On Monday, January 23, our new president, President Trump, reinstated “The Gag Rule” a policy initially instated by the Reagan administration. This policy bars all international health organizations from supporting abortions with U.S. government funding. Not only does this policy take away the funding but also it taboos physicians from even referring women or giving important information to ensure their safety on other healthcare options.

Okay, so let's analyze this carefully, within one day in office this is what he has put in action globally. Maybe you are aware of the classic business term “think global, act local,” well that was a pretty global action if you ask me. Now let's think locally. So within one day we already banned the rest of the world from abortions or government funding that on a larger scale snowballs into other women’s healthcare and disrupts years of productive valuable healthcare education and prevention such as HIV/Aids in other countries.

Alright, so in the first week we took one giant leap for mankind (or womenkind I should say) the next move would be one small step for man right? (Sorry I meant woman) or maybe I got that backwards like the logic behind defunding Planned Parenthood. As stated in an interview on CNN with President Trump:

“Well the biggest issue I have with Planned Parenthood are the abortions that take place, it is like an abortion factory. It should not be funded by the government, and I feel strongly about that. I f you look at it and look at the work they do, it really has become so heavily centered around abortion.”

Now I love initiative and determination and he certainly displays it, I truly respect it but let's just pump the breaks on this Trump Train real quick and slow it down with some statistics and facts. We already established Trump is pro-life, now in his defense he has mentioned that Planned Parenthood does do some great things to benefit women (rightly argued) however the strategy to ice out Planned Parenthood due to their clinics offering abortions might be a tad rash. Abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood only make up a whopping 3 percent, now I could draw a pie chart for you but you wouldn’t be able to see the sliver because the rest of the services make up an entire 97%. You must excuse me Math was never my forte I always excelled in meaningless things like English and History, but 3% seems to be a pretty miniscule percent of services to ice out an entire organization.

Now lets imagine a world without Planned Parenthood during this Trumpertantrum. The remaining 97% aides patients that have incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty line (79% of patients that seek PP to be exact.) 80% of patients require services to prevent unintended pregnancies with education and contraceptives. In an entire year 270,000 Pap tests and 360,000 breast exams are performed. Planned Parenthood provides more than 4.2 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections. All while supporting and fighting for the right of not just women’s reproductive organs but men’s as well. You know what though it’ll save us money so lets defund this institution and trust high school’s to teach sexual education, lets teach them like I was taught “abstinence” and I’m going to keep “abstinence” in these cute little parenthesis, that wasn’t a typo. Derailing Planned Parenthood would actually cost more money not less because, I won’t spend much time going into this I have a huge health science paper due tomorrow (ironic) but in a short summary this insurance called “Medicaid” is tied into Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood is a qualified provider for patients. Ending any funding from Medicaid is technically against federal law and to change that law (hate to break it to ya Pence) would actually cost more not less because taking away contraceptives creates more pregnancies, which creates more births (naturally) thus creating more federal spending for Medicaid.

You know at this point it seems almost pointless to even mention that abortions aren’t even federally funded and to find an insurance company that will cover it is slim to none so the whole argument to stop funding Planned Parenthood because of abortions is actually a waste of time. Honestly this article probably (most definitely) wasted ten minutes of your day but hey at least now you know fun little facts about your local Planned Parenthood and the 97% of services they provide that actual protect men and women’s health in our country though right? Again I’m no politician just a human being who did her research.