ABORTION
In the last five years or so, the pendulum of women’s health access in the United States of America has been swinging backwards into a time where women’s rights were severely limited. Women’s health is defined as health issues regarding the female anatomy, along with access to medical treatment based on their gender. For example, a hot topic issue is accessibility of abortion. Prior to 1973, abortion was illegal in the United States and women had no safe, legal place to go if they wanted an abortion. Roe v. Wade changed all of that; however, the present-day tactics to limit abortion are much sneakier. Women’s health isn’t solely about keeping abortion legal but giving providing equal access to healthcare. Currently, the US government and special interest groups are trying to limit access to healthcare for women of all socioeconomic backgrounds because of the connection to abortion that they have.
Planned Parenthood, a well-known women’s health center, has a reputation for simply being an abortion provider. However, they offer so many vital services to women, particularly women with a low socioeconomic status. According to the fact sheet on Planned Parenthood’s official website and FactCheck.org, “Planned Parenthood provides 585,000 Pap tests and nearly 640,000 breast exams each year... Three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services.” The value of Planned Parenthood is incontrovertible – it literally saves lives through early cancer screenings. Planned Parenthood provides many women’s health services, such as mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, and free/cheap contraception. Women’s health centers also provide free testing for possible sexually transmitted infections, an extremely important service for sexually active people.
The issue over women’s health centers and the US government is mainly about abortion. However, women’s health centers like Planned Parenthood have done so much for the progress of women’s health and accessibility. For example, one in five women will visit a Planned Parenthood clinic in her life and not all visits are to receive an abortion. Most women, in fact, go to Planned Parenthood to prevent pregnancy – nearly three-fourths of all clients. A major misconception about Planned Parenthood is that they use federal tax money to pay f
in poverty.
This is most undoubtedly untrue: no federal money whatsoever can go towards abortion services. The federal funding that women’s health centers receive (much of it from Title X, a federal family planning program) doesn’t go to abortion services, but to other vital and essential services for women, such as mammogram screenings. The end result of all this debate is that abortion will continue to be legal, while women living in poverty are victimized by petty arguments in Congress.
Over the summer, a bill that would severely limit abortion services in Texas was getting ready to pass. Senator Wendy Davis held a