After a bill was passed Friday in the House to defund Planned Parenthood if the organization doesn’t stop performing abortions, the public was divided by emotions of joy and outrage.
As someone who supports Planned Parenthood — for the most part — the most annoying part of the situation is not that there are people who disagree with me. People are completely entitled to their own opinions.
It is people who do not even bother to do research on the topic that bother me. If you do not educate yourself about issues, then you do not have the right to have an opinion, and you certainly do not have the right to push your opinion on others.
Do I personally support abortions? No.
I do not believe in abortions unless giving birth could bring physical harm to the mother, or sensitive cases such as when a woman is a victim of rape.
However, that is not the issue at hand.
Abortions only account for 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services.
Guess what percent of those abortions is federally funded?
Zero.
I know, I know. How could this be? After all, Planned Parenthood only performs abortions and does absolutely nothing else to help women, right?
Well, Title X prohibits federal funds from being used for abortions.
While Medicaid does allow government money to be spent on abortions, funds are used in rare cases, like when women are raped or to protect the mother’s life.
But ... Planned Parenthood still doesn’t do anything to benefit society, right?
Wrong again.
Planned Parenthood provides many resources, including testing and treatment for STIs, contraception, cancer screening and prevention and other health services.
Without Planned Parenthood, many women might not have access to the healthcare they desperately need.
Is it not just a little ironic to tell women it is wrong to have an abortion, but then turn around and take away from an organization that is helping women not to get pregnant in the first place?
Seeing comments like, “Well maybe I could support Planned Parenthood if it would provide women with contraception” on Facebook is my favorite.
Here, let me Google that for you.
Well I’ll be darned, providing women with contraception is exactly what Planned Parenthood does.
Defunding Planned Parenthood for something that accounts for 3 percent of its services is like throwing out an entire bag of Skittles because there are a few purple ones.
Sure no one really likes purple, but that doesn’t mean green and yellow are no good. In fact, green and yellow are wonderful and helpful.
Women, take a minute to think about the ways Planned Parenthood would help you if you were in need.
Men, do not even bother to comment on the matter.
I do not stand for abortion. I stand for women’s healthcare.
tatadams@indiana.edu
@TatianaDeWitt
