Planned Parenthood Does Not Provide ‘Care.’ Its Defunding Was Long Overdue.

One day, a young woman named Sarah walked through the doors of the pregnancy center I help run and told me she wanted an abortion. 

As we talked, it became clear that while Sarah didn’t truly want to end her pregnancy, she believed it was her only option. She had fought hard to escape a home filled with years of abuse. She had a job, her own apartment, and for the first time, a sense of freedom and stability. To Sarah, having a baby meant she could lose everything she had worked for: her career, her budding romance with the baby’s father, and the first safe home she had ever known. 

When a woman like Sarah walks into a building like ours with the promise of receiving care, the unspoken expectation is that she will leave better or healthier than when she entered. And after hearing of our resources at Aim Women’s Center and having a community of women walk alongside her, love her, and support her, Sarah decided to keep her child—what she truly wanted all along. 

Yet every day, across the county, thousands of women walk into abortion clinics in the name of “health care” in search of similar compassion and healing. Instead, the harsh reality is that these women are broken and battered and returned to the world with irreparable damage. 

In a recent Colorado tragedy, a young woman sadly lost her life in an abortion clinic. She was just 18 years old and suffered severe complications from her second-trimester abortion. Sadly, it was not just her baby’s life that was taken, but hers as well, all in the name of “health care.” 

In Illinois, a woman is suing an abortionist for the botched procedure she received that left her fighting for her life in an emergency room. Her unborn child, the aborted fetus, was left in her womb, which caused severe health complications. The woman, known simply as Jane Doe, now suffers a lifetime of trauma, with severe mental and physical challenges ahead. What’s more, she will likely never be able to have children in the future. 

Sadly, tragedies like these are nothing new. Even The New York Times recently called out the mistreatment and horrendous conditions that occur inside abortion clinics, namely Planned Parenthood. As the headline read: ”Botched care and tired staff, planned parenthood in crisis.”  The story was told of another woman, this time in New York, who had an abortion at eight weeks pregnant. Just like Jane Doe in Illinois, it wasn’t until the woman was sent to the emergency room with severe complications and bleeding that she learned the horrific truth: Her baby was still in her womb. Twelve weeks later, the woman went into labor and delivered the baby, who later died. 

In my work as the executive director at Aim Women’s Center, I hear stories of trauma and suffering like this from women all too often. Even the ones that never follow through with an abortion still struggle with the shame and judgment they experienced when walking into an abortion clinic. They are never met with open arms and compassion, and their worries and fears are never addressed. Instead, they are only offered an abortion as a “solution” to their “problems.” 

My heart breaks for the hundreds of women like them. Not only do they lose a child, but they lose a part of themselves in the process. Thankfully, centers do exist to offer women true quality care, medical resources, and loving support. When women walk into my center, no matter their background or situation, they are greeted with compassion and understanding. They are given free ultrasounds, which for many is the first beautiful moment when they can hear their baby’s heartbeat. 

We offer pregnancy tests, STI testing and treatment, options counseling, sonograms, abortion pill reversal, healthy pregnancy classes with a registered labor and delivery nurse, and doula classes. 

More importantly, our center and centers like mine are giving women the resources to address the very reason they are considering an abortion to begin with. For those who don’t want to bring a child into an abusive marriage, we help with counseling and domestic violence protection. For those who worry about the financial burdens of another mouth to feed, we offer monetary resources, job training, and assistance, as well as food, clothing, and supplies. On top of our exemplary medical care, we are working to care for the woman as well because we want her to leave better than she came. Happy, whole, supported, loved, financially independent, with a roof over her head, and her beautiful baby by her side. 

That is the difference between pregnancy resource centers and Planned Parenthood. Each woman will always leave better than when she came into our doors. You can’t call abortion clinics ”health care” when all they do is harm vulnerable women and their precious children. 

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