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Ethan Cha
Washington
Senior Inquiry
11 December 2015
The Defunding of Planned Parenthood: More Harm Than Good
In the year of 2015, the organization Planned Parenthood has been an area of high
controversial dispute. The initial idea for the defunding of Planned Parenthood revolves around
the fact that the organization has the option to provide abortions to women, and because of this,
Planned Parenthood has received a negative connotation of being an abortion clinic, thus causing
many people to vilify Planned Parenthood and advocate for the defunding because it is thought
to be only an abortion clinic. While Planned Parenthood Provides abortion assistance, people
should still advocate for Planned Parenthood because this organization helps prevent
unwanted/unplanned pregnancies, provides affordable medical assistance for those who cannot
afford traditional hospital visits, provides educational information and treatment regarding
STD/STI prevention, and other resources for both males and females. Defunding Planned
Parenthood would seem to do more harm than good in regards to abortion rates and the health of
the nation.
Contrary to common belief, Planned Parenthood is not an abortion organization; in
reality, Planned Parenthood decreases the amount of annual documented abortions that take place
in the United States. In opposition, Rick Santorum quoted, I dont think theres any numbers out
there that suggest that access to contraception actually reduces the number of abortions. I think
theres pretty good studies out there, pretty compelling studies that show that there is no real
correlation. However, multiple reputable sources have validated that contraception does prevent

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abortions and unwanted pregnancies. In 2011, abortion rates were 16.9 per 1000 for women ages
15-44, this is 13 percent less than the amount of documented abortions issued in 2008 and was
the only change in abortion percentages in the previous 4 years following 2008; Abortion rights
groups say the renewed decline is likely the result of increased access to more effective birth
control and fewer unintended pregnancies (Mantel). Also, other credible sources such as The
New York Times has quoted Colorado has conducted one of the largest experiments with longacting birth control.The birthrate among teenagers across the state plunged by 40 percent from
2009 to 2013, while their rate of abortions fell by 42 percent, according to the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment. In addition, according to an analysis done by
the Guttmacher institute regarding the data from the National Survey of National Growth,
contraception has accounted for 86 percent of the decline in teenage pregnancy (qtd. in Planned
Parenthood Action). According to the statistical data given by the following sources, proper
contraception distribution to women in the United States lowers the overall pregnancy/abortion
rate. The overall pregnancy/abortion rate is directly affected by the distribution of contraception
to all women in the United States. The defunding of Planned Parenthood would decrease the
amount of facilities open to the public, therefore by decreasing the distribution of contraception
to women it can be assumed that pregnancies/abortions would increase due to the lack of
proper/affordable contraception distribution.
Planned Parenthood would most likely prove to be beneficial to youth as well, Planned
Parenthood provides sexual education that most schools and most parents tend to either neglect
or non-chalantly implement their own standard. For instance, earlier this year, Crane High
School, located in Crane Texas, was recently discovered to have nearly two dozen people
infected with chlamydia. Crane High School is known to have an abstinence only policy and are

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standing firm with abstinence being the best choice. However, there are only three days out of
the school year where sexual education is discussed and the only sexual education that is given is
on abstinence only. Coincidentally, the government has funded these abstinence only programs
with taxpayer money for over the last 25 years. Assistant secretary of Human and Health
services, and also the man in charge of the abstinence only funding, Wade Horn quotes, We
dont need a study, if I remember my biology correctly, to show us that those people who are
sexually abstinent have a zero chance of becoming pregnant or getting someone pregnant or
contracting a sexually transmitted disease (Moyer). However, in 2012, Think Progress brought
to attention that states with abstinence only policies are the states with the highest amount of teen
pregnancies (qtd. in Washington Post). In addition, Kirby Douglas, a senior researcher at ETR
Associates, and Heather Boonstra, a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute,
claim that the abstinence only curricula hasnt produced enough results in order to prove that the
abstinence only programs are effective, Boonstra quotes, the evidence is just not there
(Clemmitt). Apparently, abstinence only programs arent necessarily working according to the
chlamydia outbreak in Crane High School. On the grounds of sexual education, how do we
educate our youth in terms of being sexually safe? To answer that, Planned Parenthood has
already organized programs to teach sexual education to youth in three states: Minnesota, North
Dakota, and South Dakota. The programs that are provided include, but are not limited to,
cultural minoritized groups; Native American youth have a program named Native Stand,
Hmong youth have a program named Hmong STAR, and there are other programs designed
specifically for other minorities or for other youth groups (Planned Parenthood). If these
programs were better funded, perhaps we could have these programs all around the United

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States; consequently, we may be able to avoid such epidemics as the one seen in Crane High
School, given that youth have proper access to sexual education.
Imagine youre a single woman who is doing fairly well. You have a job that pays just a
bit over minimum wage, a small one bedroom one bath apartment thats big enough to stay in
while you attended community college and work. You have enough money at the end of the week
to buy food, and to pay for the bills. One day you wake up to come to find a lump on one of your
breasts. Youd like to go see a doctor and get the lump evaluated, but you know that its probably
too expensive and that you still have bills to pay. Fast forward six months later and you come to
feel pain and more swelling from where this lump is. You finally go to see the doctor and he tells
you that you have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and that if you had come in sooner it could
have been treated, but because you waited so long, the cancer has spread to other areas in your
body and your chances of survival look very slim. What is the issue here? The issue is that the
national median for a mammogram is $243 if youre uninsured (Breast Cancer). In addition, over
40,000 women are expected to die this year because of breast cancer and over 230,000 are
expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer. The number one reason why women dont receive
potentially life-saving mammograms is because they cannot afford it (Unitypoint). Which means,
there are women who are infected with breast cancer and are dying from it merely because they
do not have the funds to get professionally examined. The mortality rate of breast cancer would
decrease if women had better access to more routined and more affordable mammogram
screenings. However, at Planned Parenthood, over 1,000,000 mammograms are given to women
at a significantly reduced cost or they are given to women for free based on financial need. For
this very reason, if Planned Parenthood continues to be defunded, less mammograms will be

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available for women who are of lower income; this would obviously lead to higher mortality
rates in women due to breast cancer.
The issue that a majority of society seems to have with Planned Parenthood is that they
provide abortions, but this is only one small portion of the services that this organization
provides and it is not even the largest service provided. Planned Parenthood provides more
positive services for women than those viewed as negative. Planned Parenthood provides
affordable contraception, sexual education, and mammograms for breast cancer screening,
abortions are only one small part of the whole. By defunding Planned Parenthood you are
reducing the affordability of these services to women all around the nation. The defunding of
Planned Parenthood isnt only a disservice to pro-abortionists, its a disservice to all women.

Work Cited
Breast Cancer. U.S. Breast Cancer Statistics. Breast Cancer 23 Oct. 2015 Web. 14
Dec. 2015
Clemmitt, Marcia. "Teen Pregnancy." CQPress 26 Mar. 2010: 265-88. Web. 14

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Dec. 2015.
Glover, Lacie. How Much Does a Mammogram Cost. Nerdwallet 14 Oct. 2014 Web.
14 Dec. 2015
Mantel, Barbara. "Abortion." CQPress 19 May 2015. Web. 14 Dec. 2015
Moyer, Justin. Texas High School. Washington Post 7 May. 2015 Web. 14 Dec. 2015
Planned Parenthood Action. Fact Check Birth. Planned Parenthood Action 20
October 2015. Web. 14 Dec. 2015
Unitypoint. 6 Reason Women Dont get Mammograms. Unitypoint 16 Sep. 2014 Web.
14 Dec. 2015
Yee, Amy. Girls Rights. CQPress 17 April 2015. Web. 14 Dec. 2015