You May Change Your Mind When You Look from the Inside

Sorted under reproductive rights on January 18, 2009

I love Planned Parenthood In honor of it being National Sanctity of Human Life Day and all, I thought I would share some information about why human life is indeed important and must be protected at all costs–The lives of men and women who are already living their lives, that is.

It is said that people are threatened by what they do not know and do not understand. Not only are people threatened, but they have a tendency to completely turn against something due to the fact that they have never been put in a situation where they could look at something objectively after seeing it from the inside. I am willing to bet that people who protest Planned Parenthood clinics across the country or have made comments about Planned Parenthood “killing babies” have never received health care of any kind from a Planned Parenthood clinic; not only that, but I also doubt that they have set foot inside of a clinic and seen first hand the work that these people do.

About a handful of years ago, a man I was dating was convinced that very little good came from Planned Parenthood–Until he accompanied me for my annual exam and birth control pickup. As we walked outside afterward he told me that he could not believe the expressions on the faces of girls who walked into the clinic. You could tell just by looking at these people that they were scared and perhaps had no one else to seek comfort in or talk to; but Planned Parenthood was there, not only to give them the health care that they needed at the time, but to listen and comfort these girls at perhaps the most terrifying time in their lives.

Planned Parenthood is more than just a place to receive quality health care (and at a lower price than you would pay your typical family doctor,) it is a clinic made up of people who believe in women, plain and simple. Planned Parenthood and its supporters believe that every person has the ability and should be given the right to make their own informed decisions about their lives and their bodies.

Planned Parenthood is not simply an abortion clinic, many of these clinics do not even perform abortion services. For those who have protested or participated in activist efforts to convince the general public that the work Planned Parenthood does is bad or immoral by any means, these clinics are so much more than just standing up for choice. Planned Parenthood provides annual breast and cervical exams that save lives. They also provide education to teens about comprehensive safe sex which also has the capacity to save lives, saving many teens from sexually transmitted diseases and infections that could potentially put their lives in danger. They also provide birth control and emergency contraception services which reduces the number of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies and thus reducing the number of abortions performed.

It is easy to hold Planned Parenthood accountable for the amount of abortions performed every year, but when you see the work that they do first hand and the heart that it takes to work at a Planned Parenthood clinic and provide education and services that are keeping people in this country safe and healthy, you must reassess your mindset.



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  • Laura
    So, Holly, what do you say to those of us who have been inside a Planned Parenthood...who know the facts...who were refused ultrasounds of our unborn babies and were told that they were a blob of tissue? That is what happened to me! I had an abortion...I have nightmares about crying babies, I have flashbacks of the day that my baby died at the hands of so-called health care workers!!!! You are wrong! Once pregnancy is achieved...you have a second person to think about, not just yourself and your body! Think of this, you could have been aborted! I am offended!!!!!!!!!! How hopeless you must think we are if you think that the only answer is to have back-alley abortions if abortion were ever illegal!!! What about keeping your legs closed until marriage? What about valuing your body enough to know that you are worth being waited for, or is that something that no one ever thinks of? I don't believe in any form of contraception...life is beautiful!!!

    Oh, yeah, and Mr. Bush was an awesome president...those of us who defend the culture of life believe in him.
  • I have been inside of a Planned Parenthood clinic. In fact, it is because of Planned Parenthood that I have not found myself in the position where I needed to have an abortion. I have been inside of Planned Parenthood so who are you to assume that I boast about them and their health care (that have kept males and females safe in this country who could not otherwise afford any type of health care) without having been in one of their clinics?

    Now, on to the vast amount of contradictory statements here... It is understandable that you do not believe in any form of contraception, hence why you found yourself in the position of needing an abortion. Now, perhaps if you had visited a Planned Parenthood clinic before needing an abortion, you could have been educated about the forms of birth control on the market that you could use and since you went to Planned Parenthood, they could have given you birth control at little to no cost, since they are there for all people who need them regardless of class or financial stability. Now, on your statement about "keeping your legs closed until marriage." That is offensive, not just to me but to any person who doesn't believe in marriage or doesn't believe in abstaining from sex in the first place. The bulk of abortions performed are performed for women who are already mothers. Other cases include when contraception fails because contraception, whether it's the pill or condoms, are not 100%, there is a chance you could begin pregnant even when protecting yourself. To simply say that women should "keep their legs closed" is hateful, sexist and disgustingly discriminatory. Women who protect themselves by using oral contraception and condoms do and are actively valuing their bodies and their lives.

    If abortion were illegal, the number of deaths among women would rise dramatically and that is not just my silly feminist approximation, that is a fact. It is more important, to me at least, to focus on keeping the people in this world healthy and alive because as you stated, life is beautiful, than a fetus who has not yet taken its first breath and therefore, by law, is not given personable rights. Again, fact.
  • As someone who found it incredibly difficult to have children, and was only able to through IVF treatment, I have to say that paradoxically I really support the comments in this post. It's really important that we have the right to choose.
  • Nice article, very informative. Would like to read more post as this from you in the future, added your site to my favourites
  • I have nothing but good things to say about Planned Parent Hood.
    My friend works at one locally here in Atlanta and the greatest thing she claims they offer......Not passing judgment.
    Immediately when you get in there, that's first thing they get out of the way and it automatically allows the individual to be upfront and honest.
  • sidhe
    How true. Planned Parenthood has never given me an abortion but they have provided me with countless breast exams, PAP smears, birth control pills and even treated the pre-cancerous cells on my cervix, there was no other resource available to me as a low-income single woman without insurance (no one outside protesting ever offered to pay for an exam anywhere else, nope, they just assumed I was going in to kill a baby).
  • Having been helped enormously by Planned Parenthood in my younger years, I wholeheartedly agree with you. They are a comprehensive women's health care clinic.

    I love the title of your blog, btw, in addition to your writing.
  • I agree. It's easy to demonize something that we don't understand. It's easy to mischaracterize experiences when we haven't experienced them ourselves, and when we're unable to put ourselves in other people's shoes. It's easy to talk about rights to gun ownership, when your child hasn't been killed in a school shooting. It's easy to talk about gun bans when you've never had to face an armed intruder in your home. And it's easy to demonize Planned Parenthood when a person hasn't actually taken a look at the things it does, and how it helps people when they're most alone, and most in need of support, in confidence and without judgment.
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