The Importance Of Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood is an organization known for providing reproductive health services in the United States. In particular, the organization helps people from low-income status who usually cannot afford reproductive health services. Despite providing health services to Americans who desperately need them, Planned Parenthood has met opposition from politicians, most notably Republican and conservative leaders, due to the fact that Planned Parenthood provides abortion services. Because of this, many conservative and Republican leaders are trying to exclude Planned Parenthood from the funds given through the federal Medicaid budget. However, doing so would be detrimental to the reproductive health of many poor Americans; eliminating Planned Parenthood

Too many people place their focus on the fact that Planned Parenthood is a prominent abortion provider. However, it also provides important and beneficial reproductive health services, much more so than abortion services. Of all the services that Planned Parenthood provides, only 3% of them are abortions; 34% of its reproductive health services are contraceptive services and sex education is also provided to around 1.5 million people each year (Selby). A large portion of Planned Parenthood’s services is dedicated to preventing unintended pregnancies, which helps prevent abortion in the long run. Furthermore, Planned Parenthood not only provides contraception to those who usually cannot afford them, but it also provides screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and cancers relating to the reproductive system. Nearly 4.4 million STI screening services and more than 935,000 services related to cancer prevention and detection are provided via the organization (Selby). Cutting federal funds for Planned Parenthood would directly result in a decrease of millions of services

This argument is on the moral basis that abortions are wrong because it leads to the termination of a helpless life. This view is best explained by Helen M. Alvarez and Meg T. McDonnell in their essay, “Anti-Abortion Movement Will Never Give Up”: “The unborn child is vulnerable and dependent. Evolving standards of decency compel us to treat the vulnerable with particular care.” In the perspective of “pro-lifers”, defunding Planned Parenthood would be a step forward towards banning abortion altogether, thus protecting all the lives that would have otherwise been ended. I contend that abortions are extremely unfortunate; having been brought up in a conservative Christian home, I believe that life is precious and that God has a will for every individual. However, I cannot force my beliefs onto other women; I also take a realistic view, in which I acknowledge that the idea of abortion cannot be