Even when I’m unemployed and have no income to pay tithing from, I use my credit card to make my monthly donation to PP. Why? Because they save lives and prevent harm. The U.S. is the only developed country where the numbers of mother’s dying in childbirth is increasing. We also have the highest rate of first-day-infant mortality for a developed nation. Women and their babies need the services PP provides.
As a child welfare social worker I’ve had the opportunity in my professional as well as personal life to get to know around a 100 women who have used Planned Parenthood services. They fall into the following categories: 1. Poor BYU married students without access to other health care options for family planning 2. Women (not just Mormon women) needing pap smears and breast exams 3. Women beaten for using birth control switching to an IUD 4. Women seeking affordable prenatal care 5. Drug addicts switching from birth control pills to IUD to avoid pregnancy that results in drug addicted/fetal alcohol syndrome/disabled babies. 5) Rape victims getting the morning after pill 6) Women receiving treatment for STD’s (including faithful LDS women who caught the STD from a cheating spouse) 7) Women between the ages of 14-26 uncomfortable getting birth control through their parents insurance 8) Women seeking basic female health information.
PP reports that they perform abortions. But, I can’t make assumptions about the worthiness of those who do receive abortions without knowing more about their lives and individual circumstances. Maybe someday I’ll meet someone who had an abortion through PP. In the meantime, I care deeply about real people facing difficult life situations that have depended on PP to prevent harm and to receive needed treatment.
To all the commenters making anti-PP/ anti-abortion statements, stop and consider if you are truly Pro-Life or merely Pro-Birth. Does your political activism stop when the baby comes out of the womb? If you are Pro-Life, what are you doing to tend to the needs of the poor and disenfranchised, to ensure that the baby does not die on day one outside of the womb? What are you doing to ensure his mother is healthy and can care for him? How about the 400, 000 unwanted children in foster care waiting for adoptive homes? By trying to defund PP you’re only causing harm to individuals that already face immense challenges. You are keeping a sexually trafficked minor from receiving treatment for an STD. You are stopping the diabetic mother from getting the specialized prenatal care she needs. You are preventing a rape victim from getting a morning after pill. You are causing harm. Your judgement is taking more lives than it saves.