In January of this past year, a Bill was introduced to the House in attempts to fulfill the promise to defund Planned Parenthood. Government funding has to be allocated in a way that is justifiable to the public, and this is a matter where much of the population has taken great issue. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, in the CNN Town Hall on January 12th, you stated that instead of receiving care from Planned Parenthood, the citizens of the United States could and should go to a Federal Community Health Center(Lee, The Washington Post). Your exact words were that “for every Planned Parenthood, there are 20 federal community health centers. They’re vastly bigger in network, there are so many more of them, and they provide these kinds of services without all of the controversy surrounding this [abortion] issue”. This is true. There are an array of other clinics where the public could go to receive sexual and reproductive care. However, I wonder about the validity of this conception when accounting the legitimacy of Planned Parenthood as a health provider? I’ve done some research and come to find some notable reasons that Planned Parenthood is indeed a valid option for healthcare; especially considering that it is in fact the largest women’s healthcare provider in the United States. As such, I believe there is a conversation to be had. I believe not only that Planned Parenthood should be given adequate funding to provide for the citizens you govern, but also that the defunding of Planned Parenthood paired with the repeal of The Affordable Care act, Obamacare, would be detrimental to the United States as a whole.
In the above CNN Town Hall quote, you are citing the reputable Charlotte Lozier Institute and the Alliance Defending Freedom. From their 2015 research study, they found there to be 13,540 such “health clinics”, and a mere 665 Planned Parenthood locations in the United States(Maps: Health Clinics Nationwide…, Charlotte Lozier Institute). Your argument is entirely legitimate and I see where it makes sense for the population to utilize these health centers, seeing as in 2015 nearly 1 in 12 residents of the United States sought care at these clinics(Paradise, Rosenbaum, Markus, Sharac, Tran, Reynolds, Shin, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation). However, by repealing Obamacare you would leave such Community Health Centers lacking funding as well. For example, at the Saban Community Clinic of Los Angeles about half of the patients qualified for Medicaid after the health law expanded eligibility. About three-quarters of the clinic’s 18,000 patients were uninsured prior to the Affordable Care Act(Threat Of Obamacare Repeal…, NPR). With the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, the Health Centers’ clients were able to pay a copay of $5 or $10. This was made possible because Medicaid pays the clinic roughly $200 per patient visit. So a successful repeal of Obamacare would revoke such funding to these thousands of other facilities that you have suggested people go to instead of Planned Parenthood.
This past March House leadership pulled the proposed Senate GOP Bill from the floor without a vote. In June of this year, after the ACHA’s(the Agency for Health Care Administration) March-failure, you were able to push this one-year Bill through, despite concerns that this wouldn’t even meet budget rules(Hellmann, TheHill). This Bill puts a one year bar on Medicaid patients from access to preventative health care and family planning at Planned Parenthood clinics. I believe that now more than ever we need to be mindful of the results of an Obamacare Repeal, especially noting your success in defunding Planned Parenthood for one year.
I believe there are a lot of good points to note on the overall motivation to defund. I would have to agree with the overall sentiment that abortion is an immoral action, and ultimately I can not argue with the fact that is it indeed a sin. However this one-year Act does not ban abortions. The Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2017 gives abortion limitations that still allow for abortions in “cases of rape or incest or where a physical condition endangers a woman’s life unless an abortion is performed”(H.R.354 – Defund Planned…, congress.gov). So the morality of this argument exists, but even I do not agree that it encompasses all that it should in order to have the desired result of the right-leaning public. The Bill fails to rid the United States of legal abortions, and only minimizes accessibility to abortions with the above limitations.
The statistic I have found shows that 2.4 million people go to Planned Parenthood for various health care needs(Planned Parenthood at a Glance, Planned Parenthood). The defunding of Planned Parenthood puts these citizens, along with the people they come in contact with, at risk. Annually at Planned Parenthood locations alone medical experts perform 295,000 Pap tests, 320,000 breast exams, and more than 4.2 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections(Planned Parenthood at a Glance, Planned Parenthood). The defunding of Planned Parenthood significantly reduces accessibility to sexual and reproductive care and is likely to have a negative affect on the overall health of the public.
I think we can agree that the health of the public is of the utmost importance, but we have a budget and public opinion to worry about. When discussing the repeal of Obamacare you once said “I’m not going to put a timeline on it, because this is too important to not get right and to put an artificial timeline on it”(Richardson, The Washington Times). I would encourage you to think of the repercussions of this “timeline”. I worry that if you are successful too soon it may have unforeseen repercussions, as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act doesn’t change the fact that people will still have health care needs. If you accomplish this goal to repeal then thousands more people will struggle to find access to various sexual and reproductive healthcare and education services than are already struggling with the recent defunding of Planned Parenthood.
According to data found by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA®), “(Planned Parenthood) is one of the nation’s leading providers of high-quality, affordable health care for women, men and young people, and the nation’s largest provider of sex education”(Redden, The Guardian). If nothing else, I think we can at least agree that Planned Parenthood is a necessary evil. Planned Parenthood provides support, education, and health services to men, women, and children of all socioeconomic backgrounds. In data gathered from 2010 to 2012(GAO, gao.gov) it was found that nearly 80% of the clientele at Planned Parenthood had incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. Health care is expensive and defunding Planned Parenthood alienates the lower majority of the population. I struggle to see the necessity and justifiability of this action when the service with which there is issue taken is a mere 3% of the annual services performed.
I understand that, as said by National Review editor Rich Lowry, this 3% statistic is similarly justifiable to the statement that “Major League Baseball teams could say that they sell about 20 million hot dogs and play 2,430 games in a season, so baseball is only .0.12 percent of what they do”(Lowry, New York Post). However this belittles the fact that both of these statements are technically true. So I wonder if this 3% with which issue is taken could not be excused out of necessity for the other services provided; why risk the health of the citizens you govern, over a mere 3% of an organizations performed services? This decision to “defund” means a decrease in the overall funding of the organization by roughly $500 million annually(DeSanctis, National Review).
Ultimately I believe a compromise has to be made. I believe that we must choose the removal of one or the other. The results of the removal of government funding from Planned Parenthood paired with the repeal of Obamacare, which would lead to a decrease in funding to thousands more Health Centers, has great potential to be disastrous. I believe that the combination of these two actions would be detrimental to the overall health of the nations population and is something we should avoid. It feels immoral to allow for such a decrease in the accessibility and affordability of healthcare; especially as these actions so clearly affect those of us who already struggle from abnormally low incomes. I propose that we do not push further with the defunding of Planned Parenthood. The Act has already been passed to deny funding for one year, but I do not see how we can justify this action for a time exceeding this one year with the seemingly inevitable repeal of The Affordable Care Act.
Works Cited
“BY THE NUMBERS.” Planned Parenthood.org, Jan. 2014, www.plannedparenthood.org/files/ 9313/9611/7194/Planned_Parenthood_By_The_Numbers.pdf.
DeSanctis, Alexandra. “Breaking: Senate Health-Care Bill Won’t Defund Planned Parenthood.” National Review. N.p., 21 July 2017. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
Gao.gov, U.S. Government Accountability Office, 20 Mar. 2015, www.gao.gov/assets/ 670/669194.pdf.
Hellmann, Jessie. “Senate GOP bill defunds Planned Parenthood for one year.” TheHill. N.p., 22 June 2017. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
“H.R.354 – Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2017.” Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/bill/ 115th-congress/house-bill/354?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22the+Defund +Planned+Parenthood+Act+of+2015%22%5D%7D&r=1.
Julia Paradise, Sara Rosenbaum, Anne Markus, Jessica Sharac, Chi Tran, David Reynolds, and Peter Shin. “Community Health Centers: Recent Growth and the Role of the ACA – Issue Brief.” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. N.p., 18 Jan. 2017. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
Kurtzleben, Danielle. “Fact Check: How Does Planned Parenthood Spend That Government Money?” NPR. NPR, 05 Aug. 2015. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
Lee, Michelle Ye Hee. “For Planned Parenthood abortion stats, ‘3 percent’ and ’94 percent’ are both misleading.” The Washington Post. WP Company, 12 Aug. 2015. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
Lee, Michelle Ye Hee. “Paul Ryan’s claim that for every Planned Parenthood clinic, 20 health centers provide care.” The Washington Post. WP Company, 18 Jan. 2017. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
Lowry, Rich. “Planned Parenthood’s pathetic ‘3 percent’ lie.” New York Post. New York Post, 03 Aug. 2015. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
“Maps: Health Clinics Nationwide Compared to Planned Parenthood Centers.” Charlotte Lozier Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
“Planned Parenthood at a Glance.” Planned Parenthood. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
Redden, Molly. “Healthcare without Planned Parenthood: Wisconsin and Texas point to dark future.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 17 Jan. 2017. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.)
Richardson, Bradford. “Paul Ryan: Planned Parenthood to be defunded through reconciliation.” The Washington Times. The Washington Times, 28 Mar. 2017. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.
“Threat Of Obamacare Repeal Leaves Community Health Centers In Limbo.” NPR. NPR, 22 Feb. 2017. Web. 05 Aug. 2017.