Do not stop funding Planned Parenthood

Kerri+Little+says+do+not+defund+Planned+Parenthood.

Photo by Noah D'Angelo

Kerri Little says do not defund Planned Parenthood.

Kerri Little, Student Contributor

On Wednesday, January 6th, 2016, the House of Representatives passed a bill in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood by about $450 million dollars. While this is the eighth time voting to defund Planned Parenthood in the past year alone, this is the first time in over 40 years that the bill will actually reach the President’s desk. If anyone remembers the near government shutdown in April of 2011, it was over this very same topic.

Known on social media as the “War Against Women’s Reproductive Rights,” one can not deny that both sides of the argument make some logical points. However, we as a nation should not, and in fact absolutely can not, allow Planned Parenthood to be defunded.

Even if we can agree to disagree on some moral aspects of one small part of Planned Parenthood, we can not allow them to be defunded.

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, sums up the core issue of the debate for many, which is the undisputable fact that Planned Parenthood performs abortions. Representative Diane Black (R-TN) responded to his concerns with the following proposition, “While I have consistently stated that I oppose government shutdowns….we should at least be willing to put our ideas on the table and mount a serious fight by including provisions to defund Planned Parenthood in the upcoming omnibus bill.” Now while Planned Parenthood does provide abortion services, that is not all they do, and it can not be downplayed the impact they have on both women and men’s reproductive healths.

While it’s difficult to nail down an exact figure everyone is willing to agree on, D’Angelo Gore for FactCheck estimates that abortion accounts for around 3% of the 10.6 million services provided, but when you take the number of abortions divided by the total people who utilized Planned Parenthood (2.7 million), around 12% of people served received an abortion. Without turning this into a debate about  whether or not Planned Parenthood should be doing abortions in the first place, it’s important to recognize that that’s not all it does. In fact this same article by D’Angelo Gore laid out the other medical help they offered to both women and men in 2013: 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, 3.6 million contraception related services, 935,573 cancer screenings including but not exclusive to breast exams and Pap tests, and 1.1 million pregnancy tests and prenatal services.

Even if we can agree to disagree on some moral aspects of one small part of Planned Parenthood, we can not allow them to be defunded. They are a valuable medical provider, for all.