Why Can’t Women Have Access to Healthcare?

Why are politicians fighting to gut adequate reproductive healthcare for women? Frankly, the fact that it’s even on the table is inhumane. There should be no reason why women have to fight to gain access to health clinics or reproductive care. Are we back in the 1800’s, where a woman’s role was to serve her husband and not herself? Removing a woman’s right to control her body is irrational. Unfortunately, that is what politicians who dissent abortion are making it seem like.

For the past few years, the Trump Administration and several right-wing politicians have been attempting to cut funding to certain healthcare facilities, such as Planned Parenthood, in order to put an end to Title X. Putting an end Title X removes funds that would leave millions of women without access to affordable preventative reproductive care, wellness exams, lifesaving cervical and breast cancer screenings, birth control, STD testing, and numerous amounts of necessary care that have aided women for years. Facilities would have to jump through difficult hoops in order to obtain the moneys required for these services. They would not be able to fund pregnancy termination and contraception. It also removes the requirement of healthcare providers to explain a woman’s options regarding pregnancy, including adoption, termination, or prenatal care. This is extremely dangerous for people who are able to carry a child, as they will not have the knowledge of what to do if an unwanted pregnancy happens.

The Trump Administration has quietly removed grants that funded teen pregnancy prevention programs, pushing an abstinence-only agenda. Removing sex education programs is completely hypocritical to what abortion-dissenting politicians want. It’s widely known through research that teaching abstinence-only education not only helps teen pregnancy rates heighten and STD levels rise, but it increases the risk of illegal, dangerous abortions. Most teenagers engage in sexual activity before marriage, therefore making it more efficient to teach logical sexual education that gives them the tools and knowledge to keep these interactions safe.

If people want to push their personal ideologies onto other people, there’s nothing that can be done to stop it. Everyone is allowed to have opinions differing from others. However, politicians are here to serve the public. They should work in order to make where they live a place where everyone is safe. Removing programs that educate, protect, and serve women completely disregard that safety. There is nothing logical about what the Trump Administration and certain politicians are doing. If they want to keep America safe and protected, women need services to efficiently protect their health. It’s as simple as that. Everyone needs to speak up about this. A halt needs to be placed on what the president is doing before it’s too late, and before women everywhere suffer.