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Planned Parenthood currently provides crucial sexual and reproductive health care services and education to more than 4,665,000 people in the United States (“Facts on Planned Parenthood Defunding” 1). Recently, conservatives have made significant efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, ultimately taking away basic reproductive rights for women in many states. Not only are these people taking women’s right to have an abortion away, but they are taking away various other services that Planned Parenthood provides for everyone, such as birth control, HIV tests, health care for LGBT patients, patient education, STD testing, and many more.
The U.S. healthcare system prevents millions of people who lack the proper employer-sponsored insurance from accessing preventive sexual and reproductive health services. In addition, the discrimination present in the U.S. healthcare system prevents certain communities from acquiring jobs with employer-sponsored insurance. Consequently, low-income women, Black women, and LGBTQ+ individuals are likely to use Medicaid or other government healthcare programs to access sexual and reproductive health services. In fact, one in three low income-women are dependent on a publicly-funded clinic or health center such as Planned Parenthood to receive contraception. However, the defunding of Planned Parenthood prevents people from receiving aid from these essential services.
What does it mean to “defund” Planned Parenthood?
Defunding Planned Parenthood means that the nonprofit organization is not reimbursed for the services they provide to people who depend on Medicaid insurance or those who are eligible for reduced or free health care services through the Title X Program. Without these funds, Planned Parenthood is unable to provide services such as preventive exams, screening services, and birth control.
Impacts of Defunding Planned Parenthood on Low-Income Women
Low-income women are heavily impacted by the defunding of Planned Parenthood. They are far more likely to become pregnant unintendedly, have an abortion, contract an infection through sexual contact (STI), and receive less care than women with higher-incomes. However, there are major public programs such as the Title X federal program 一 the only program in the country dedicated to the planning of family care 一 that provide funds specifically for low-income women and men that do not have access to family planning services. More than 2 million people currently rely on Planned Parenthood centers, and 41% of the 3.8 million contraceptive clients served by the Title X-funded providers are served by Planned Parenthood centers (Frost 1). Evidently, low-income women were the most dramatically affected by the defunding of the Title X Program. Without the necessary funds from the Title X Program, low-income women lose their basic right to receive birth control and reproductive health care services, potentially harming thousands of low-income women.
What has been observed in states that have defunded Planned Parenthood?
To begin with, chlamydia and gonorrhea infections increased drastically, and patients at clinics were forced to wait long wait times due to the closure of a Planned Parenthood Center in Shawano County, Wisconsin. In addition, researchers noted a 27% spike in births to women that used an injectable contraception before, and the number of pregnancy-related deaths doubled in Texas when the state removed Planned Parenthood from its family planning program (“Facts on Planned Parenthood Defunding” 1). A county in Indiana even faced a HIV outbreak after Planned Parenthood was forced to close a health center that was the only service that provided HIV testing and counseling in that area. It is important to note that these are only a few of the impacts that have been observed by the closures of Planned Parenthood centers throughout the United States.
The services and the education that Planned Parenthood provides to people throughout the United States are crucial to women’s health, serving those who don’t have anywhere else to turn to for medical care. To defund Planned Parenthood would mean to take away the basic right to receive health care, harming hundreds of thousands of women.
References
“Facts on Planned Parenthood Defunding.” Planned Parenthood, www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/7a/17/7a172da3-4d51-42cc-80c5-a5a20b834d7e/common_questions_about_pp_defunding.pdf.
Frost, Jennifer J., et al. “Publicly Funded Contraceptive Services at U.S. Clinics, 2015.” Guttmacher Institute, 20 Feb. 2018, www.guttmacher.org/report/publicly-funded-contraceptive-services-us-clinics-2015.