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Write a Letter to the Editor
Defunding
Planned Parenthood
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Tips on successful letter to the editor writing:
1. Keep it short! Letters under 200 words are more likely to get printed. Some papers have specific length requirements.
2. Write about one subject at a time. Pick your most important point and make it the focus of your whole letter.
3. Be clear about your reason for writing. Reference any legislation or any article you are responding to in the first couple sentences.
4. It doesn't have to be perfect. Writing ten good letters a year beats crafting that one perfect letter that might not get published.
5. Use your own words...or ours. The best letters come from the heart in the author's own words. However, not everyone knows what to say. Feel free to use our talking points in your letter.
6. Have a freind read your letter for errorrs before subbmitting. ;-)
Talking points on legislative efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.
The Planned Parenthood defunding bills seek to re-prioritize the federal family planning dollars distributed through the state, re-directing dollars to health departments first and family planning providers last. Planned Parenthood will only be eligible for funding if there are dollars available after all other providers have been funded.
- This proposal is drafted in such a way that their primary target for defunding is Planned Parenthood and other family planning providers. The sponsors of the initial defunding bills have made their intentions very clear. In a letter to prospective co-sponsors, Senator Jordan wrote: “I will soon be introducing legislation which will defund entities that perform abortions or maintain or operate a facility where abortions are performed. Planned Parenthood in Ohio serves as a prime example of such an entity.”
- House Bill 298 and Senate Bill 201 could dramatically reduce access to a wide range of preventive health care for thousands of Ohioans.
- If enacted, family planning providers would be last in line to apply for Title X family planning funds.
- Additional language inserted in House Bill 487 (the Mid-Biennium Review of the Ohio budget) could be amended into HB 298 or SB 201. Under this language, Planned Parenthood would be ineligible to receive Title V family planning funds, funding under the Violence Against Women Act, the Breast and Cervical Cancer Mortality Prevention Act, the Infertility Prevention Project and the Minority HIV/ADS Initiative.
A February 23, 2012 poll of registered voters found a lack of support for defunding Planned Parenthood. "By a 55 - 22 percent margin, voters have a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood and oppose 60 - 31 percent cutting federal funding to the group. When respondents who supported cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood are asked if they would support the cut if they knew the money was going only for non-abortion health issues such as breast cancer screening, only 12 percent of all registered voters support cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood."
- The intent of these bills is clear - punish Planned Parenthood for providing legal reproductive health care. This would all be at the expense of our nearly 100,000 patients.
- For nearly 80 years, Planned Parenthood has been a trusted health care provider in Ohio. Our history means that we have the experience and the infrastructure in place to provide high-quality services to high-need patients at a lower cost than other providers.
- More than 90% of what we do is to provide essential lifesaving cancer screenings, breast exams, birth control, sex education, and counseling to Ohio women and families, regardless of one’s ability to pay.
- In these difficult economic times, families need more access to affordable health care, not less.
- Planned Parenthood works every day to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and keep Ohio women healthy.
- This is an attempt to take health care access away from women at a time when they need it most.
- Planned Parenthood actually saves taxpayers money because the vast majority of health care services provided are preventive. For example, the cost of preventing an unintended pregnancy with birth control is cheaper than the public assistance costs for supporting an unplanned child born to a low-income woman. In Ohio, for every dollar spent on family planning, $4.70 is saved in averted Medicaid birth costs.
Planned Parenthood works every day to keep women healthy.
- In fact, one in five women in America has turned to one of Planned Parenthood’s nonprofit health centers for professional, nonjudgmental and confidential care at some point in her life.
- Planned Parenthood’s nonprofit health centers in Ohio women with life-saving cancer screenings, birth control, prevention and treatment of STDs, breast health services, pap tests, sexual health education and health information at 32 health centers throughout Ohio.
- Women who come to Planned Parenthood aren’t making a political statement, they are coming to get health care they need.
- That’s why women throughout the state have been speaking up to preserve their right to access health care at the provider they know and trust.
Published letters to the editor about defunding Planned Parenthood.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
As a current student at Kent State and a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood, I am outraged by the recent allegations made by the Ohio Right to life advocate testifying on HB 497, which now includes a provision to defund family planning centers such as Planned Parenthood. An Ohio right to life advocate recently made the statement “We know why there are places like Planned Parenthood in Kent.” I find this statement absurd and highly impertinent, especially to college students like myself.
As a young college woman, I’ve realized many people try to misrepresent young women in college by insinuating that they are being promiscuous by using Planned Parenthood’s services. While students are away at college many are without their regular health-care provider. The Kent Planned Parenthood health center does not offer abortions and I find it sad that Ohio right to life advocates are implying incorrect information when students are using the health center for basic preventative healthcare needs.
I want to acknowledge and thank state Rep. Kathleen Clyde for standing up for women’s health. I plan to continue to stress that 96 percent of Planned Parenthood services in Ohio are preventive: lifesaving cancer screenings, birth control, prevention and treatment of STDs, breast health services, Pap test, sexual health education, and information.
One in five women visits a Planned Parenthood health center during her lifetime because she trusts the quality, professionalism, and confidential care that she will receive.
Ashleigh Snodgrass
Akron
Friday April 20, 2012
In light of the push to defund Planned Parenthood in Ohio ( Dispatch article, Wednesday), I’d like to share my story. At 18 years old, I began suffering severe pelvic and abdominal pain. I spent months going from doctor to doctor, was repeatedly treated like a dumb kid and left each visit with new fears, but no answers.
Then I went to Planned Parenthood. They laid out options, answered questions and listened to my concerns. A caring nurse practitioner told me she thought I had endometriosis, a common but little-understood disease that affects 5.5 million U.S. women. She connected me with a respectful, competent surgeon who removed the excess endometrial growth in my pelvis. I got better.
Endometriosis is a leading cause of infertility. Because of the treatment I received through Planned Parenthood and their affiliates, I am expecting a baby girl this summer.
When Rep. Ron Amstutz, R-Wooster, and his fellow Republicans try to defund Planned Parenthood, they aren’t thinking about women like me. When the Right to Life folks call Planned Parenthood an abortion mill, they are not being truthful.
Planned Parenthood saved me from crippling pain. They showed me that there are health-care professionals who care.
And they might have saved my daughter's life, before she was even thought of, by providing me with prompt, excellent, professional and affordable reproductive health care.
Across our state, there are women who feel as scared and helpless as I did 12 years ago.
We need Planned Parenthood.
Libby Bruce
Columbus
March 13, 2012
I am the lone protester standing in support for Planned Parenthood. I have been spit on by children and screamed at by old men who call me a murderer. The religious anti-choice conservatives at that corner want to know how many abortions I have had and if I understand how godless I am. I have witnessed anti-choice supporters harass women as they enter Planned Parenthood.
When you drive by that corner and see protesters with their “Defund Planned Parenthood” signs, remember this: Religion is only part of this fight. This is, first and foremost, a political struggle.
Ending a women’s right to choice is part of their agenda. They want to end access to contraception, breast exams, pap smears, STD testing and affordable health care. By closing Planned Parenthood, they risk the health of Stark Country’s most vulnerable young men and women. Anti-choice protesters offer no viable alternative to the care that Planned Parenthood provides. Family planning education is essential in reducing the number of abortions nationwide.
I am 53 years old. My generation owes our health to Planned Parenthood and the professionals who respectfully provided these most basic health services. At 53, I cannot watch women walk that gauntlet from their cars to Planned Parenthood while being taunted by “religious” folks and not feel profoundly ashamed.
I have learned much on that corner at Planned Parenthood. Women tell me an exam at Planned Parenthood caught their cancer early or that Planned Parenthood was there when they had no options.
If there is a certainty revealed from my time on that corner, it is this: The work done inside that Planned Parenthood clinic is Christian work. This fight on the corner is worth having, and now, it belongs to the young people of Stark County.
Kim Robertson
North Canton
March 8, 2012
In House Bill 128 and Senate Bill 201, state legislators are seeking to defund family planning services such as Planned Parenthood centers. Planned Parenthood has been a trusted health-care provider in Ohio for roughly 80 years. It offers a wide variety of health services at affordable costs, which in today’s society is a primary concern for many.
Planned Parenthood provides lifesaving cancer screenings, birth control, breast exams, sex education and health counseling to a vast amount of women and families regardless one’s capability to pay.
The legislators are not taking many individual’s financial concerns into consideration. If this bill is passed, many Ohioans will be left to fend for themselves in finding an affordable health-care provider. Defunding would ultimately cause many individuals to go without health care, which then could lead to unintended pregnancies, cancer and sexually transmitted diseases.
Another concern legislators are not taking into consideration is the concept that Planned Parenthood actually saves taxpayers money. It saves money because the large majority of health-care services provided are preventive. For instance, the cost of preventing an unintended pregnancy is significantly cheaper than the government assisting economically vulnerable mothers.
Ashleigh Snodgrass
Akron
December 28, 2011
Your Dec. 17 editorial "Retro thinking" got it right.
Many news media seek to crucify Planned Parenthood by quoting right-wing politicians who distort the truth while pandering to people who have no idea what Planned Parenthood actually does.
You accurately state that no federal funds can ever be used for abortions by any Planned Parenthood affiliate. The Northwest Ohio affiliate has never done abortions.
Planned Parenthood provides high-quality, low-cost -- or free -- reproductive services to women. It distributes information about family planning, along with contraception medications and devices.
For many poor women, this is the only annual health exam they receive.
Lee Hakel
Bowling Green
