TO THE EDITOR:
This is in response to Christina Geradts’ letter “Planned Parenthood stats skewed and misleading” (Apr. 19). The facts you use contradict your argument and, basically, you imply women are not capable of making decisions.
You reported that 54 percent of all women who have an abortion used a form of contraception when they got pregnant. Great! Doesn’t that mean they wanted to prevent pregnancy, and that they didn’t want an abortion? Please explain how this means Planned Parenthood is the devil.
The next argument you make is that Planned Parenthood only does breast exams, not mammograms, and that any nurse can perform these anywhere.
So, even though an average of 1 in 8 women in the U.S. will develop invasive breast cancer, we should limit the availability of having these exams? Maybe if Planned Parenthood had more money they could provide mammograms.
You say, “empower women with information and ensure that impulses instigated by fear, uncertainty and perhaps even force don’t result in a traumatic experience.” Information they couldn’t possibly already have, because, you know, we’re women. We get abortions on a whim. And c’mon, women always want babies — sometimes they just don’t know. Impulses instigated by force? What if they were forced into sex? That is the traumatic experience.
Planned Parenthood educates and provides resources for its patients. It’s not an abandoned warehouse that brainwashes women into abortions. Please don’t put women’s health on the backburner where it has always been.
Madelyn Cory
Junior
