Planned Parenthood has been appearing in the news lately, and is a hot topic in the current presidential race. For years, the existence of Planned Parenthood has been the subject of debate, especially with regards to the controversy surrounding their abortion services and, most recently, what they do with the organs of aborted fetuses. Currently, Congress is deciding whether or not the government should still allocate funds to Planned Parenthood. On September 18th, 2015, the House of Representatives voted to delay funding for the organization for one year in order to investigate the organization’s practices.
The debates surrounding Planned Parenthood have a lot of people questioning what exactly the organization does. By law, Planned Parenthood (along with other organizations funded by the federal government) is required to release an annual report showing how it used the money and what services it provided within the past year. The reports from 2013-2014 can be found on Planned Parenthood’s website.
The 2013-2014 Annual Report shows a breakdown of the services Planned Parenthood provided within the past year. According to the pie chart, the largest percentage of Planned Parenthood’s services went to “STI/STD Testing & Treatment,” followed by “Contraception” services (i.e. methods of birth control). The pie chart also shows that 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services in this time span were dedicated to abortions. The smallest portion of Planned Parenthood’s services focuses on “Other Services,” which is elaborated in their Annual report and includes family practice services, adoption agency referrals, and UTI treatment for men and women. Other services the organization provided included attending to women’s health, as well as screening for and preventing cancer.
The Annual Reports also show us that most of the organization’s money comes from the government, but funds are also provided by private contributions and revenue made from services. Planned Parenthood provides a breakdown of how it spent those funds in the 2013-2014 year, with most of the money being allocated to medical services.
Despite all of the evidence that reveals Planned Parenthood’s services and use of funds, people still remain skeptical of the organization. This is largely due to the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, as well as the recent controversy regarding the alleged selling of fetal organs after abortions. Planned Parenthood does not seem to specify which medical services are funded by the government, which also leads people to wonder if government funds are being used to pay for abortions. There are federal laws, however that either restrict government funds from being used for abortions, or allow the funds to be used for abortions in very limited cases.
Along with considering the ethical difficulty of the abortion issue, we must also wonder what it means for women’s (and some men’s) healthcare if Planned Parenthood were to be defunded. The organization is known to provide lower income people with easier access to healthcare that they otherwise could not afford. As shown in its Annual Report, the organization mostly provides healthcare for those seeking contraceptive or STD/STI services. Along with those services, Planned Parenthood also provides women with preventative screenings for various cancers, and even reported providing “487,000 breast exams” to women across the country in the 2013-2014 year. Without Planned Parenthood, hundreds of thousands of people could potentially lose access to these health services.
For now, Planned Parenthood remains a tricky subject that is heavily debated in the political world. Currently, Congress has passed a bill that doesn’t include the defunding of the organization; however, many are still debating the issue, and Planned Parenthood’s fate is yet to be decided. Whatever the decision may be, it will have a heavy impact on women’s health issues.