I have been reading more and more about this whole Planned Parenthood issue. Of course, in this political climate and in an election year, we hear about it every day. I can't understand the math that people are using. Having three children myself I understand that my birth control costs are around $10 a month and that the cost of raising just one child costs on average $600 to $700 a month. I feel as if that could be a conservative estimate. There are a lot of factors that would change that number but it's probably pretty close. Now, I want to understand why we don't want to pay for birth control but we do want to pay out for child care, clothing, housing, food, etc. Trust me, if a woman can't afford her birth control, she sure as hell can't afford to take care of that kid. Why do we want to give her a lifetime of welfare but not help her with her birth control? I talked in my last blog post about using birth control for preventing pregnancy but let's talk about some other uses. I know many women who use birth control to help control heavy flow issues, menstrual cramps, fibroid cysts and tumors, among other things. I have used progesterone in the past to shrink fibroid tumors myself. My insurance should pay for that. They should pay for any necessary medications that my doctor prescribes. If I didn't have insurance where would I go to get this medicine? I would go to Planned Parenthood. I would expect that the state of Texas, where I live, and pay taxes to help me with the costs of such medicine. Currently Texas is attempting to cut all funding to any clinics that provide abortion services, which include Planned Parenthood. Where would I go then? I don't qualify for Medicaid and I make a little too much money to qualify for other services but Planned Parenthood would welcome me with open arms to help me with whatever my issues might be. I used PP in the past for my birth control, yearly exams and such when I didn't have insurance and needed those services. Some women only have their PP nurse or doctor to offer advice for any number of issues they may have. PP is their only source of medical care. What will those women do when they have no clinic to go to? Women may not get their yearly exams and then when they have untreated cancers, cysts, endometriosis, etc they would go to an ER and cost the American taxpayers twice as much as if we had just left PP alone to provide their services. What math equation makes closing PP a good decision? Last time I checked abortion was still legal. Why are we making every effort to defund it so that it essentially becomes unobtainable, legal or not? There are only 682 clinics that offer abortion services in American as opposed to 4,000+ pregnancy resource clinics. Defunding PP and closing abortion clinics will not stop abortions from happening. It will cost us a lot more money to treat women in the ER and it will cost us many lives for women receiving back alley abortions. I understand the moral question involved. We look the other way on so many issues involving morals but we hone in on this. I just can't understand it. Attacking women is not the way to go about this. Please, if you agree and you can help, donate money to PP so that the women out there who need our help can get it. They deserve to get the care they need whether we agree with their decisions or not. I'll say it again, women are important no matter what our healthcare needs are and those needs should be met.
Carissa
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