Although it’s not new, the topic of Planned Parenthood and abortion remains a point of contention between pro-choice and pro-life Americans.
What many people forget is that this health-related nonprofit does more for a community than provide abortions, something that one county in Indiana learned the hard way.
In 2011, the House of Representatives passed Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, resulting in the closure of Scott County, Indiana’s sole location that provided HIV testing and raised the risk of an outbreak among the community.
While Indiana law makes it illegal to own a syringe without a prescription, drug abusers were able to receive clean needles from Planned Parenthood, which lowered the possibility of an HIV epidemic.
However, due to Pence’s moral obligation rather than his common sense, Scott County saw a rapid increase of HIV among intravenous drug users.
It’s a classic case of making a decision with good intentions only for it to backfire.
This is not an endorsement of drug abuse. Still, it is an issue that can’t be fixed by taking away the one resource needed to contain its consequences.
The refusal to believe that Planned Parenthood is good for anything other than abortions is reckless and will lead to further health concerns in low-income communities.
For those who are unable to afford insurance, Planned Parenthood has shed a light in those forgotten households, especially for young women struggling with unplanned pregnancies and no means to ensure the health of their fetus’ and themselves.
Besides abortions, Planned Parenthood provides free birth control, cancer screenings related to sexual health, STI screenings and maternity care. Only 3 percent of the services that Planned Parenthood offered were abortion-related.
To demonize Planned Parenthood is to discredit all the benefits it brings to a community.
If all Planned Parenthood facilities were defunded, what happened in Scott County could easily occur on a national scale. Not only will there be a spike in HIV cases, but the fight to make abortion illegal would be moot as pregnant young women will not have access to affordable care for their unborn children.
Whether one is pro-life or pro-choice, Christian, Catholic or atheist, the ramifications of defunding Planned Parenthood bears much more thought than it is obviously being given.
Senior staff columnist Caprice Carter is a communication junior and can be reached at [email protected]
Planned Parenthood murders human beings and then sells their body parts.
This is what Planned Parenthood does for the community:
http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org
“Only 3 percent of the services that Planned Parenthood offered were abortion-related.”
Handing out a condom is considered a “service”.
“How does the Planned Parenthood annual report arrive at the 3 percent figure? The calculation counts each “discrete clinical interaction” as a separate “medical service,” meaning simple tests or routine provision of birth control are given the same weight as surgical or chemical abortions.[6] For example, if a woman in the course of a year receives a free condom, a pregnancy test, a sexually transmitted infection (STI) test, and an abortion, Planned Parenthood would say abortion was only 25 percent of the services provided.”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/09/disentangling-the-data-on-planned-parenthood-affiliates-abortion-services-and-receipt-of-taxpayer-funding
Little Carter … misses complete picture of Planned Parenthood … from Selling Aborted Baby Parts … to killing more Black Babies than Chicago gangsters can ever hope to dream.
Sure you can cherry-pick individual sites that offer more than murder on demand, but by and large, this article is nothing more than national talking points, spouted whenever PP is attacked. Margaret Sanger started PP for the sole purpose of thinning the herd of blacks.