A lot of people in my life are pro-life. They believe the best way to help the sanctity of life is to ban abortion and defund Planned Parenthood because some of its branches provide abortions. However, I notice that they overlook the other areas of life that are just as important as birth, and a lot of things that they don’t look at greatly contribute to the need for abortions in the first place, like the fact that for many, Planned Parenthood is their only source of healthcare. When things like this are said, they often forget about the life of the mother, that her life and the right to her own body are indeed important. In this way, shutting down clinics is not pro-life due to its effects on women and access to life-saving procedures.

In recent years, Planned Parenthood already has closed down a large percentage of its clinics due to TRAP Laws, which are laws states are allowed to pass in order to pass standards on clinics in order to indirectly limit abortion. These laws are allowed to pass after the 1992 Supreme Court case Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

Texas passed a TRAP law called HB2 that made it mandatory for abortion clinics to have admittance access to a hospital nearby (even though barely anyone was admitted because only 1 percent of people have complications, thus making them lose their admittance as soon as they got it). They also required a surgical room for all abortions to take place, even the pill, and overall, this caused the number of clinics in Texas to go from 44 to 6. This has happened because people seem to think that all Planned Parenthood does is abortions, even though that’s only 2 percent of what they do, and they mainly offer services such as breast cancer screenings, pregnancy tests and pap smears. In fact, before the Hyde Amendment, Medicaid covered as much as 25 percent of all abortions in America. Now, most people either suffer through pregnancy or try a self-induced abortion because they don’t have access at all.

That bill was repealed, but there are other requirements clinics also have to meet. These include being a certain distance away from schools, having built-in oxygen tanks in the walls, doctors having to tell patients that abortion can lead to cancer (even though there’s no evidence proving that), and a 24-hour waiting period between a consultation and the actual procedure. A lot of women, especially poor women, cannot take off two days of work, especially when the majority of women who need to have abortions already have a child. In this way, defunding Planned Parenthood hurts poor women the most, especially because there is no federal funding for abortions that are not in the case of incest, rape or to save the life of the woman.

In response to TRAP laws, STDs have also increased. Since TRAP laws have become legal, sexually transmitted diseases have more than doubled in the last 20 years. For example, in 1996 (four years after Casey v. Planned Parenthood), there were 490,080 cases of chlamydia, and in 2015, there were 1,526,658 cases. In 1996, there were 11,387 cases of syphilis, and there were 23,872 in 2015 (CDC). It’s not a coincidence that the clinics that offer these procedures are closing down and that STDs keep rising.

There are currently no preventive measures for abortions, and poor sex education helps add to the need for it. Only 13 states of the U.S. require medically accurate information for sex education courses. In fact, schools often don’t get federal funding for their sex ed. courses unless they are specifically abstinence only, which contributes highly to the amount of unwanted pregnancy. On top of this, more than one-third of teenage pregnancies are done by grown, adult men, meaning that women aren’t the problem. If there are no preventative measures taken, especially in ways of education, then women can’t be blamed for the entire problem. Women are only blamed for the problem because they are the ones giving birth, when they aren’t taught about their bodies and consent in the first place. Even if a woman does want a child, it may not be the right time to give that child the best life possible, and the answer isn’t always adoption.

Adoption is not always an option. There are thousands of children waiting to be adopted right now all across the U.S. Not only that, adoption is not an alternative to pregnancy, it is an alternative to parenthood. If someone cannot afford contraceptives, they certainly cannot afford a child, or even the cost of giving birth to the child. What about the bills for the gynecologist’s sonograms, the prenatal vitamins and the hospital bill for giving birth? Not being able to afford the cost of the child is the number one reason for getting an abortion, but the cost of giving birth isn’t cheap either, making abortion the most responsible way economically to deal with unwanted pregnancy without risking the life of the mother. Adoption isn’t an option if the woman won’t make it through pregnancy, and not getting an abortion can literally be life-threatening.

In addition to the cost of pregnancy and birth, cost with a child is difficult at best. There is a chance that the child has a single mom, who is more than likely working in a low-paying service job, and in these cases, childcare often costs so much that it is actually cheaper for them not to have a job. In this case, there is a high possibility of having to be away from home all the time in order to provide for them. If the child is born with a disability, typically the only way they can keep federal aid and good insurance is if they don’t have a job, which means sacrificing a career in order to take care of the child. The quality of life with a child, especially with a disability or extra care, is going to be very low if the mother is forced to have that child. It not only negatively impacts her, but the child as well. If the child cannot be properly taken care of, then is it really going to have good life?

While cost is a substantial reason for not having an abortion, others disagree with abortion on religious grounds. Religion obviously plays a large role in whether people believe abortion is right, but there’s still no reason to ban abortion based solely on that perspective. If you don’t want an abortion, simply don’t get one. A lot of people don’t agree with premarital sex, but we still sell condoms and dental dams without proof of marriage. People are against fast or frozen food because of how bad it is for the human body, but it is still distributed in every grocery store. A lot of people are also against guns, but we still sell them widely on a large-scale platform all over the United States (and we make them easier to get than abortions). You can even purchase them in Walmart and Ace Hardware. Besides, when we live in a country that is founded upon religious freedom, you can’t make laws based on your religion because that takes it away from everyone else. Rights are not exclusive to any one group of people, and what good are a woman’s rights if she doesn’t have access to them?

Taking away abortion because “they knew better than to have sex” or “they should have just abstained” is really just punishing all women. Trying to make them “face their own consequence” does nothing but make it seem like having a child is a punishment for having sex, and it’s no one's place to actually judge anyone else. Claiming it’s only acceptable to have an abortion because of rape or incest actually says that abortion should be used to punish women for consensual sex. No one denies help to people in a car accident because “they knew the risks when they did it." If you’re wondering if this is sexist, let me ask you, why don’t men have the same repercussions for consensual sex? It’s because there is a societal double standard between what is “acceptable” for men and women.

In order to care about life, there also needs to be a care about the quality of life that goes along with it. When STDs skyrocket, when millions of Americans lose their only healthcare, and when this specifically targets those with a uterus, is it really pro-life? Why is it that we value a fetus more than our own living, breathing mothers, daughters, and overall, people in our lives? In order to protect the sanctity of life, we must remember that a life is more than just birth. Also, remember to donate to Planned Parenthood, as it provides essential services, and to reach out in order to prevent its defunding.