1
Cooper,
Hannah Cooper
Professor Ashlei Woelk
English 101
22 June 2018
Misconceptions of Planned Parenthood.
In modern American politics, there are many issues that we as a country face. Currently,
one of the biggest controversial conversations is the government funded program; Planned
Parenthood. Within this conversation there are generally two views; the conservative side of the
matter, that wants to defund this program, and the liberal side that wants to keep this program
running. The biggest argument with defunding this program is that the government is spending
tax payer’s money to provide abortions. According to NPR, in the 2013-2014 fiscal year,
Planned Parenthood only spent three percent of their fund on abortion related services. They also
mention that out of the 10.6 million services that planned parenthood provided within this year,
only 328,000 of them were abortion related. Planned Parenthood offers many different
non-abortion services such as cancer screenings, as well as men and women’s health services.
Unfortunately, the abortion services are generally what main stream media talks, and reports
about rather than talking about those other beneficial services they also give. Meanwhile on
social cites such as twitter where most of these arguments are held, the conversation is left to 140
characters. 140 characters is not nearly enough to truly explain what the program is about, and
what services they provide. So most often the conversation is left to the abortion services and not
much else. Not only are adults being misled, but also the young and impressionable youth as
2
Cooper,
well. The lack of complete communication from mainstream media is where the true injustice for
this program relies.
Setting aside the huge issue caused by defunding Planned Parenthood, I want to mainly
speak about the lack of communication about what this truly great program does, and the
services it provides. Not many people know all the life changing services that this program
provides and that is a very large issue, especially when so many people have huge moral issues
against the program itself. Abortion services are just two of the many services that the Planned
Parenthood program provides. Out of the 2 abortion-based programs, only one of them actually
provides abortions. The other abortion service they provide is a recommendation program. This
helps young woman find a safe place to have the service provided, not at Planned Parenthood.
The program collectively provides 12 different services each year, including; “Abortion services,
Abortion recommendation, Birth Control, Emergency contraceptive (Morning-after pill), General
Health care, HIV services, LGBT services, Men’s healthcare, Patient Education, Pregnancy
testing and services, STD testing, treatment and Vaccines, as well as Women’s Health services.”
(Planned Parenthood). CNN reports on the education services “Planned Parenthood says it
provides sex education to 1.5 million young people and adults each year.” (Strickland,
Goldschmidt 1.) While abortion is most commonly talked about the services Planned
Parenthood provides most are STD, and STI services. According to CNN “Planned Parenthood
says this accounts for 42% of the services provided. (The GAO calculates 41% in 2012 by
affiliates.). 4.2 million tests and treatments provided in 2014” (Strickland, Goldschmidt 1.) A lot
of this information is not common and knowledge, and for most people the first thing that comes
to mind when they hear “Planned parenthood” is abortion. This is an unfair label to this program,
3
Cooper,
and it does not do this program any justice. Allowing the uneducated to make decisions’ that
withhold the future of this program and the many people who benefit is the issue. And to solve
this massive problem we must provide all the information about the program within the
mainstream media. Expecting people to hear the negative and then continue to look for more
information is naïve, because at the end of the day that most likely is not going to happen. I
personally went to 3 different websites to gather all of this information. It is an unfair
expectation that every citizen is going to go through the same trouble just to find a little more
knowledge on one government program. We need to provide the information ourselves, in a
easy, accessible manor, that one cannot miss.
The lack of communication behind this program is a very large issue. The reason behind
this is that many Americans’ want to defund this program solely because the provide abortions.
Many people do not even know about the many other services they provide, let alone how much
money they actually spend on abortions each year, it is next to nothing. By getting rid of this
program we would be taking away basic health services, and even cancer screenings away from
people that may not be able to afford them otherwise. This may seem minuscule to some but if
planned parent were to be defunded “Impact: If Congress shuts down Planned Parenthood
“2.4 million people a year would lose access to birth control, cancer screenings, STD tests and
more.” (istandwithpp.org 1.) If we continue to allow bias media control what we know about this
program, literal millions of people will lose the basic health care that they so desperately need.
It’s not just about the loss of choice, it’s about the loss of basic health needs. Citizens of America
4
Cooper,
are making hasty, uneducated judgments and decisions about this program. We as a country
cannot allow a good helpful organization to fall under because of lack of education on the topic.
There are many different solutions to this issue. One way to solve this issue is for planned
parent to publish more accessible ads. If Planned Parenthood had a better reach in mainstream
media such as twitter and Instagram they would be able to access a huge market. If we could
publish more posts about what Planned Parenthood actually does, we could spread this
information all over. This would be a great solution, to provide the news to the generations in the
media they respond to best. But it does not come without its complications. One being that
generally on these social media cites, what you see is based on things you follow. So, it could be
