Ask Wednesday: If you were to protest something, what would it be?

I would protest defunding Planned Parenthood

By Olivia Condley

Last week, the Senate blocked the bill that would have defunded Planned Parenthood. Even though I am reassured by this small victory in women’s rights, I still feel an unshakeable tension, knowing that this attempt at taking away women’s rights will not be the last.
    Planned Parenthood provides millions of men and women with sexual and reproductive health care and prevents thousands of pregnancies by providing birth control to those who can get it nowhere else. If Planned Parenthood were defunded, what would happen to the thousands of women who could not get their pap tests and breast exams each year? How many would discover months and years later that they have stage four cancer, when a simple pap test or breast exam could have found it early enough to stop it? How many more sexually transmitted infections would be spread because thousands of men and women do not have access to tests and treatments?
    It is appalling to me that people would try to defund Planned Parenthood because they are against abortion – which is only three percent of what Planned Parenthood does – or because they believe that the unproven videos that were meant to discredit Planned Parenthood are real. Not only would defunding Planned Parenthood have a negative effect on thousands of Americans, but it would cost them money as well. Planned Parenthood prevents approximately 516,000 pregnancies each year. Guttmacher Institute estimates that Medicaid funds an average of $20,716 per birth. In 2010, an estimated $15.5 billion in unintended pregnancy costs was saved by family planning funding. Defunding Planned Parenthood would not only devastate the people who depend on it, but it would cost everyone money. The idea that defunding Planned Parenthood would save money is, in the long run, completely incorrect.

If I were to protest something, I would protest defunding Planned Parenthood. I would protest taking away men and women’s healthcare. I would protest taking away the chance to catch diseases and cancer early, which would save money and save lives. I would protest taking away the tests and treatments that prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. I would protest society’s being able to control women. I would protest the birth of children who would live in poverty and unhappiness. I would protest desperate women’s having nowhere else to go and being driven to attempt to perform abortions on themselves or go somewhere unsafe to get it done. I would protest furthering the inequality in the United States.

Copyright © 2015 by Olivia Condley Olivia is a California high school student, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and animal lover who strives to make the people around her happy.