Access to Planned Parenthood is vital and must be protected. Planned Parenthood prevents unintended pregnancies and reduces abortions. Blocking access to care at Planned Parenthood will likely have the exact opposite effect. Because Planned Parenthood increased access to all forms of contraception and high-quality counseling, women are enabled to choose which methods work best for their bodies and their lifestyles.
Thanks to Planned Parenthood’s efforts to expand access to contraception, the U.S. reached a historic 30-year low for unintended pregnancies and 40-year low in the teen pregnancy rate.
As a result, this led to a record low number of abortions. That’s what we call a pro-life record to be proud of.
The key factor in the the declining abortion rate is the improved access to contraception. Women in the United States have been using the highly effective devices in growing numbers for more than a decade. The declining birthrate suggests that more women are preventing unwanted pregnancies. Read more: America and the Pill.
If you’re uninsured and diagnosed with a chronic and serious issue, you just may discover that Planned Parenthood is your only option for health care. Due to “pre-existing conditions,” health insurance may be impossible, even for basic health care. What counts as “basic health care?” Just about as “basic” as it gets: family planning, cancer screenings, and more.
Women turn to Planned Parenthood for high-quality, affordable, and compassionate health care. They keep women healthy and give them control over their reproductive future.
The Affordable Care Act included contraception as a preventive service. As a result, 55 million women gained access to contraception. Recent studies suggest that providing full coverage of a larger range of contraceptive methods could reduce unintended pregnancy by 64% and reduce abortions by 67%.
rebel_nature on June 9th, 2017 at 15:55 UTC »
I'll tell you my experience with Planned Parenthood.
I moved to the US at 21 and had only been in the country for a couple of months, so I hadn't yet got health insurance sorted out, which was awful because I'm such a sickly person. I was on birth control for endometrios that I'd brought over from the UK with me (I had 6 months worth). Well, for whatever reason, my birth control did a great job for my endo but completely failed in the birth control department. I was so incredibly sick all of a sudden, in complete agony, and was bleeding. I went to an urgent care unit, which was where I found out I was pregnant, and was referred to the hospital next door.
At the hospital they did a scan and said the embryo wasn't attached to my uterine wall properly, and that I had a huge cyst on my ovary. I told them I had Endometriosis and that I didn't have health insurance so it was in mine and the fetuses best interest to have an abortion. By this point I weighed 85lbs and could barely move. They told me they couldn't "allow" me to have an abortion and that I needed to come back again in 4 days. I said I wanted to go to Planned Parenthood and they told me that PP wouldn't do anything with me if they hadn't got the go ahead, that they'd pull up my file and see that I was already under a hospital's care and they'd turn me away.
Over the next 2 weeks I went in for 3 4 scans. I kept begging them not to scan me and to just let me go to PP because it was costing me thousands of dollars and there was no way I could keep this baby, but they kept telling me they had to scan me and weren't going to discharge me from their care. One nurse flat out told me she didn't want me to have an abortion. I would spend my time at the hospital curled up on the corridor floors because I couldn't sit or stand. I weighed less than 80lbs and had only eaten two rashers of bacon in the past 2.5 weeks. I asked for some kind of medication for the pain or to stop the sickness and they said no, because I didn't have insurance, yet they had no problem with needlessly scanning me over and over. At one point they even called me in the middle of the night to say they'd seen something on my scan and needed to come in immediately, only to tell me they hadn't seen anything but "since I was already there" it was policy to do another scan, so I had two scans in less than 24 hours. My bills at this point totaled more than $3000.
Eventually I contacted an attorney who told me that the hospital was lying and that I could go to PP and they wouldn't pull up my hospital records and that they couldn't deny me treatment just because a hospital was also "treating" me.
I went to Planned Parenthood. By this point I was 5 days past the point of being able to take the abortion bill, meaning I had to get the vacuum abortion. I was absolutely devastated. I have always wanted children and never ever wanted an abortion, but I knew the embryo wasn't doing good and was at the point where I knew I'd die if I went on another week. Having the vacuum abortion rather than the pill made it way more real to me.
Planned Parenthood were really nice. The doctor I saw was the nicest woman I have ever met. During my abortion a nurse held my hand and talked to me about the things I love most. They took care of me and gave me all the aftercare I needed. They even put me on a new birth control that has done an even better job of subduing my endo symptoms and has still not failed in protecting me against getting pregnant.
If I was given the choice of paying my $20 co-pay to go to a hospital for my gynecological needs, or paying a $50 co-pay to go to PP for the same things, I would pick PP.
SassafrassMcGee on June 9th, 2017 at 15:54 UTC »
Planned Parenthood was a guiding light for me when I was in college. My mom was never really comfortable talking about sex or sexual health with me. I went to PP to get on birth control for the first time when I was 18. I've also been there numerous times for UTIs, BV, and yeast infections, as well as for regular STI testing and my paps.
I support them in principle, but also, the services they provide are significantly cheaper than going to my primary clinic, even with insurance.
I've never once felt shamed or judged there.
Spiggy93 on June 9th, 2017 at 15:48 UTC »
Another reason I go is their flexibility. I wanted an STD test done ASAP since I had been cheated on. PP got me in that weekend, whereas my regular doctor said it would be ~2 weeks and probably would have missed some time at work.
Edit: As a few people have pointed out, you generally have to wait a couple weeks since exposure for an accurate STD test. When I had found out about about the cheating, it had already been a couple weeks since I had last been exposed. The 2 weeks I mentioned above was just the earliest open slot the doctor had, not because they needed me to wait longer.