Dear Speaker Ryan, Prove to me you’re pro-life

Dear Speaker Ryan,

I’m writing because, due to overwhelming national support for Planned Parenthood, it’s a challenge reaching you at your office right now. I’ll keep calling 608–752–4050 until I get through. What I have to say is too important to wait, so…

I need to hear that my life matters to you. Defunding Planned Parenthood — and other preventative care through programs like Title X — tells me that you would be fine if I were currently dying of cervical cancer.

As you’re well aware, Planned Parenthood is not the primary provider of abortion care in this country. Independent abortion providers are the source of 60–80% of abortion care any given year. Planned Parenthood does, however, see 1 in 5 low-income women, transgender individuals who cannot safely seek care in a primary care setting, young people, rural residents, and others who have nowhere else to turn for STI screenings, contraception, cancer screenings, pregnancy testing, and referrals to local/state programs for prenatal and other care.

Also, as you know, federal funding is already prohibited from going to abortion care thanks to the 40-year-old Hyde Amendment.

Moving to defund Planned Parenthood is a move to defund preventative care. Without the Maryland Planned Parenthood where I received my IUD (#ThanksObama), I would have struggled to deal with migraines and debilitating cramps. I also would not have caught the first indication that I was facing a ticking time bomb: precancerous cells detected during my January 2013 papsmear.

I moved to New York shortly after and thanks to the Affordable Care Act was able to see a specialist OB/gyn for two additional procedures. And following my move to San Diego, it was Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest where I received my follow-up care and, eventually, my first post-procedure normal pap result.

As a low-income person who has had to move because of job opportunities and losses, I would not have been able to access timely and consistent care without Planned Parenthood. Cervical cancer is extremely deadly when not caught early:

Either admit that it’s fine with you that I could be dead already or facing a painful, deadly fight with cervical cancer right now at age 37 or prove that you are, in fact “pro-life” and withdraw your efforts to eliminate the 1/10th of 1% of the federal budget that saves lives every year through preventative care.

My representative Scott Peters (D-CA) has promised to continue his career-long support of Planned Parenthood; I’ve asked him to do so publicly. I’m also asking friends and followers to call their reps through the info at House.gov to implore them to push back on your classist, racist, privileged, elitist attempts to eliminate this important avenue to vital, life-saving care.

Even if 86% of Americans didn’t believe that abortion should be legal and government funded, Planned Parenthood remains more popular than Congress. Rather than attacking, perhaps you should be listening and learning. Or, admit that your pro-life label is a sham.

I told this story in part to Avital Norman Nathman at GrokNation: FEMINISM 101: PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Nine feminists stand with Planned Parenthood — here’s why

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