In America today, there are few issues more divisive and controversial than abortion. While the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade deeming laws that criminalize or restrict access to abortion as unconstitutional has thus far successfully defended abortion rights in all 50 states, anti-abortion advocates have consistently turned to other means of countering abortion access and swaying public opinion, including the restriction of Title X funding, use of misleading rhetoric, and introducing policies that subvert unconstitutionality by indirectly restricting abortion access through extreme regulation of facilities offering abortions. Bearing the brunt of many of these policies is Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive care across the nation, often at little to no cost for patients. In the debate over abortion rights, numerous efforts have been made to “defund Planned Parenthood” for offering the procedure. However, while policymakers argue over a single aspect of Planned Parenthood, actual Americans, especially women, who are in need of other essential services that Planned Parenthood provides are being used as pawns in a political game that is out of their control.
Driving this misguided vilification of Planned Parenthood are misunderstandings about the way the organization is funded. According to Planned Parenthood’s 2017-2018 annual report, for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2018, Planned Parenthood received 34% of its funding from government health services, reimbursements, and grants. However, while anti-abortion advocates have falsely equated federal funding of Planned Parenthood with federal funding of abortion services, the truth is that specific laws — which are flawed in their own right yet still exist — have actually made it so that no abortion procedure conducted at Planned Parenthood facilities can be funded by the federal government. Thus, when politicians call for a defunding of Planned Parenthood, they are not actually cutting funding for abortion but rather for other services including STI testing and treatment, contraception, cancer screenings and prevention, and many other women’s health services. Furthermore, between 2016 and 2017, abortion services made up only 3.4% of Planned Parenthood’s medical services. Despite the fact that most of what Planned Parenthood does are services that most people can agree are beneficial to society as a whole, as well as the reality that the federal government does not actually fund abortions, the assault on Planned Parenthood continues, threatening the reproductive care for millions of American women.
Anti-abortion policymakers are putting an undue burden on Planned Parenthood in the name of a political agenda, obstructing access to necessary services for the neediest individuals who otherwise could not afford the types of care that Planned Parenthood provides. These services are not something that can simply be taken away. According to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, in 2011, 45% of all pregnancies were unintended, 18% of which were “unwanted” as opposed to “wanted later.” Among teens 15 to 19 years old, about 3 out of 4 pregnancies are unintended. These statistics point to the fact that services like contraception are necessary for the wellbeing of our society and must be made more accessible to all Americans. Notably, of all unintended pregnancies in 2011, 42% resulted in an abortion. By providing preventative services like contraception to women with and without insurance at little to no cost, Planned Parenthood actually helps to reduce the demand for abortions in America.
The debate over abortion is unlikely to go away anytime soon, but for the sake of millions of American women and even some men and non-binary individuals who rely on organizations like Planned Parenthood to access services they would otherwise not be able to afford, the issue must be disconnected from the funding of Planned Parenthood. Regardless of your views on abortion, it is important to recognize that an assault on Planned Parenthood is an assault on cancer screenings, STI prevention and treatment, contraception, and even prenatal care, all of which are essential services that keep American women of all backgrounds alive and well. There is no contemporary world that is possible when there is no access to family planning services, and as a society, we must work to keep these services available to all Americans.
