Planned Parenthood president volunteered to a congressional hearing to clear up misunderstandings of the healthcare provider’s intentions.
In a recent testimony conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards combated accusations facing the healthcare provider.
During the summer, the Center for Medical Progress — an anti-abortionist group — began releasing controversial footage that distracted many from Planned Parenthood’s main focus and boosted conservatives' chance to take away women’s rights to bodily autonomy.
One in five women seek medical assistance from the center, and it has 2.7 million patients yearly. The healthcare provider has developed itself with the nation’s top medical experts for the past 99 years, and it is quite astounding that so many have lost sight of Planned Parenthood’s medical credibility with the biased CMP footage.
It is important to understand that its federal funding allows doctors, clinicians and the large number of health centers to provide birth control, cancer screenings, testing and treatment for STDs. If the bill to shutdown and defund Planned Parenthood for a year had passed, many women would lose those vital services.
Those services provided by Planned Parenthood are then reimbursed by Medicaid and kept track of by the Department of Health and Human Services. The department conducts routine audits of the Medicaid program to ensure that the funds are being used appropriately.
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Richards reminded many in her response to the accusations of illegal practices that using fetal tissue in life-saving medical research is legal according to the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993.
However, currently about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s health center funds go toward abortion, and very few centers actually facilitate the donation of fetal tissue for research. The donation is something the patients want to do or regularly request.
Planned Parenthood is the nation’s top reproductive health care services for women and men. This provider has 59 locally governed affiliates nationwide that operate 700 health centers. The healthcare it provides is at an ideal price that many low-income women can afford, but the costs of it shutting down are not affordable in any way.
“All women in this country deserve to have the same opportunity as members of Congress and their families for high quality and timely healthcare. … [Planned Parenthood] trusts women to make these [medical] decisions in consultation with their families, doctors and faith. Not by Congress,” Richards said.
Elizabeth Chidlow is a sophomore studying journalism. What do you think of Planned Parenthood? Email her at ec629914@ohio.edu.
