The government should be able to support the citizens of the country that they govern, making sure that the citizens are healthy and well taken care of. This goes for all genders, races, ages, and financial groups. Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides medical aid to families of all shapes, sizes, and incomes. The organization specializes in women’s health as everybody can get sick and needs attention from a doctor, but only women can get pregnant and face all of the dangers that come with that process. The organization is under a lot of scrutiny at the moment as they have been accused of using government funding to provide abortions to families who cannot afford them. This is the headline that is used to describe the entire organization, however Planned Parenthood is much more than federally funded abortions. The organization provides health care to a multitude of families in order to ensure that the population is in the best health possible. The abundance of their care is directed toward women, and their reproductive organs, which in turn directly affects the family. The average health of women and their families, the amount of people unable to afford medical care, and the number of children growing up in households unable to support children demonstrate the problem of Planned Parenthood needing to continue to be funded. This is important because even with the help of Planned Parenthood the population is still struggling. 

Women have had a tough history as a gender, and it seems to be continuing today. They couldn’t own land, then they had to fight to vote, they had to fight to be able to fight for their country, and now they are claiming to not get paid the same wage as men. The rights that society has given to women have come a long way in history. However, one thing has never changed. Women, even when society did not even let them own their own plots of land, have always been valued in the eyes of families. Society was ignorant enough to hold back a woman’s right to vote, however we were still knowledgeable enough to understand that without the women, who were being severely disrespected, the human race is done. This protection of women based off of their vital part in society has been around for quite a long time. In 1852, a British ship by the name of Birkenhead sank. As the ship sank, the captain shouted to give all of the women and children first opportunity to escape the drowning ship. He saw the way to prioritize so that those who passed in the shipwreck were men of age who have already experienced life, and could not give birth. By giving the women and children first rights off the ship, he maximized the opportunity to create future generations (Annas 1). All throughout history, the lives of women and children have been prioritized in times of war and tragedy. But now, by wanting to cut funding from Planned Parenthood, society is starting to lose respect for the female reproductive system, and their overall health. Planned Parenthood is an organization that was designed to aid in the health of the female body, whether it be doing STD scans, cancer scans, or literally planning parenthood. The cutting of funding to the organization can potentially ruin the organization. The cutting of funds is all having to do with financial situations. More and more health care plans restrict in hospital visits, after childbirth, to only 24 hours after natural childbirth, and 48 hours after a cesarean section. This is due to the fact that if the woman stays in the hospital for a shorter amount of time, the health care provider does not have to spend nearly as much money. The number of babies that have been readmitted to the hospital, post cesarean section, due to leaving the hospital prematurely has increased from 1.3 percent to 4.3 percent of cesarean section deliveries. (Annas 1) This is purely based off of the fact that health care systems require their patients to leave the hospital prematurely for some deliveries. “Because only women get pregnant and give birth, restricting access to reproductive health care is discriminatory on its face and undermines the social and economic gains that women have made in the United States” (Annas 2) This statement wraps up what this paragraph has been trying to get at. Women have been getting the short hand throughout all of history. Now, they are getting the short hand in health care, because of the fact that giving birth does not affect everybody. Everybody can get sick, and everybody can die, but not everybody can give birth. This is where Planned Parenthood comes in. Planned Parenthood can aid in the process of childbirth, and be a more cost-efficient option, however without federal funding, Planned Parenthood will not be cost efficient, and will thus be not nearly as helpful. The entire point of the organization is not just to give abortions, it is to aid in the overall health of the female population, at a price that more people can afford. 

Another main point of the organization is to aid in not even needing abortion. The organization promotes safe sex, and birth control, which then lowers the amount of unplanned offspring, thus making it so that there are less abortions. Bridget Gurtler mentions in her writing about Planned Parenthood that, “On the one hand the organization was well known and established, providing reproductive and sexual health advocacy and services to millions of women and families. On the other hand, it was facing a hostile governmental landscape… including the loss of federal funding… and educational programs it offered.” (Gurtler 177) That was written in a book from 2006. This problem has been around for 11 years now. Planned Parenthood was even credited with the invention of birth control pills, a way of birth control that has kept hundreds of thousands of women from getting cancer and has stopped the need of copious abortions. (Ressler 1) Many people would have different lives today if it weren’t for Planned Parenthood providing the birth control that they do. Whether the birth control is aiding in stopping a teenager from becoming a premature mother, which would be bad for both the teenager, and the child as the teenager is in no shape to raise a child, or if it is just for a grown, married woman who, as a family, decided that now is not the right time for them to start a family, Planned Parenthood has aided the process. “…Plan B could prevent up to 1.7 million unintended pregnancies a year and eight hundred thousand abortions.” (Gurtler 181) If experts say that increasing the availability of birth control pills would reduce the number of abortions by that staggering of a number, then why are people trying to shut down one of the nation’s top providers of birth control pills? A 13-year-old girl was a victim of rape. She lived in Texas, where to get an abortion you need to be given anesthesia. For that, you need a Nurse Anesthetist, of which most places that offer abortions do not have. For that reason, the clinic in Texas could not give the 13 year old rape victim an abortion. The girl was indirectly forced, by law, to keep the fetus. (LastWeekTonight 13:07) There is no need for a 13 year old girl to be forced into giving birth, and that is something that even the most ignorant person to abortion can realize. 

The majority of the scrutiny that Planned Parenthood is under is purely due to abortion. The organization is claimed to be a women’s health organization; however, many people believe that it should be considered an abortion clinic, and nothing more than that. (Live Action 3:51) Planned Parenthood claims that only three percent of the services and operations that they perform are abortions. Many people have seen right through this statistic. A video source analyzed the statistic and explained what they found. Planned Parenthood services an average of 2.5 million people per year. The organization also averages 323 thousand abortions per year. With that ratio, that would mean that around 13 percent of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions. (Live Action 1:37) Although it is above three percent, thirteen percent is still not an appalling percentage, in terms of the amount of operations that are abortions. Another ratio that can potentially be concerning is the fact that Planned Parenthood performs 160 abortions to every 1 adoption referral. (Live Action 2:04) However, upon researching on Planned Parenthood’s website, the organization doesn’t even state that adoption referrals are even a main service that they offer. This leads to a belief that the video source used a skewed statistic. The main categories of services listed on the Planned Parenthood website include but are not limited to: abortion, birth control, cancer, men’s sexual health, pregnancy, relationships, and STDs (www.plannedparenthood.org). None of the categories lead to the belief that Planned Parenthood was advertising the organizations ability to provide adoption services. The organization is based off of health benefits, as well as promoting family health and wellness. While Planned Parenthood has done adoption referrals, it is not a main source that they advertise, thus leading  to a belief that the video was comparing a major source to a very minor source, leading to the statistics being skewed. Another statistic that the video shares is that Planned Parenthood is responsible for about 30 percent of the abortions done in the United States. This is believable considering that abortion is one of the main topics that Planned Parenthood covers, and they are more affordable when done by Planned Parenthood. The video claims that Planned Parenthood is able to keep their statistic of abortions so low because they count every service as the same weight in the eyes of proportions. If an appointment is made with a patient that gets a pregnancy test, then proceeds to get an abortion, and then gets an STD screening, Planned Parenthood would claim that the abortion was only a third of the services that were done on the patient. (Live Action 3:07) The video sees that as skewed, however it may not be. The abortion may have been much more expensive than the other services that were given to the patient that day, however the patient still received three services that appointment. The video uses an example of a steakhouse to show how the math is corrupt. If the steakhouse were to use the same math, the owner would say that he does not own a steakhouse because they also serve beer, wine, mashed potatoes, fries, salt, pepper, ketchup, etc., and the consumer would say no way, this place is a steakhouse. (Live Action 3:38) This example is fraudulent. A customer of a steakhouse goes for the steak and stays for the beer, fries and mashed potatoes. Steak is the majority of what steakhouses do. A customer of Planned Parenthood goes to get their health checked out, and stays for the benefits that are offered to improve their health. (This example in no way shape or form is meant to compare Women to Food.) As shown earlier, abortions are not the majority of what planned parenthood does, since they added up to be only about 13 percent of the services offered. Not everybody goes to a Planned Parenthood clinic expecting an abortion, however the majority of people go to a steakhouse and expect a steak. 

Even more scrutiny has come out of the abortion process from Planned Parenthood. There was reason to believe that Planned Parenthood had harvested aborted fetus parts, and sold them for a profit, when the organization was, and still is a non-profit. (Torre 1) The suspicion of the handling of the fetus parts began when a video was released of some potential mishandling of the body parts. It is said that, “Whether Planned Parenthood and its affiliates have violated federal laws is unclear from the videos alone.” (Torre 1) With that being said, there now been a conclusion and Planned Parenthood has proven that they have not done any of the allegations they were accused of. (Griffin 1) The main argument of this article written by Sarah Torre is that congress should take the money given to Planned Parenthood, and send it to other healthcare providers for women that do not get caught up with abortion. This seems like an understandable idea; however, federal money cannot go to fund abortion anyway. “Medicaid funding cannot be used for abortion care in most instances because of the harmful Hyde Amendment.” (Lawrence 1) Plus, if the funding were to be taken away from Planned Parenthood, the organization would fall apart and the colossal number of patients of the organization would become helpless, needing to find new sources of aid, leading to further damage to the health care system. “Proponents of Planned Parenthood defunding often assert that other providers will fill the gap. They are wrong.” (Lawrence 1) All of the millions of people that are serviced every year at Planned Parenthood clinics would need to find a private doctor, whom is most likely already very busy, who would most likely cost much more, and the infrastructure of the overall health care system could very easily fail.  Planned Parenthood was made to get federally funded so that the organization could watch out for our neighbors, and provide a lower price for those people who can’t afford a family doctor. 

Planned Parenthood should continue to be funded. The organization is not an abortion clinic. Although the statistics may be seen as skewed by some eyes, abortions are not the majority of the operations done by Planned Parenthood. Even the Live Action video that was watched to accuse Planned Parenthood of skewing their statistics admitted that abortion only makes up around 13% of their services by the videos math. The conflict between the people and Planned Parenthood now is all just potential conflict. A multitude of people are angry at the perception that Planned Parenthood sold aborted fetus parts illegally, for profit, however that has now been proven to be a false accusation. (Griffin 1) This leads to people being caught up over a potential rumor. Planned Parenthood does much more good than it does bad, and in many people’s eyes, Planned Parenthood doesn’t do any bad at all. A main aspect of anger that the public has toward Planned Parenthood is that too much federal funding is going to abortion. People have the right to be upset about that. However if the taxes that support Medicaid are funded into Planned Parenthood, they are not going to abortion. They are going into the cost of birth control pills, STD screenings, cancer screening, general family health exams, and all of the other fantastic services that the organization offers, which includes abortion. The government of a country should look out for their people, and cutting the funding to Planned Parenthood will do much more damage than it will good. 
