Planned Parenthood, is either the major obstacle to America's recent budget deals or ONE OF the major obstacles to said-deals. Because of this, it’s worth taking a minute explaining what they do — and what they don’t do.
Dear Sen John Kyl (R Arizona) stated....."You don't need to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesteral or blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood and thats well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does."
As you can see in the chart atop this post, abortion services account for ONLY about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities.
3%. NOT 90%.
That’s less than cancer screening and prevention (16 percent), STD testing for both men and women (35 percent), and contraception (also 35 percent). About 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s users are over age 20, and 75 percent have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line. Planned Parenthood itself estimates it prevents more than 620,000 unintended pregnancies each year, and 220,000 abortions. It’s also worth noting that federal law ALREADY FORBIDS Planned Parenthood from using the FUNDS it receives from the government for ABORTIONS.
When asked about his remark, Kyl stated the following... "The remark was not intended to be a factual statement but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood (an organization that receives millions in taxpayer dollars), DOES subsidize abortions."
So though the fight over Planned Parenthood might be about abortion, Planned Parenthood itself IS NOT ABOUT ABORTION.
It’s primarily about contraception and reproductive health. And if Planned Parenthood loses funding, what will happen is that cancer screenings, contraception and STD testing will become less available, and more expensive. Sexual Health should not be underestimated. Especially in this day-and-age. People need to be protected.
The fight also isn’t about cutting spending. The services Planned Parenthood provides save the federal government a lot of money. It’s somewhat cold to put it in these terms, but taxpayers end up bearing a lot of the expense for unintended pregnancies among people without the means to care for their children. The same goes for preventable cancers and sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS. You can find a lot more information about Planned Parenthood and its services here.
I know its been a while since my last update- I plan to write more frequently.
