Planned Parenthood likes to claim in pretty much everything they say that they are “for women”. Apparently just about everything they do has something to do with protecting women’s rights, or promoting freedom for women, or some other such claim. Just take a stroll over to their Facebook page or look through their website. They claim:
For more than 90 years, Planned Parenthood has promoted a commonsense approach to women’s health and well-being, based on respect for each individual’s right to make informed, independent decisions about health, sex, and family planning.
But let’s get to reality… The idea that Planned Parenthood is pro-woman is pretty far fetched. Now, granted, I am a man and Planned Parenthood would like to think I have no say in the matter, know absolutely nothing about it, and should keep my oppressive beliefs to myself. Yet I am a believer in common sense, and I think anyone with common sense (however uncommon it actually is these days) of whatever sex should be able to see pretty clearly that Planned Parenthood is very deeply anti-woman.
The term “Women’s Health” is being thrown around a lot in the media right now. But what is Planned Parenthood’s idea of women’s health? First and foremost, it is birth control. (Note: I object to the term birth control, because there is of course no birth and there typically is no control; it is there because of a lack of control – self control).
Planned Parenthood actually started out under Margaret Sanger as the “American Birth Control League”. Throughout the recent controversy over the HHS Mandate, they have always claimed that this issue is about women’s health. “Birth control is basic health care and used almost universally by women,” says Cecile Richards (President of Planned Parenthood). They consistently claim that birth control is basic healthcare, that it is necessary for women’s health.
Now, regardless of your views about birth control (I know not all pro-lifers are against birth control, even though I am), let’s just decipher this claim. What is the point of healthcare? You go to someone for healthcare when you’re sick. You need medicine (like pills) when your body isn’t functioning the right way – when you’re sick. Health care, medicine, and pills fix your body when it’s not functioning right. What does contraception do? It, at least temporarily, removes women’s fertility. It makes them temporarily infertile so they can’t conceive a child (something only women can do; men don’t get pregnant). So Planned Parenthood is really saying to women: your bodies aren’t functioning right, but here take this pill, and we’ll fix it for you. They’re saying that fertility is a sickness; a disease; an illness that must be treated. The only way contraception can be basic healthcare is if a woman’s body is sick without it.
How in the world is that pro-woman? What is the the one thing that women can do and nobody else can? Conceive new life and give birth to children! Planned Parenthood is saying that this one thing that only women can do is a sickness that must be treated. Leaving aside any philosophical or religious ideas about what it means to be a woman (Planned Parenthood no doubt considers such ideas to be inherently bigoted), they’re certainly not promoting the normal biological functions of a woman’s body. Having a normal female body; having organs that function to bring about new life; being fertile…is not good enough for Planned Parenthood, and they’re out to fix it. Planned Parenthood enslaves women to something they’ve told them they need in order to function properly.
I, for one, find this revolting and deeply anti-woman.
Planned Parenthood is also lying about the very real health risks involved in abortion and contraception; but they still promote these things as essential for women’s health. According to the World Health Association:
An IARC Monographs Working Group has concluded that combined estrogen progestogen oral contraceptives and combined estrogen-progestogen menopausal therapy are carcinogenic to humans (Group 1), after a thorough review of the published scientific evidence.
There is a risk of breast, cervical, and liver cancer.
Planned Parenthood has lied or remained silent about women struggling with stress and depression after abortion. Many women regret their abortions! Groups like Rachel’s Vineyard put on retreats for hundreds and hundreds of women. Just read these testimonies. Abortion also very likely causes breast cancer.
Planned Parenthood has used their frankly sickening and disgusting sex education programs to brainwash teens with lies about sex, contraception, and abortion…all aimed at getting people sexually active. Because of course, Planned Parenthood makes no money off of people who remain abstinent. And who is the one who suffers for it? Women! All of this ultimately benefits men! Planned Parenthood makes it pretty easy for men to simply use women as sexual objects – because they don’t need to make any commitments; there are no consequences! The women are the ones who have to risk their health with contraception and abortion. Planned Parenthood has severed sex from the idea of sexual reproduction and are seriously undermining even the idea of it happening in the context of a relationship! They are putting the burden on women not to get pregnant and have children.
And of course they’d like to think that all the women who signed this petition don’t exist. They’re not out to support the women who don’t want contraception. But of course they don’t get money from these women.
Ultimately, it’s Planned Parenthood that’s imposing its beliefs on women; it’s Planned Parenthood who’s waging the “war on women’s health”. It’s Planned Parenthood who is anti-woman, reducing women to their disgusting ideas of women’s sexuality. They reduce a woman’s sexuality to her sexual activity – to something she does. Not as part of who she is. Her sexuality, as it is biologically and naturally, is an illness fixed by Planned Parenthood’s idea of “healthcare”. And of course they’ve done all this while claiming to support women.
It is time to cut through the crap Planned Parenthood has been forcing down our throats. It’s time to stand up and fight for women, whose lives and identities are of infinite value. Women are under attack today, and we need to fight for their dignity!
We must fight with love. With real love – giving until it hurts as Mother Teresa said. Love conquers all. Today I implore you to consider loving until it hurts and then, to keep loving anyway.
