In 1997, I began working at a Boston Planned Parenthood clinic as a young, idealistic college student who strongly believed in what I had been told about the organization, that I would be helping other young women access safe and affordable health care.
But I quickly came to learn that the message Planned Parenthood advertised did not reflect reality. I was disillusioned by the betrayal that was perpetrated against patients and the public alike.
My time there was not spent providing prenatal care to pregnant women, providing counseling or basic health care services or educating women about reproductive health.
Instead, I spent my days urging women to terminate their pregnancies. My superiors constantly reminded me of our abortion-centered business model: abortions first, everything else came second...
Planned Parenthood's mission is to pressure as many women into having an abortion as it can. Those in charge know that can't be accomplished if they refer to the child as a "baby."
Then women would know what was really growing inside them: a little person with a beating heart, functioning nervous system, tiny hands and feet. The child is entirely disregarded. There is no counseling, no care, no waiting and no discussion. Once a pregnancy is confirmed, it is off to termination.
Planned Parenthood takes specific advantage of women who are too young or misinformed to know better than to trust them with their well-being. Those who know the truth have a duty to speak out.
Do not be fooled by their sound bites and statistical manipulations. Planned Parenthood is not "pro-women," as it claims to be. It is pro-abortion. It does not stand for women. It stands for ending our pregnancies. Women are treated as commodities, not as human beings.
We must shed light on what Planned Parenthood actually does. It spends millions of dollars each year to ensure that the American taxpayer will continue subsidizing its abortion services.
Last year, Planned Parenthood's efforts bought in a record $363 million in government funding. It generates so much by making false claims about how public funding reduces the number of abortions.
But the numbers tell a different story. From 2000 to 2009, Planned Parenthood saw an 80 percent increase in taxpayer funding and a 69 percent increase in the number of abortions it performed.
Women deserve better.
