As the push to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion mill becomes stronger—and people stop letting warm and fuzzy words like “choice” annihilate their common sense and human decency (excluding, of course, the Obama administration, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, and the like)—some are publicly mourning the loss of the “Women's health care” that may, possibly, egregiously, never be seen again if Planned Parenthood were to be defunded by the hard-working and baby-killing-averse taxpayer.
I'm here to help! First, some facts. In 2012–2013 alone Planned Parenthood:Â
- Received more than $1,500,000 per day from taxpayers, $540,600,000 for the year.
- Performed 327,166 abortions.
- Accounted abortion as 93.8% of their provided pregnancy services. (Prenatal care was 5.6%, adoption referral was 0.6%.)
- Performed 149 abortions for every single adoption referral.
As Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser said:
Planned Parenthood claims to be a trusted health care provider to women and girls, but their numbers tell a different story. Planned Parenthood is a business whose entire mission is to profit off of abortion.
Amen and duh.
So for those still concerned about actual women's health care (as opposed to dismembering babies in utero and sucking them into buckets for organ harvesting), here are some options:
- Check out this map to find the thousands of community health care clinics that women have access to. These clinics primarily serve the working poor and uninsured. There are 20 comprehensive women's health care clinics for every Planned Parenthood location. [Source: Alliance Defending Freedom]
- Obamacare covers everyone in the galaxy, right? So, for checkups, birth control, etc., head to the doctor's office, Walmart, Walgreens, health department, etc.
- Planned Parenthood could stop performing abortions all together and focus on what supporters claim is their primary business anyway—”women's health care.” Then they can keep their 500,000,000+ taxpayer dollars and go about their merry way giving mammogram referrals and pap smears and real prenatal services.
- Planned Parenthood could spin off their abortion services into a different entity with different locations and different infrastructure and administration. Claiming “no federal funding goes to abortion” in a single entity and single location that gets massive federal funding is ludicrous. It's like giving a junkie $100 and claiming it's not feeding his habit because he's going to use a different $100 in his pocket for the coke bag. The charming Cecile Richards could call it Abortions R Us or Humanitarian Organ Harvesting or something else cute and clever to make it sound all cozy and choicy. Then people with actual consciences could sleep at night knowing their hard work isn't supporting impaling the skulls of inconvenient babies.
Which option will you choose? Do you have others to add?
In the misguided quest for massive socialized health care, is it too much to ask that we concentrate our efforts on true health and care as opposed to progressive manifestations of disregard for the most innocent?
The liberal support of PP will never wane because if abortion is off the table they have almost nothing left on the platform — other than taking OPM to put into programs that make them feel better without personal sacrifice.
I don’t care about Planned Parenthood, but I am concerned that our sisters in the very unfortunate situation of needing one are able to safely access abortion. Do the other comprehensive clinics referenced above offer abortion services?
As President Hinckley taught in General Conference in October 1998 (and as outlined in the CHI), “While we denounce [abortion], we make allowance in such circumstances as when pregnancy is the result of incest or rape, when the life or health of the mother is judged by competent medical authority to be in serious jeopardy, or when the fetus is known by competent medical authority to have serious defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.” We need to do a better job of ensuring the appropriate support and resources are available to those in these extremely difficult circumstances.
Marsha, while I think you address a relevant point, if you sincerely don’t care about Planned Parenthood, there’s not much I can offer in the way of conversation.
BTW, if the life of the mother is in actual jeopardy (which, for the record, almost never happens), why not deliver the baby—early or not—rather than poison or dismember it?
Alison Moore Smith recently posted…Boy Scouts, Sexism Blindness, Homosexual Leaders, and the Mormon Re-evaluation
I’m glad to have this info, actually, because in my neck of the woods, all I hear is how women are never going to get a mammogram again.
I just saw the Facebook comment from one of your friends. First she argued claimed defunding PP would remove health care services and that abortions aren’t funded (telling me she didn’t read the post first) and then just said she disagreed with no details at all.
That tells me she’s a liberal married to her ideology with no intention of incorporating facts. Which, now that I think of it, is the place most liberals live their lives.
I don’t claim to have all of the facts or to even have experience when it comes to benefiting or not benefiting from Planned Parenthood, but I will say that the very name itself speaks volumes about what kind of institution it truly is. I would venture to guess that their sole purpose is to “rid” the world of more children and quietly control the population. Anyone who thinks that requesting help from that kind of organization will be beneficial to themselves or their babies – regardless of whether or not they actually provide regular healthcare for women – needs to be educated on the reality of working with such people and should be informed about all of the other options available. These “safe” abortions that are mentioned are not that at all. Even if the mother feels no pain during the process, her chance at another pregnancy and delivering a healthy child in the future decreases, something that could bring heartache down the road if she marries and wants start a family. Not-to-mention the emotional scarring that can and mostly likely will occur. Despite the immediate and eventual consequences of forcibly removing life from women’s bodies, these so-called doctors encourage abortions and seem to perform them without a conscience. I think if I were to personally kill an infant that my conscience would scream at me until it drove me to my own death, but that’s just me.
It sickens me to see so many young women being brainwashed into thinking that PP has their best interests in mind and that killing their babies is better than “dealing” with the consequences of unintended and intended sex. I have known women who were raped as well as women who were foolish, and in the cases that I have seen, both sides would rather have delivered their child and allowed someone who truly wanted their baby to raise them. In two situations with people who are very close to me, one did choose the option of keeping her baby alive so that a couple could adopt him; the other was forced to have an abortion without having any recollection of it at the time and for many years to come, but once she realized what had happened she mourned for that loss because she would have chosen to deliver that child and place them in a home where they would have been loved and cared for. As a woman who has lost babies and has also struggled to conceive, my heart breaks at every video, article, photo, word about innocent babies being murdered due to someone else’s mistakes. If you don’t want that baby, fine, but don’t be so incredibly selfish as to think that taking away their chance at life would be better than facing your problems and offering that child a family.
Tangents aside, yes women can and do survive without Planned Parenthood. De-funding them completely would take a miracle, but I believe in miracles.
Oh, and in my disgust at seeing Planned Parenthood mentioned, I neglected to thank the author for this article. We need more people to come out and offer these options and facts. Thank you!
We live in a very sick world. I do not understand how abusing one’s child can result in removal of the child/legal issues, yet killing one’s nearly-born baby is a legal right. Both are human beings in states of development. Surely I am not the first person to pose this argument but still, my mind is baffled. Though I try not to judge, I cannot withhold my anger toward anyone who would cause any harm to a child or baby. May they rot in hell… and may God spare this great nation that is eyeball-deep in the gravest of sins.
My family has had positive experiences with our local Planned Parenthood. Several of the young women in our family have needed to take birth control pills to regulate menstrual periods and control endometriosis. Before the Affordable Care Act allowed young people to remain on their parents’ insurance, Planned Parenthood was an affordable source of such medication. Without it, some of the young women likely would never have been able to become pregnant when they had married and wanted to start a family.
I support a local volunteer clinic that offers free and low-cost care, but it does not offer mammograms onsite nor care at a time that is convenient for employed people. Our local Planned Parenthood goes out of their way to deal with the reality of women’s lives/schedules.
I am very much opposed to abortion-on-demand, but I think Planned Parenthood is being demonized far beyond the reality of the work they do.
And I would love to see conservatives offer an alternative, but it is not the case in the communities where I have lived. Do you have examples?
Unfortunately, many states (Texas, Florida, Georgia) have made choices so that “Obamacare” is not available to everyone. And undocumented women may have many fewer choices than non-pioneers who were fortunate enough to be born within the U.S. borders.
Nasmith, PP doesn’t offer mammograms either. As a rule the just give referrals.
Why is giving facts about PP “demonizing”? Watch the videos…uncut….that’s what they do. If you can’t stomach it don’t blame republicans.
I do not mean to be disrespectful, and I admit that I am not fully informed, but I have never heard of birth control enabling a woman to conceive later in life. In fact, I have heard quite the opposite. From what I understand, long-term use of birth control can actually hinder (sometimes permanently) pregnancy later in life. I have also lived with endometriosis and irregular cycles all my life, but my body cannot tolerate birth control. Thankfully (and surprisingly), I do not have fertility problems.