Planned Parenthood: Affordable Health Care

When Planned Parenthood is brought up in conversation, people automatically associated their name with abortion services. However, Planned Parenthood provides a plethora of services ranging from women’s preventative healthcare to family planning service. In fact, Planned Parenthood prevents roughly 579,000 unintended pregnancies each year by offering a variety of pregnancy prevention options (Planned Parenthood, n.d.). Although I have never personally used the services offered by Planned Parenthood, being that I am a woman in a young age group that often struggles to find access to affordable health care, I have friends that are familiar with their services. I’ve also done some personal research myself in case I’m ever in a situation where

In 2014, 360,000 women received breast exams, while another 270,000 received pap tests (Klasing, 2017). Both of these tests provide low-income women an equal opportunity to detect cancer early in an effort to receive life-saving treatment before it is too late. Like I’ve mentioned before, so many people associated Planned Parenthood with abortions. I’ve heard so many times, “why should we have to pay for women to have abortions.” However, absolutely none of the government funding received by Planned Parenthood pays for abortion services. In fact it’s quite the opposite. Planned Parenthood uses a combination of government funding and the proceeds from abortions paid for by the patient to decrease the cost of their healthcare services like cancer screenings. It’s easy for those who are more fortunate to say that doctors and hospitals could offer those screenings as well; however, 75% of Planned Parenthood’s clientele are below 150% of the poverty level leaving them no other option but to use this government funded, low cost service (Klasing, 2017). Without Planned Parenthood, these men and women would lack an affordable option to receive equal healthcare

In fact, they even provide contraception services that reduce the need for abortion services among their clientele. Before you dismiss the important of Planned Parenthood, please consider each and every service that they offer including STD screenings and treatment, contraception services, and access to affordable women’s health care. I also ask you to consider what our society would look like if we didn’t have a properly funded, public institution that offers these services. STD rates would skyrocket, unplanned pregnancies would increase, and women would struggle to find affordable access to cancer screenings and other health care services. I encourage you all to spread awareness regarding the truth about Planned Parenthood and the services that they offer. Let us clear up the popular misconception that Planned Parenthood revolves around abortions. Please contact your local government officials and ask them to consider the totality of Planned Parenthood before backing legislation that restricts government funding to this vital