Why We Must Fight the Attack on Planned ParenthoodOn...

Why We Must Fight the Attack on Planned Parenthood

On Thursday, right-wing
extremists in the U.S. House of Representatives will vote to try to defund
Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s largest providers of women’s health
care and family planning services.

Planned Parenthood is under attack and it’s up
to all of us to fight back.  Any society that respects women must respect
their right to control their own bodies.  There is a strong moral case to
be made for this — but this video isn’t about that.  This is about the
economics of family planning – which are one more reason it’s important for
all of us to stand up and defend Planned Parenthood.  


Reproductive
rights, family planning, and women’s health are all interrelated. All girls and
women need full information and access to family planning services, including
abortion—regardless of their income level—so they can determine if or when they
have children.


Public
investments in family planning—enabling women to plan, delay, or avoid
pregnancy– make economic sense, because reproductive rights are also productive
rights. When women have control over their lives, they can contribute even more
to the economy, better break the glass ceiling, equalize the pay gap, and much
more.

 

Take the
state of Colorado’s highly successful family planning program. Over the past
six years, in Colorado health department has offered teenagers and low-income
women free long-acting birth control that prevents pregnancy over several
years. Pregnancy and abortion rates plunged—by about 40 percent among teenagers
across the state from 2009 to 2013.

In 2009,
half of all first births to women in the poorest areas of the state occurred
before they turned 21. But by 2014, half of first births did not occur until
the women had turned 24, a difference that gives young women time to finish
their education and obtain better jobs.


Nationally,
evidence shows that public investments in family planning result in net public
savings of about $13.6 billion a year—over $7 for every public dollar spent.


This sum
doesn’t include the billions of additional dollars saved by enabling women who
may not be financially able to raise a child and do not want to have a child or
additional children to stay out of poverty.


Yet, over
the last five years Republicans have cut 10 percent of the Title X federal
budget for family planning, which also pays for critical services such as
cancer screenings and HIV tests. And the Republican-controlled House
Appropriations Committee has gone as far as trying to eliminate the program.


Meanwhile,
many states have been cutting or eliminating family-planning funds.  This
isn’t just morally wrong; its bad economics. 


Obviously,
these crass economic numbers don’t nearly express the full complexity of the
national debate around abortion and family planning. And they help make the
case that we all benefit when society respects women to control their bodies
and plan their famili

Please
watch my latest video, which includes the economic argument for funding family
planning and women’s health services, and why it’s critical that all of us step
up right now to defend Planned Parenthood.