion was and she replied, “I was very young and felt unprepared to bring another life into this world when I didn’t feel my life had even started. Plus, I was living with my parents and working two part-time jobs, as was my boyfriend. We just weren’t ready at all.” Much like Gina’s scenario, many young men and women cannot afford primary health care, especially prenatal and postnatal care, so they go to Planned Parenthood where they are provided with affordable reproductive opportunities. When I asked Gina how she was treated at Planned Parenthood, she said, “It was scary at first going in there because I didn’t know what I wanted yet or how much it would cost or anything. But I never felt like just a number there. I sat down with a woman after waiting for a few minutes and rather than give me the numbers and the