Why America Should Protect Planned Parenthood

If you tuned into Fox News on August 6, you would have witnessed a rambling line of the top 10 GOP candidates battling it out and Donald Trump shouting some usual nonsense in the first republican primary debate.

One of the topics that was overwhelming agreed on, to no surprise, is the candidates support of defunding Planned Parenthood Federation of America in light of the pro-life movement.

Considering that 87 percent of college students reported having sexual intercourse (the average age for the first time “doing it” is around 16 or 17 years old), we should at least know about or have even visited Planned Parenthood. Eighty percent of Planned Parenthood’s clients, male or female, go to Planned Parenthood to receive services to prevent unwanted pregnancy, and Planned Parenthood provides nearly 4.5 million tests and treatments for STDs.

Even if you’re not having sexual intercourse, Planned Parenthood is still of use to you. Planned Parenthood provides general health services such as physical exams, diabetes screening, flu vaccines, Pap tests and breast exams to detect cancer.

Even though you could get all of these services from your friendly family doctor, Planned Parenthood makes sure that all of their services are high quality and affordable. In fact, 79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clients have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level – meaning this is most likely you, the college student who’s drowning in debt.

So why is the GOP heated about Planned Parenthood, and why has “defund Planned Parenthood” been all over my feed for the past few months?

The answer is simple: Abortion. And Planned Parenthood provides them. In the eyes of the GOP candidates, nothing else matters, even though only 3 percent of all Planned Parenthood’s services are abortions.

All of these recent Defund Planned Parenthood campaigns were birthed from a video provided by the right-winged activist group, The Center for Medical Progress. The video shows one of Planned Parenthood’s employees, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, being filmed without her knowledge and “admitting” to selling fetus organs and tissues for profit to some actors posing as buyers from a human biologics company.

However, this video is highly edited and doesn’t reveal the truth behind the conversation. In part of the video, the viewer sees Dr. Nucatola discussing how it costs anywhere from $30 to $100 for baby organs, depending on the specimen.

What the video fails to explain is how Planned Parenthood charges $30 to $100 for only the cost of transporting the fetus parts to research. Planned Parenthood also gets permission from the women who received the abortion to use the fetus’ parts for research purposes.

According to the New York Times, research using fetal tissue in 2014 costed $76 million to The National Institutes of Health, and many scientists have been doing this for decades.

 

What do researchers need fetal tissue for?

The same NYT articles goes on to express how fetal tissue is a rich source of stem cells and by studying them, researchers can find clues about growing replacements for failed body parts. Fetus eye tissue helps researchers find treatments for diseases involving the retina that can cause vision loss.

These donated fetus tissues could even find the cure to ALS.

If you’re still upset about the Planned Parenthood doctor’s tone and diction during the video, it’s important to remember that in the video Dr. Nucatola believes that she’s talking to other professionals about her career and the procedure of abortion. She’s been in the business for years, she’s gone through these procedures hundreds of times and she isn’t going to talk timidly or carefully. She’s going to talk in more medical terms, and to the non-medical viewer it may sound morbid.

If that still doesn’t satisfy you, Planned Parenthood’s President Cecile Richards stated that it is not true that Planned Parenthood profits off of fetal tissue donation. But she does personally apologize for her employee’s lack of compassion and statements in the video.

How are pro-life activists and GOP members trying to defund Planned Parenthood?

First, it’s important to understand how Planned Parenthood is funded.

A majority of the $528 million in taxpayer support last year came from two separate places: Medicaid and grants such as the Title X family planning program. Federal dollars legally can’t pay for abortions.

The GOP proposed a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, but the bill was blocked by Senate Democrats. The bill needed 60 votes in order to pass through, but the vote came out to be only 53-46. Although the republicans lost, they claim they’re not giving up.

If they continue pushing to defund Planned Parenthood, they’re going to have to climb a few big mountains including the Democratic filibuster, a presidential veto or even shutting down the government. If they manage to get through all of that, they still have to deal with the Medicaid law.

The republicans could easily cut Title X’s money if the bill became a law, but Medicaid, which holds the bigger pot of gold for Planned Parenthood, would make the situation pretty messy.

Some states have already tried picking out Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs but only found themselves sitting in court. The fed might have to deal with the same thing if this bill gets to where it wants to go.

What would happen in the U.S. if we did defund Planned Parenthood?

If the GOP actually got its way and demolished Planned Parenthood, it would be harder for women to get abortions for any reason. It would also strip away many low-income families’ health services.

On top of that, you may remember Jeb Bush boasting about one of his “greatest accomplishments”, defunding Planned Parenthood in Florida while he was Governor.

In 2001, Bush defunded Planned Parenthood cutting $302,843 from the program. As a result, in 2014, Florida was tied with Oklahoma and Arkansas for last place for women’s health in the country. Along with that statistic, 25 percent of women in Florida are without insurance, and over 20 percent of women in Florida report being in fair or poor health. Just to add the cherry on top, 23 out 67 of Florida’s counties don’t even have any obstetrician-gynecologists.

So, we can all thank Jeb for stripping Floridian women of our much needed health care services. I hope my republican ladies have the right of mind to skip over his name when voting in the primary.

“Defund Planned Parenthood” is just another trend that many conservatives are blowing way out of proportion. Instead of realizing that the majority of Planned Parenthood’s services are to prevent unwanted pregnancies, they’re sticking to the fact that some women still need abortions.

These GOP candidates are over exaggerating the amount of abortions that Planned Parenthood provides and undermining how necessary Planned Parenthood’s services are to millions of citizens.

Featured photo courtesy of: talkingpointsmemo

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