Planned Parenthood is the largest reproductive health care organization in the United States and is now on the Federal funding chopping block. Now before we jump to conclusions, let's look at the facts about the services PP actually provides.
Percent of total services:
35% contraception
34% STI/STD testing and treatment
17% cancer testing and screening
10% other women's health procedures, including pregnancy, prenatal, midlife, and infertility
2% to 3% abortion or abortion-related
We may now resume our jumps to conclusions.
PP is an easy target because they publically advocate for reproductive rights. But when less that 3 percent of what they do is actually abortions, this is more a demonstration of newly acquired power by House Republicans rather than actual progress for pro-life advocates. Clearly the issue in cutting Federal support is abortion rights, not the budget. PP received $349.6 million from Federal funding in 2008, and that amount is merely a drop in the bucket when our current deficit is in the trillions.
So why bring up abortion rights now? We have record high rates of unemployment, families are consistently losing their businesses and homes, higher education costs are going much higher and while we are told that things are improving, there seems to be no end to the all the struggles Americans are facing. Abortion is the go-to topic to distract from the more important issues, such as the game of hide-and-go-seek the Democrats in Wisconsin are playing or the little to no impact on military spending in our massive budget crisis. But here's the thing: just because abortion gets used as the shiny object flashing in your eyes doesn't mean it isn't important to discuss. It's just not important to discuss at this time and in this political climate.
Isn't it funny that the whole issue around Planned Parenthood is protecting babies but that all too easily we tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater?Cutting all funding to PP because 3% of their services is in providing abortion resources is unfair, especially considering that no government money directly funds said abortions. Yeah, PP accepts Federal grants given the stipulation that none of that money goes towards abortions and yet here we are trying to pull all Federal funding. Abortions are funded by private donors and for-fee services, so it's difficult to understand why people keep screaming that the government is funding abortions. I guess, in a way, it is indirectly...
Abortions are a topic that make me very uncomfortable. I can speak freely and openly about a lot of things, but abortion is one thing I can't speak objectively about. It is very much a personal values issue and our religious and spiritual views are deeply intertwined into ideas of family and respect for life. As a practicing Catholic who embraces and respects the right to life, I cannot condone nor support the act of killing an embryo. However, the reality is that not everyone in the US is a practicing Catholic who respects life, and to push my values strictly influenced by religon onto others is unreasonable. I may hold religious values and this country may have been founded by religious values, but we are secularized government. Proposing legislation based on religious beliefs *cough*PROP 8*cough*DOMA*cough* should have no place in our country, as it represents a form of religious oppression.
That last paragraph looks good in print, but more difficult to do in real life. Since the proposed funding cuts to PP, there have been advocates petitioning and accepting donations for PP at various street corners and businesses throughout Seattle, and everytime I am approached by them I blow them off. Hell no am I going to sign that! They kill babies! I think to myself as I walk past them. It's one thing to say you support a secularized government, and quite another to get me to donate, volunteer and sign petitions to keep PP in business.
So where exactly do I stand on this issue? Well, I can't necessarily stand with PP, but I could just sit. Sit and hope that funding will be restored and those who are morally unopposed to abortions will continue to receive the necessary services they wish to obtain. I will sit and hope that birth control will be available to all those men and women who need them, thereby preventing the need to consider an abortion. I will sit and hope that people who need reproductive cancer screenings and STI tests will continue to get them. But that's all I am willing to do for Planned Parenthood.
