Planned Parenthood PingPong

Forget abortion. Let’s talk health care.

If you are like most women of child-bearing age in South Carolina, your gynecologist is your primary health doctor. Because, when you’re a young woman, sure, other stuff can go wrong with your body, but it’s what’s “down there” that can really screw you up if something goes wrong.

And, if you are like 19% of these South Carolina women, you don’t have insurance. So there’s a good chance your gynecologist happens to be Planned Parenthood. In fact, more than 6,500 women and men use Planned Parenthood in South Carolina every year.

And, yes, this is the same Planned Parenthood currently being whacked back and forth like a ping pong ball in Congress. The same Planned Parenthood whose funding is being threatened by the federal government this week. Because a widely discredited—and selectively edited—video shows alleged deal-making for fetal parts.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, is pushing for the defunding of Planned Parenthood

It’s distasteful, sure, no matter what you think about abortion.

But forget abortion.

Because abortion counts for only 3% of what Planned Parenthood does.

The rest are the pap tests and breast exams that prevent cancer. And education and outreach regarding contraception. And treatment and prevention of all kinds of diseases that affect women “down there.”

If all you focus on is one issue, you miss all the really important stuff that’s happening. The imporant stuff being the health care that keeps young people healthy, especially young people who can’t afford to get sick, the treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases so that they don’t spread, and the preponderance of services that teach people how not to get pregnant in the first place so that abortion doesn’t ever become an issue.

It’s a mangled metaphor, but if Congress de-funds Planned Parenthood because they think women should have babies rather than abortions, it’s kind of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.