Recently, Congressional Republicans have once again announced their plans to defund Planned Parenthood.
They are planning to defund one of the most vital ways that young women, low-income women, and even men get access to affordable sexual education and healthcare.
The reason for defunding Planned Parenthood comes from the fact that clinics across the country perform legal and safe abortions.
However, I'm not here to talk about abortions. I'm not going to get into something that makes up only 3% of all the services that Planned Parenthood offers, and I'm certainly not going to discuss something that receives absolutely no federal funding from the United States government. In fact, not every Planned Parenthood in the nation even offers abortion services.
What I AM going to talk about is all of the fantastic services that will be denied to people should Planned Parenthood actually be defunded that are not and SHOULD NOT be controversial.
1. Birth Control
To be completely honest, as someone who medically has to be on some form of birth control, I LOVE this page. Each of these forms listed above leads to a page that gives you more information about that type, including success rates, cost, and even includes a huge list of commonly asked questions and the answers to them.
I also love that, not only do they give birth control options for women, but they also list the options for men. This is extremely important considering a lot of healthcare providers only focus on the female option.
Annually, Planned Parenthood provided 4,665,000 individuals gobally with sexual and reproductive health care.
38% of all the services performed by Planned Parenthood are contraceptive services.
In fact, it is estimated that, because Planned Parenthood provides these services, they averted 216,000 abortions.
And yet the government wants to get funding to these wonderful, low cost options that come with a plethora of information.
2. Body Image
This is a super cool page of Planned Parenthood that I didn't even know exsited until a few years ago.
Once again, it gives a brief overview of what body image is and includes Q/A's regarding the topic. It even goes into the consequenses of having a negative body image can do to a person's mental, emotional, and physical health.
Planned Parenthood, although they are (for the majoritity) a reproductive health institution, they care for the overall person, not just the individuals reproductive organs.
3. Men's Health Care
Yes, Planned Parenthood serves men as well. They are not just specific to female health services.
Not only can you get more information on serious topics such as birth control, testicular cancer, UTI's, and infertility, but they also have a full list of services that are available to men:
4. Pregnancy
Despite what a lot of people think, Planned Parenthood doesn't JUST end pregnancies.
Planned Parenthood also goes into the health aspect of being pregnant, how to test if you're pregnant (both with the clinic and without), how to handle things such as infertility, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages.
This page has an incredible in-depth analysis of everything to do with pregnancy. By defunding Planned Parenthood, you are taking away this knowledge from people who may really need it, both in the clinic and out of it.
5. Sex and Sexuality
If you've ever had a question about sex or sexuality, this page will have all of the information for you. In fact, this is a great option for people who just want to further understand the differences between words such as biological sex and gender.
The positive support that comes from the page is astounding. It makes things such as masturbation and sexual activity easy to understand and stresses the notion that these are normal activities for healthy adults, and not doing it is just as normal.
6. STD's
If you have any question at all about STD's, including the signs, symptoms, and how to test for them, look no further than this page on the Planned Parenthood website.
7. Other General Statistics
- The percentage of people who visit Planned Parenthood who are at or below the poverty level: 79%
- Percentage of people who receive contraceptive related services: 75%
- Planned Parenthood has been giving education and services to men and women for almost 100 years.
The amazing part about all of the aforementioned information is this: the information above is only from the education part of their website.
This does NOT include the portion of their website where you can actually get birth control online if you live in specific states.
This does NOT include the portion of their webiste where you can UTI treatments online, as well as STD testing online.
This does NOT include the large portions of the website where you can get tools for parents and educators, as well as information for teens who need it.
Yes, I do also stand with Planned Parenthood because they offer safe and low-cost abortions to women.
However, these amazing facilities across the nation do so much more than just offer abortion services are shown by the above list.
If you defund Planned Parenthood, you are taking away positive and important information about birth control for both women and men.
You are taking away body positivity adn knowledge about what happens if you don't think positive about your body.
You are taking away low-cost and effective health care for not only women, but for men as well.
You are taking away easy access to information and support for women who are planning or in the process in beginning a family.
You are taking away information about sex and sexuality information from people who may need help understanding it, or don't understand it to begin with.
You are taking away easy access to information about STD's.
When you defund Planned Parenthood, you are taking away all of this and more.
I understand that not everyone agrees with abortions. But considering that none of the federal funds given to Planned Parenthood are used for abortions, you need to consider everything else you are taking away from people who truly need it.
I, for one, do not want to see this amazing organization defunded and their doors close.
I stand with Planned Parenthood, and you should too.
To view the full list of statistics, including those both listed and not listed above, please head to the following link: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/9313/9611/...
