For many years, low-income citizens and families have relied on the inexpensive health care that Planned Parenthood provides. It all started in 1916 when Margaret Sanger, a public health nurse, stood up for what she believed in and opened the first family planning clinic in America. Since then, Planned Parenthood has provided Americans with contraceptives, STD treatments, mammograms, and counseling. Unfortunately, in today's society, many people want the federal funding that goes towards these services to be stopped and directed towards other family clinics that don't have the option to provide abortions. The problem is that the new clinics they want to open will not provide the health care at a price that these low-income families will be able to pay. What people must understand is that proper health care is a basic right that everybody should receive, and by defunding Planned Parenthood that basic right is being diminished for many of the low-income citizens. All of the citizens of America should be provided with the proper health care at a price that are they are able to pay and therefore Planned Parenthood should continue to be funded by the federal government. 

Planned Parenthood has been a trusted and highly used clinic for many years and for many people. These people trust the service providers that are there and will willing go out of their way to make sure they get their health care from a Planned Parenthood. This trust makes the introduction of new family clinics that don't provide abortion services hard to put into effect. Texas is a prime example this hard transition after the state decided to shut down the federal funding of Planned Parenthood and provide the state with new family clinics. The state made it "more difficult for women to get safe, reliable birth control, [and therefore] women switched to less reliable contraceptive methods, or skipped them all together" (Netburn 4). I believe that the women of Texas are not using the new clinics that are being provided because they don't feel as if they can trust them enough, and because they can't pay for the services that they provide. This shows that the defunding of Planned Parenthood would ultimately cause an increase in the amount of unintended pregnancies in low-income women and families, and possibly even an increase in abortions. Even though this tendency for increased pregnancies isn't proven to be directly associated with the new policies that are being implemented, the numbers don't lie. Only 23 out of the 254 counties in Texas previously had Planned Parenthoods, but "they served 60% of the state's low income women of childbearing age" (Netburn 2). These numbers are huge considering the size of Texas and the small number of counties that actually had a Planned Parenthood. The people of Texas were devoted to traveling and receiving health care from these clinics and the defunding of the Planned Parenthood can't change that devotion. The people who want this defunding to take place would rather risk an increase in the unintended pregnancy rates than continue federally funding clinics that they surmise put all of their money and effort into abortions. 

Many people who are for the defunding of Planned Parenthood are under the impression that they primarily put all of their time and effort towards abortions. What they don't know is that they provide many other services that are attractive to low-income families. For example, Planned Parenthood provides women with "contraceptive services and counseling, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and breast and cervical cancer screening" (Frost and Hasstedt 1). These services are critical for the proper development of teenagers and are extremely important for everyone to keep up with and have access to. The people who want to defund Planned Parenthood must understand is that these services grant low-income families the right to proper health care and that is something that won't be easily taken away from them. When they threaten to defund the Planned Parenthood clinics it makes it seem as if "they are telling women that [their] health is not as important as their statement against abortion" (Gabriel 2). Proper health care for US citizens should not seem less important than idea of ending abortion services, so we as neighboring citizens should not make it seem like that. If Planned Parenthood were to lose their federal funding, these important services would not be readily available to everyone. The main concern of the people who want to stop the federal funding of Planned Parenthood is the assumption that these clinics put all of their money towards abortions, not the wellbeing of low-income US citizens. 

People that support the defunding of Planned Parenthood believe that the clinics put all of their time and attention towards abortions, and they also believe that they put a large portion of the federal funds provided towards it as well. Planned Parenthood receives their federal funding through Title X which is a specific act that was introduced by president Nixon in 1970. Title X provides the funding for the family planning services of the US, including Planned Parenthood's services. Title X is very specific with where the money is spent and they are also very precise when following through with the spending accounts. According to the OPA, "family planning projects that receive Title X funds are closely monitored to ensure that Federal funds are used appropriately and that funds are not used for prohibited activities such as abortions" ("Federal Grants for Family Planning" 4). This shows that even if Planned Parenthood wanted to put their Federal funds towards the abortions services, they wouldn't be allowed to. So why would people try to eliminate the Federal funds that are used to provide US citizens with basic health care? The opportunity for Planned Parenthood to receive these funds from Title X and provide low-income citizens with basic health care is something that should not be stopped. The Title X act is provided with "286.479 million ...  [with the] requirements that Title X funds not be spent on abortions" (2). The amount of money that is provided for the opportunity for people to receive inexpensive health care is tremendous and should not be taken away. If we know that it can't be used towards any abortion services, then other aspects should be focused on, not the Title X funds that are received. When people start to figure out that the Title X funds are not used for abortions, they also try to falsify the actual amount of money spent on abortions in order to make the face of Planned Parenthood look bad.

Many of the facts about Planned Parenthood, such as the amount of money spent on abortions, has been tampered with and lost along the way in attempt to make the clinics look worse than they actually are. These people try to make it seem as if Planned Parenthood is spending a majority of their money on abortions, which causes more people to jump on the bandwagon and want to defund their federal funding. After being shown a false informational slide by Representative Jason Chaffetz showing the supposed decrease in mammogram services and the increase of abortion rate, Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, says that "this is a slide that has never been shown to [her] before, [she's] happy to look at it, but it absolutely does not reflect what's happening at Planned Parenthood ...  [and her] lawyer's informed [her] that the source of this is Americans United for Life which is an anti-abortion group" (Uygur). Different groups and individual people are trying to make it look like Planned Parenthood is a terrible organization by making it seem as if the number of abortions are much larger than they actually are. The truth is that they don't have actual numbers to make the numbers of abortions stand out, so they have to falsify information in attempt to make others want to agree with them. The false information that is provided will often convince many people, including politicians and state representatives, to make harsh decision and change the future of the states in which they serve. 

Public politicians feel as if it is their duty to go against an organization that has a bad reputation, even if they don't know any of the good aspects about it. They want to look and feel as if they are doing the best for their people, so they attack organizations with bad reputations, even if they are extremely helpful for the majority of the population. After Arkansas decided to be the fifth state to shut down the funding of Planned Parenthood, Senate President Wayne Niederhauser said that "[he wouldn't support any more money going to Planned Parenthood. [He] thinks we ought to be looking at other organizations that are qualified" (Andrusko 1). Senate President Niederhauser is making it seem as if the nurses and doctors that work within the Planned Parenthood's of Arkansas were not qualified enough to continue working in the state, whether they completed abortions or not. He probably wasn't very informed about the other services that Planned Parenthood provides, such as the contraceptives, STD treatments, and mammograms. He took what he was told and what he saw as being bad, and shut down one of the clinics that provided low-income families with the proper health care at an affordable price. Also, the newly elected Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, spoke out about how he feels that Planned Parenthood is a corrupt organization and should be shut down. He said that "the greatest of [our] responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves" (Andrusko 1). What the Speaker of the House doesn't understand is that is exactly what Planned Parenthood is doing. They are providing the weak low-income families around the country with affordable health care. Without the services that Planned Parenthood has provided, many people would be without the basic care that they deserve simply because they can't pay for it. Planned Parenthood is serving the weak and treating the people who cannot defend and care for themselves on their own. Without these services, the weak and low-income families will not receive the proper health care and family planning services that they need and there will be major consequences. 

The consequences of Planned Parenthood being shut down are tremendously worse than the possibility of abortion services being completed by family clinics. Due to the lack of affordable health care and family planning services, many low-income families will not have the proper care and and will ultimately reap the consequences. This is shown throughout Texas after their Planned Parenthoods were defunded and they changed from Medicaid to a program that would not provide funds to their clinics. This change directly caused "an increase in births among low-income women who lost access to affordable and effect birth control" (Netburn 1). These women no longer had the help from Planned Parenthood's clinics and could not afford to pay for the expensive contraceptive services that the new clinics were providing. I personally think that these consequences are much worse than a small number of abortions being completed because now not only do these women have a low-income, they also have to find a way to provide for their new child as well. Also within the first 18 months "the proportion of these women who gave birth to a child rose from 7% to 8.4% in counties that lost a Planned Parenthood" (Netburn 4). This is a tremendous increase for only 18 months, and I'm assuming the majority of these women who gave birth to children during this time were part of low-income families, and therefore did not have the access to affordable contraceptives anymore. These pregnancies were more that likely unplanned and once again, these low-income families now have to find a way to provide for not only them, but now their child. 

The testimonials of women who previously went to Planned Parenthoods and received services that changes their lives is definitely something that all people who want to defund their clinics should listen to and think about. These women were saved from the idea of having children at an age that they did not feel comfortable with, and some were even provided with health care that saved their life. During a Senate floor debate discussing the possibility of prohibiting all federal funds from being made available to Planned Parenthood, Senator Harry Reid and Senator Al Franken both told testimonies of two different women who had life changing experiences at a Planned Parenthood. Senator Harry Reid told the floor about an article from the Republican leader's newspaper about a woman named Sara Hall. Sara "started going to Planned Parenthood when she was in her late teens and needed birth control, and she's gotten care there ever since" (Congressional Digest 11). This testimony shows, first hand, the trust that the people who receive care from Planned Parenthood have towards their service providers. Why take something that has been so important to these women away from them? They deserve the right to keep the people who they trust in control of their health care. Senator Al Franken had a much more heart felt and attention grabbing testimony about a woman named Liz Steele from Minneapolis. Liz had "a blood sample taken during a routine physical exam more than 25 years ago [that] indicated that [she] had a deadly form of leukemia, [and] the nurse practitioner who cared for Liz at Planned Parenthood tracked her down and connected her with a physician who treated her cancer and saved her life" (Congressional Digest 29). Liz's life was saved because she was able to go to a Planned Parenthood clinic that she was able to pay for and they caught her cancer at an early enough stage. She will always have a trust and connection with the Planned Parenthood service providers and that should not be taken away from her, nor should it be taken away from any other women. 

Planned Parenthood has been a very important clinic for low-income women mainly because they provide them with affordable contraceptives, STD treatments, and mammograms and cervical screenings. Planned Parenthood should continue to receive their federal funding through the Title X act and other means because it gives women the chance to be in control of their lives and receive the proper health care that they deserve. Proper health care is a right that every individual in entitled to, and we need to ensure that they are not only receiving the health care, but also that they can pay for it. Margaret Sanger made the first steps when opening the first public family planning center, and we all need to make sure that her legacy is continued and that more women, in the future, can experience the pleasure of being able to walk into a clinic knowing that they are going to be safe and that they can trust the service providers. Women deserve the right to control what they do to their bodies, and should continue to have that right no matter what clinic it is at. 

