Reproductive health care
To the editor:
During the holiday season there are ads from many organizations asking for money. These organizations do good work. There are testimonies from beneficiaries about their services or descriptions of the good work they do. These organizations support people with disabilities and diseases, veterans and animals suffering from abuse. Many of these organizations help people in the United States and some assist people in other countries. There is no reason to believe that the information in these ads is false.
Interspersed with these ads I saw an ad for Planned Parenthood. This ad was asking for money to support Planned Parenthood “because women’s reproductive health care is going away.” There was a “patient” who said nothing about the services that she received at Planned Parenthood, but continued the lies about women’s reproductive services.
There were pictures of marches by women claiming that their reproductive health rights were in danger. This is a lie.
Unlike the other organizations that gave facts about their services, there was no mention of the services offered at Planned Parenthood. What reproductive health services are not available to women in our country? Does the government restrict the number of children a woman can have? Are women denied routine gynecologic services or testing and treatment of STIs? Are multiple birth control methods unavailable? Are prenatal and postpartum care unavailable? Are women denied access to safe birthing centers? The answer to all of the above is no, as these are all women’s reproductive health services available to any woman in our country. Women with ectopic pregnancies are not denied treatment, including surgery. Crisis pregnancy centers that find a suspected ectopic pregnancy during an ultrasound immediately send the woman to the emergency room. IVF is available, but the cost may be prohibitive. This is not a simple procedure and may end in pregnancy or can end in frozen embryos stored for years. These embryos may never be used or can be an object of litigation if the couple separates.
Planned Parenthood proclaimed that they wanted “safe reproductive health care” for women. The main service offered at Planned Parenthood is abortion. This is how they make their money — convincing women who find themselves in unexpected pregnancies to kill their babies. There is nothing safe about abortion. Abortions have complications including hemorrhage, infection, incompetent cervix that could result in future miscarriages, mental health problems including a form of PTSD and death.
Does Planned Parenthood offer any education, counseling or access to birth control to assist the women in avoiding future unplanned pregnancies? Like a contract killer who takes money to kill another human being, Planned Parenthood takes money to kill an innocent human being.
Self-proclaimed “good Catholic” Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 death row inmates, who had trials and appeals, were found guilty and sentenced to death. Yet Biden and the Democrats have sentenced countless innocent children to death through abortion. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20).
Michalene A. King
Wintersville