As a young adult in the US, health insurance may seem like an impossible target. With policy rates rising, many Americans can’t get the health care they need at a price they can afford.

     Therefore, we need to dedicate more attention to Planned Parenthood clinics that are now at risk of losing funding, which means fewer citizens would have access to their centers.This might be a shock to some, but Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide only abortions. They offer a variety of other services, such as STD testing and treatment, sexual education, family planning, women’s health, and much more.

The organization’s sexual education program includes information on teenage pregnancy and abstinence which has helped prevent approximately 579,000 unintended pregnancies, according to the Planned Parenthood website. This program has also helped prevent 197,00 abortions in a single year. These numbers show that Planned Parenthood helped teenagers avoid making adult decisions, allowing them to be just kids. With 60 million hits on the Planned Parenthood Federation of America website each year, Planned Parenthood helps the number of unintended pregnancies and abortion go down. This means the public becomes more educated on sex related matters such as STDs.

STDs like the topic of sex in our society are often seen as shameful to talk about. We may not talk about it/ignore it, but the problem still exists. According to American Sexual Health Association, more than half of Americans will have an STD/STI at some point in their lifetime and one in four teens contracts an STD. But how can you prevent STDS  or know when you have them?

In 2014, Planned Parenthood provided 4,218,149 STI/STD Testing and Treatments on their patients. This makes up 45% of their services while abortions only are at 3%. However, Planned Parenthood not only provides other screenings such as cancer screenings.

In a perfect world, their sexual education program would work every time…but it doesn’t. This means that they must also have other options. As many know, abortion is one of the options that Planned Parenthood provides, but in 2014 they also made 2,024 adoption referrals as well as providing 17,419 prenatal services.

     No matter how you look at it, Planned Parenthood is not only effective but also offers services to people who wouldn’t be able to access them elsewhere. With almost 10 million services offered just in 2014, almost 10 million people who received much needed health care. Planned Parenthood is a benefit to this country and its people, not a threat to your values.