The Washington Examiner posted an article today with the following headline: “Women’s health has improved over the last century, and Planned Parenthood had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
The article lists the scientific and cultural changes that impact the health of women:
1. Mammography–note–not a single Planned Parenthood facility offers mammography to patients.
2. Breastfeeding–the article states:
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services cites breastfeeding as a benefit to infants, and to mothers, where women who breastfeed are “less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, breast and ovarian cancer, and postpartum depression.”
On Planned Parenthood’s website, the only note on breastfeeding is buried deep in the “birth control” page, where the only emphasized benefit of the practice is its natural tendency to wane with ovulation. It boasts how “you can’t get pregnant if you don’t ovulate.”
3. Smoking (In 1985 28 percent of women smoked; in 2012 the number had dropped to 16 percent. Obviously quitting smoking improves a woman’s health.)
4. Mental health–the article states:
A recent survey on abortion and mental health risks found that “women seeking abortions may be at higher risk of prior mental health disorders,” and it recommended that abortion care settings should be an intervention point for mental health screening. Because there is little to no access to behavioral healthcare at Planned Parenthood, many of the company’s patients may go untreated for their mental health needs.
5. Sexually transmitted diseases–the article states:
Last year’s Center for Disease Control STD report revealed a sharp increase in STD infections for the fourth year in a row, with gonorrhea cases increasing 67 percent between 2013 and 2017 and syphilis increasing 76 percent over those four years. Chlamydia, which was virtually nonexistent in the 1980s, is now a common condition. The National Coalition of STD Directors’ David Harvey noted that the U.S. has “the highest STD rates in the industrialized world.”
After the CDC report was released, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, Dr. Gillian Dean, blamed a lack of sex education as the reason STD rates were rising and applauded her organization as “the nation’s largest provider of sex education and one of the nation’s leading HIV testing providers.”
But here’s the thing: The states with the most Planned Parenthood clinics disproportionately suffered the largest increases in STDs.
California, for instance, with the most Planned Parenthood Clinics per capita of any state, saw a record rise in STDs and a spike in the number of stillbirths caused by syphilis for the third year in a row. California also mandates sex education in schools, which was incidentally signed into law nearly four years ago, when this alarming trend began.
6. Abortion and Maternity–the article states:
Planned Parenthood is notorious for its focus on abortion services as the crown jewel of the organization. The company continues to claim that abortions are only about 3 percent of its services, even though the Washington Post debunked that claim.
…An organization that boasts its “100 years of women’s healthcare” history but does not support vital protections, like a 20-week cutoff for abortion or the requirement that they be done by qualified doctor who graduated medical school, leaves women vulnerable to unsafe, low-quality, and high-risk healthcare.
The article concludes:
Planned Parenthood has yet to make a mark on women’s healthcare for anything other than promoting various controversial birth control methods and performing abortions. Looking back at the company’s history in the last 100 years, it’s clear that the U.S. government and its various women’s health initiatives in the last few decades have done far more than Planned Parenthood in its entire century of existence.
For Planned Parenthood to think it can claim the topic of women’s healthcare as its own is laughable, especially for an organization which has arguably done the most to hurt women in the last 100 years with its subpar, bare-bones medical offerings — abortion being at the very top of the list.
Abortion is a million-dollar business, and unfortunately a lot of that money is funneled into political campaigns through PAC’s. Political candidates like campaign money, and many candidates have no problem with taking money from people who kill unborn babies and sell aborted baby body parts. That is extremely sad.
