Planned Parenthood Readies Fight As Congress Plans Ban On Free Birth Control & Gyno Exams

AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

Planned Parenthood is gearing up for the biggest battle its ever had to fight now that Donald Trump is in the White House. Just days after the inauguration, Congress is moving forward with proposals that could seriously limit access to birth control and vital exams for young girls and guys across the nation — just like you, HollywoodLifers!

With President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in the White House, Republican representatives of Congress are wasting no time pushing forward anti-choice bills, like HR-7, which allows insurance companies to not cover abortions, and the Global Gag Rule, which bans funding to international organizations that perform abortions. Planned Parenthood has always had to fight against politicians calling for their defunding, but with the new administration in place, the organization is calling for all the help they can get to defend its women’s health resources:

“It’s real, folks. Extremists in Congress are gearing up to block millions of patients from accessing birth control, cancer screenings, and other care at Planned Parenthood, hitting low-income folks and people of color the hardest,” reads a statement on the organization’s website. “We’ve faced threats before, but nothing even remotely this serious. THIS WILL HAPPEN if we don’t get an unprecedented number of people to speak up loudly, over and over. The truth is that it may happen even if we do, but make no mistake: we CAN make our voices so loud that Congress has to listen.”

So how can you help? Planned Parenthood released a handy emergency guide for how its supporters can become Defenders — “a member of a core group of supporters who have raised their hands and said they’ll give their time to amplify this movement when it’s most needed.” There’s so much to be done, but each task is fairly simple.

The Senate only needs 51 votes to defund PP, so at this time there’s half on our side. But better safe than sorry; call and write your state’s senators, whether they support Planned Parenthood or not! It’s important to make noise, especially right now. When they hear how vocal their constituents are, it may persuade them to vote in PP’s favor!

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It’s also helpful to stay organized by either attending or hosting a meeting. It could just be a small group of friends, or a public group coming together to discuss your course of action: writing letters, holding protests — whatever you want to do! If you have the money to spare, you may also consider donating to Planned Parenthood.

HollywoodLifers, tell us your thoughts in the comments.