By Christine Costello and Elisabeth Espinoza
Planned Parenthood has been taking heavy fire. Opponents have used biased and faulty videos that accuse Planned Parenthood of illegally profiting from selling fetal tissue in a push to defund the organization.
In reality, Planned Parenthood has been facing similar opposition since its inception. They have continuously met opponents who condemn the availability of birth control, family planning, and abortion in order to secure reproductive health services for all.
Opponents focus on abortion, though they consist of only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s operations and aren’t federally funded. They ignore the other 97 percent of services: cancer screenings, pap smears, STI/STD tests and immunizations. Services that catch cervical cancer early, educate about, prevent, and treat STIs. Services that make for healthier babies and more informed women.
Planned Parenthood reaches women and men in rural areas and impoverished cities. They serve those who are the most underserved. If these services disappear, the 20 percent of women in America who visit Planned Parenthood in their lifetime, most of whom are low income, no longer have a place to go.
Conservative lawmakers claim that Planned Parenthood is replaceable. They attempt to close down local clinics with the rationalization that thousands of alternative providers will sub in for services lost. The reality is that these health care alternatives do not exist, and those that do cannot stand the flood of patients that defunding Planned Parenthood would cause. This nonchalant underestimation of the necessity of Planned Parenthood will cost the health, and potentially the lives, of many.
Christine Costello, a Master’s student at the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work. Elisabeth Espinoza and I have written an article on the importance of Planned Parenthood and the services it provides, especially to low income women. Christine can be reached at ccostell@usc.edu.
