Tuesday, Sept. 29, is Pink Out for Planned Parenthood. If you’re on the fence about showing your support by wearing pink, here are some reasons why Planned Parenthood should matter to you.
1. Planned Parenthood serves millions of women and men living at or below the poverty line. These are people who would likely struggle to find reasonable healthcare services anywhere else, and Planned Parenthood can provide these patients with free health insurance, ensuring that their needs are taken care of.
2. Planned Parenthood provides comprehensive healthcare services including STD testing, cancer screening, general healthcare needs, and more. It isn’t simply a place where people go to have abortions. In fact, as you’ve probably heard by now, abortion comprises only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services. To strip over 4 million people of healthcare services because some of them also have abortions shows that anti-abortionists have no regard for the health of millions of Americans.
3. Planned Parenthood isn’t just for women. They have services specifically for men, and men can take advantage of the general healthcare offered there as well.
4. At the same time, Planned Parenthood’s focus on women’s health is crucial. Women are not a special group being unduly catered to; they comprise half the world’s population. Historically, the institution of medicine has been male-centric, which is why so many women don’t know that their heart attack symptoms are different from men’s and why prescription drugs tested only on men can prove dangerous to women. It is a direct attack on women to claim that we don’t “need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues” (thanks, Jeb Bush) because it reinforces the idea that any healthcare that works for men should be good enough for women too. Women’s needs should be considered with equal weight when it comes to receiving safe and adequate healthcare.
5. And yes, Planned Parenthood provides abortions. More importantly, they provide safe abortions. Many conservative anti-abortionists appear to operate under the naïve fantasy that making abortions illegal will make abortions stop happening (which, I’d like to point out, is paradoxical when compared to their argument that increased gun control is useless because people will still find a way to get their hands on guns). Sure, outlawing abortion will undoubtedly lower our official abortion rate, but there will be many women driven by desperation to seek an abortion by any means necessary. Other women, unable to find an alternative, will be forced to carry their pregnancies to term. Then, they must contend with a motherhood that they did not want and are very likely not financially or emotionally prepared to deal with. Having and raising a child is life-changing decision laden with responsibility. It is unjust and sexist to deny women the right to make this choice.
Planned Parenthood attempts to provide a safe space where women (and men) can seek healthcare services and receive valuable education about reproductive and sexual health. It is of the utmost importance to recognize attacks on Planned Parenthood for what they are: attempts to discredit and devalue an organization that has helped women retain their own reproductive autonomy for nearly 100 years. An attack on Planned Parenthood is an attack on women.
So I ask you: do you stand with Planned Parenthood?
