Opinion

Planned Parenthood opponents are unaware of abortion realities

Planned Parenthood new photo

Some may dislike abortion, but violence is not the proper response. | Justin Cross/The Cougar

Regardless of what your stance might be in the recent controversy involving Planned Parenthood, it is the victim of a heartbreaking tragedy.

Robert L. Dear opened fire in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., killing a police officer, a veteran, a wife of another veteran and wounding nine others.

Unfortunately, this tragedy did not arise from only violence and rhetoric. In fact, it stems from something much greater: ignorance.

That is why Planned Parenthood kept thriving, even as a victim, for quite some time.

According to the National Abortion Foundation, since 1977, there have been eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings, 186 acts of arson and thousands of other incidents, including vandalism in or against abortion clinics.

Despite these threats and hardships, Planned Parenthood survived. Such circumstances could only lead one to wonder: How do those who need Planned Parenthood’s services feel about their personal safety?

“It is absolutely horrific to see people exercise their constitutional rights only to face gun violence,” political science lecturer Jaye Ramsey Sutter said.

A majority of Republican nominees might argue that supporting Planned Parenthood is supporting abortion. However, due to the Hyde Amendment, federal funding cannot legally be used for abortion. Instead, the federal money goes towards services such as STD testing and teen pregnancy prevention.

That means cutting funding could only hinder the performance of the organization.

Some say federal funding might free up the privately acquired funds for abortion. But if one focuses too harshly on a single aspect, even if it is true, they ignore the benefits that comes out of such an entity. That ultimately hurts those in need.

According to the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, at least 100,000, and possibly as many as 240,000, Texas women between 18 and 49-years-old have attempted to end a pregnancy on their own without medical assistance.

This could only prove that animosity toward Planned Parenthood is unwarranted, even if one opposes abortion. Thousands of women have and will continue to find other ways to attempt abortions.

Based on the 2013-2014 self-published annual report, abortions account for only three percent of Planned Parenthood services, while 42 percent goes toward STD testing and treatment. In addition, 34 percent are contraception related and 20 percent go toward cancer treatment and other women’s health services.

This shows that 96 percent of Planned Parenthood’s efforts support causes that are encouraged by Democrats and Republicans alike. Whether or not one might have a problem with abortion or even the alleged fact that baby parts are sold for research, it is evident that the vast majority of the work done by Planned Parenthood is noble and even essential for life.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie once said, “If you’re pro-life, you’ve gotta be pro-life for the whole life, not just nine months in the womb.”

Planned Parenthood supports a vast majority, if not all, aspects of life. That is why we must continue to lend our support. No being or creation is perfect, but that does not mean it can be disregarded as something ignoble.

In the end, we must take a moment to learn about something before judging it. As one of my favorite writers, Marjane Satrapi, said: “One must educate oneself.”

Opinion columnist Krishna Narra is a marketing junior and may be reached at [email protected]

16 Comments

  • Well written. If only those who are ignorant of the facts would be willing to look at the facts and adjust their opinions.

  • What ignorance of the facts? Baby parts are being sold … they receive govt funds. Who cares what else PP does; there are plenty of other outlets out there that offer the same services.

    Anyway, since this is an abortion puff piece … and as an obvious supporter … would you Krishna — have supported your Mommy’s abortion of You (Krishna Narra). Abortion supporters never ask that of themselves.

    While White SocDems like Grandma Clinton’s granddaughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, are allowed life, in a $10 million dollar apartment and a nanny no less. Millions and millions of non-White fetuses have been denied life, because of a woman’s right to choose, a choice that should have been made when they were presented with the opportunity for relations in the first place. Saying “No” … works the vast majority of the time.

    The SocDem White Supremacist Margaret Sanger would be so proud of your Krishna in supporting her Black feticide program that has taken place. Shucks, in NYC and with inference probably in other places …. more Black fetuses are aborted than born. And coupled with Black on Black crime … it’s no wonder that the Black Voice is dying, given favor instead to the Syrian refugees and illegal kids coming over the border.

    • Apparently you missed the points of the article. Women who want an abortion will get one and Planned Parenthood is not required to exist for that service. If you’re concerned about black fetuses, why not focus on birth control and education to avoid the abortion, why not focus on educating young black women to reject the current culture that values them only for being used sexualy, why not focus on educating young black men to be responsible and stop having so many baby-mamas out there that they don’t support but use to brag about their “manhood”. (there’s an argument for abortion)
      There’s so much more to the equation of why abortions become an option to young women, by the time that is an option, it’s the end of a long list of other options that should have been taught to boys and girls growing up, which would have made abortion a non issue. Being a single mother with little education and no supportive male spouse only condemns more black lives to live in poverty, without hope, and perpetuating the destructive cycle that we see.

      These conditions don’t just exist for black women and men, these conditions apply to people of all color and backgrounds. You just happen to focus on non-white fetuses so I’m responding to what you identified as your primary concern.
      When we stop pointing fingers at others instead of living a life of accountability, only then will we open our eyes as a society and effect meaningful change. Until then, all the blaming, shaming, name calling, threatening and all the other disgusting things done in the name of “life” are nothing more than Puritanical self righteous hypocrisy.

        • Yes I would have because if my soul is meant to be in existence on this earth, there would be another opportunity to be born to the right person at the right time. The soul never dies, it has eternal life and it reincarnates. I trust that my soul is in the hands of God, not man.

    • Bob, first if she, or anyone, was aborted they would never know they were because they never would have existed.

      Two, where is the concern for women of color when it comes to helping them support those children they chose to have. ConReps constantly chip away at programs that would help them. Constantly parrot “abstinence” instead of teaching birth control. Lets not forget how the sanctity of life goes out the window once they are born, then its the death penalty they support with full vigor.
      Sorry Bob, your argument is smoke, no substance, and full of hypocrisy. When ConReps are willing to help the poor and working class instead of their rich friends, then you can begin to attempt to climb a moral high ground.

      • ConReps … I like it girl. Thanks.

        As for your claim that ConReps do not care for the poor … are we the ones that are stealing their Self-Esteem? Are we the ones denying them prosperity? Are we the ones telling the poor “you can’t do that?” No. Of course not.

        The SocDems have stolen the Black Nuclear Family and poor peoples as a whole, replacing the Father with welfare checks in the 1950’s, and now an EBT card. Welfare has never provided prosperity; it just keeps those on the program barely above water to keep voting for SocDems.

        People used to be ashamed to be on Welfare. And standing in the line at Wal-Mart, even today; EBT card users will quickly swipe their Lone Star card, and put it back in their wallet.

        I guess the biggest difference between SocDems and ConReps are;
        – SocDems see the poor as a group to be manipulated and bought off. You see a vote for SocDems.
        – ConReps see the poor as a group that has yet to spread its wings. I see … a Man/Woman.

        • Of course you like it Bob, I said it! (grins)
          But your argument is full of holes because if what you said WAS true then you would have seen a growth and prosperity in black families and the poor since the 1990s when welfare was overhauled, reduced and gutted. Since then it has been even more so reduced by the states yet where is the turn around in the numbers? The facts are we had less people on welfare in the late 60s and early 70s than we do today.
          RepCons preached abstinence instead of education so we saw an increase in teen pregnancies in the poor (the rich just quietly got their little tammy an abortion while publicly denouncing abortion).
          The facts don’t support your argument and instead show how RepCons have been the one’s manipulating the poor and middle class, playing them off against each other with the lie that some how being on welfare was a way of “getting over”, all the while the RepCons are laughing and drinking with their rich friends and the how they got people to believe it and parrot their BS.

          • Come on girl!!

            The welfare reforms (Welfare to Work) that Bill Clinton was forced to enact really did reduce the numbers, but Obama years ago lifted key requirements to the reforms making it easy to apply and be approved, and since then the numbers have skyrocketed.

            But last year, Maine enacted specific requirements for food stamp or SNAP benefits. Guess what, they went back to President Clinton’s model of welfare to work model, where in order to receive benefits, individuals were required to work a 20 hr week, enter a vocational program, or volunteer 20 hrs per week.

            What do you know? The 12,000 enrollees in Maine’s SNAP program all of a sudden dropped to 2,500.
            Those 10,000 Welfare Suckers, (like Progressive’s “Rate Suckers” … now that’s ironic ain’t it.) were just taking up space for the sake of it. They either didn’t want to do the time to receive the benefits, or they only wanted to be pampered by government with no payback.

            After just explaining about Nancy Pelosi and Wall Street.in a previous post I do still giggle at your scribbles about ConReps and the Rich. Have you done your research? Two of the richest Members of Congress may be Republican … but there are a lot of D’s beside the rest of ’em.

            I always loved educating people about the rich. I remember having a conversation with some cousins (effectively SocDems) retired government workers.

            I told them that we need more rich people.

            I know that you are taught a lot about class warfare. Where if the guy has a dollar more than you, he is an evil rich guy. Poor people and college students are so easily taken in by the concept because, well college students for the most part don’t have a lot of money. At the same time we are forced by Big Education to pay exorbitant fees, and then buy books and workbooks developed by professors, thus personally enRICHing them. The SocDems calling for class warfare are usually the ones that are trying to divert their richness from the gullible ones they are preaching to.

            Do you ever wonder why Bill Gates and Warren Buffett call for increased taxes on the rich? Which now is labeled as $300,000 dollars.

            In Buffett’s case, he promotes that his secretary has a higher tax rate than he does. Well, Warren’s secretary doesn’t work for a pittance, but Buffett’s salary is generally known as $100,000 a year. But of course he’s already made his millions and can say what he says to take the pressure off him from leftist groups, etc. Besides the rich that call for taxing the rich, they never call for increased taxes on capital gains.

            If it wasn’t for rich people, we wouldn’t have air conditioning, cool cars, nice houses, etc.

            SocDems belittle the Rich. The call them mean, and utter every bad phrase under the Sun at them.

            But you cannot deny several things from the rich. They BUY THINGS, they EMPLOY PEOPLE, and they do HAVE THEIR PRICE. So let’s examine each.

            BUY THINGS – The rich either SocDem or ConReps, buy things, and with the initial consumption of goods, causes more people, usually people that are not rich, but have disposable income, to also to buy as well, due to the lower cost of goods once a product takes off. And the market (not government) will eventually make a choice (allah the VCR vs Beta competition back in the day). A SocDems command economy system could not have invented our economy. Thanks to personal property rights and an abidance of the laws prior to the SocDem corruption of the court system, our economy developed into a giant that still cannot be equaled across the World, well maybe China because they are starting to embrace Capitalist reforms.

            Our economy … up until Obama … allowed people to find a niche market … with the freedom to develop a product, and if it was accepted as desirable their business could really take off … it still happens … but the dealing with all sorts of government regulations not previously required really takes its toll, and more common sense regulation would be more helpful to allow some of those struggling businesses to survive. I can go on and on about this.

            EMPLOY PEOPLE — I’m far from rich, but I do employ a number of people from yard care to cleaning my house. For my elderly Mother, I have a nurse aid to attend to her, and another aide just to play games. I can say that I do my part to help our economy along.
            But let’s look at the rich … do the Clinton’s make their own dinner? Does Rush Limbaugh? No. They obviously would employ personal chefs for their household, to go along with several maids, a butler or valet. A security guy or two, not to mention groundskeepers, and who knows what else.
            But you TB hope and pray for the demise of the Rich, but how many families would suffer if you got your wish?

            The same can be said for those that building luxury items like RVs and yachts. The simple minded only see the rich in those items and call for their destruction.
            But what about the carpenter that participated in the building of that dang yacht. or the electrician that installed the wiring in that fancy million dollar RV, or the plumber, finisher, assembler. I can go on for a long time. But the fact remains that those employees that built those things pray for the rich to stay rich, and breed more rich, for their selfishness to stay employed.

            The SocDems call for the destruction of the Rich, and yet they never see the consequences of their destruction. It’s equivalent to a drive-by shooting. The SocDems shoot their Mack10’s but never hang around for the suffering and family pain caused by their actions.

            HAVE THEIR PRICE – It’s getting late. By I have two words for you — Dairy Queen. I went for a Blizzard, and saw a triple Belt Buster meal for $11+ dollars. Now I can easily adsorb the cost of that meal and it wouldn’t hurt me financially. But I know that burger wouldn’t be as good a 5 Guys or Fuddrucker’s burger. Yet DQ wants $8 bucks for the burger alone. An insane amount if you ask me, and it shows that if I have my price; the rich do as well.

            A quick example was the 10% luxury tax on yachts back in the 90’s. The rich said no mas. And guess what, all those people that I spoke of in building those things … they and their families suffered. All become some greedy Socialist wanted to make the rich suffer. Senator George Mitchell, senator from Maine at the time, had to good crawling to Congress to repeal the tax.
            Heck, even Lenin implemented a Strategic Retreat, when he let farmers sell their products and keep the profits, and it was a success and brought the country back from starvation.

            So if you hate the rich my love handle gal … you are a destroying more people than you think.

            • I do not hate the rich, but lets look at what you have said. First 450 people own over half the wealth of this country. But lets be generous and lets say the top 10% of the population economic wise just can’t buy enough services and goods to keep the economy afloat. No its the bottom 50% that drive our economy with their purchases. Your “rich” don’t reinvest as proper capitalist should, they instead put it in out of country investments. Now understand I do not begrudge a person being rich, I have more of a problem with the huge corporations. The top 25, non financial corporation are sitting on more than a trillion dollars, they are not investing it, they are not doing anything with it but sitting on it and have been for years now.

              Corporations are the majority of employers not individuals and unlike small businesses, they get tax breaks and subsidies in spite of show profits each quarter while the small businesses struggle.

              Remember it was the RepCons that put our economy in a tailspin when Obama entered office. In fact if not for the massive influx of defense spending because of 911 the Bush economy was already showing signs of starting to tank. His tax breaks to the top percent have been shown by even conservative think tanks to have been unneeded and hurtful to the economy.

              As for Maine, yes they had a drop but the problem with mandatory work is what do you do when you can’t get 20 hours of work and where are the vocational programs that have jobs waiting that are free? Look you talk about the “10,000 Welfare Suckers” what about GE making record profits and not paying a single cent in taxes and in fact getting a 34 million dollar tax rebate back and then telling Main to either give them more tax breaks and subsidies or they would relocate?
              The amount just GE should have paid make those 10,000 Welfare Suckers a drop in the bucket.
              See that is the tactic I hate about RepCons, they make it that being poor and needing help sound like getting over on all the rest of us. Why does education cost so much, because back in the 70’s the rich had a 70% tax rate. Back in the 50s, when we had our strongest economy, it was 90%! We now have the lowest tax rate for the rich than ever when you consider how low windfall tax rate is and yet where is the economy?

              Look study after study has shown we work harder, longer and are more productive than at any other time in our nation’s history but are we making more money? Well unless you are a CEO or executive the answer is not only no, but your buying power is even less than what it was in the 70s. This ever since the great satan, R. Regan and the RepCons came to power it has been on a down hill. As for the Clinton’s they are RepCons calling themselves democrates and Obama is one of the best Republican presidents the country has had. Its time to kick them all out and put Berny in the front seat. Sorry I am tired as well and will be more coherent once I get some sleep. Just know, I will bring you over to the light side Bob, let go your fear and doubt and come to the light. *grins*

      • Sanctity of life isn’t threatened or contradicted by death penalties. In one, the person involved had no culpability unlike the other.

        • No, the sanctity of life goes out the window once a child is born, then is lets get rid of school lunches for the poor, lets get rid of food stamps for the poor, lets get rid of everything that helps a child and their parents and screw the poor so that they grow up resentful, wanting, lacking and when they commit a crime, throw the book at them because they can’t afford an lawyer like a rich family can, and because Repcons have privatized Juvenal Detention and Adult Prison causing all sort of problems because they want to keep people in them and make their money. That is what every study has shown.
          So your argument about sanctity of life is false. When RepCons are willing to adopt and/or pay for all the unborn, help educate, cloth, and feed them, and keep them safe, and give them a fair opportunity to be a part of society and the American Dream. then, and only then, you can use that argument.

          • When you take my money for your purposes, that is called theft! When I choose to donate to feed the poor hungry the homeless whatever the case may be I do that because I choose to. When you choose to do it ithrough taxation, itis nothing more then legalized theft and end of story.

  • From 1977 to 2015 is 38 years. 17 + 8 + 42 +186 = 253. 253/38 = 6.657, so let’s round that to 7/year. Now, in the same time period of 38 years, how many women have been killed or injured by botched abortions? How many babies have lost their lives? How much money has PP made? What is the salary of the CEO?

    On 3/4/15, Breibart reported: “Five Women Injured in 4 Weeks During Botched Abortions at Houston Planned Parenthood Clinic” http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/03/04/five-women-injured-in-4-weeks-during-botched-abortions-at-houston-planned-parenthood-clinics/

    No one condones the shooting at PP, but the injuries to women and human life which occur at PP is also something which people should look at. And, we haven’t even gone into PP failure to report assault of minors and human trafficking and forced abortions by pimps. Nor, the women whose abortion at PP contributes later contributes to miscarriages and increased cancer risk…

    Yes, PP supporters are ignorant (or in denial or collusion) with abortion realities.

    And now, let’s see when and what the daily cougar will write about the greater loss of life and injuries which occurred in San Bernardino…

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