A big puzzler right now is there are 16 people (at this writing), 15 men and one woman, who are demanding that the federal government stop funding health care to almost three million American women. For most of those three million, it is the only affordable, easily attainable and most important health care they receive.

There are about 700 Planned Parenthood health care facilities, and 20 percent of them are located as the only practical option for women. They provide cancer screening, hormone therapy, pre/post natal care, family planning advice, STD testing and contraceptive, education and general health services.

Because of this organization, unwanted pregnancies and abortions are at the lowest level since 1973. Statistics show sex education and contraception work while abstinence education does not.

Why defund the best tool we have? With 2.8 million Planned Parenthood users at $500 million, that’s only $170 per user. At 10.6 million services per year, it’s actually much less.

If these 16 people, and many more associated with them, don’t get their way, there is a real possibility that they will try to shut down the government. Great idea. The last time they shut it down, it cost the country about $15 billion per week. The funding they want to end is $500 million per year. I’m no mathematician, but I do know addition and subtraction.

Another thing to consider is the cost to those woman and their families if the defunding happens, in money, emotion and medical. And to the rest of America. Also, how many unwanted pregnancies and back-alley abortions would this create?

Community health centers, often with weeks waiting time now, can’t handle the load.  Throw another three million into the mix, and things get nightmarish. 

Why is this possible? Here are two reasons, both based on lies and ignorance. “Sting” videos that are cut and paste, sliced and diced, try to claim the organization is doing things they don’t really do. The videos have been proven to be doctored.

The other is the claim they are abortion factories. Also a lie. Only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s budget is for abortion services and not one dime of federal money, per the Hyde Amendment. At least seven state attorneys generals have investigated Planned Parenthood and found nothing illegal.

The puzzling part of this is that those 16 people all want to be the next president, even of those three million women and their families. What a campaign slogan: Vote for me and I’ll make your life miserable. 

If a person is anti-abortion, they should be pro-Planned Parenthood — an organization that has significantly lowered the need for such a thing.

They said there is no war on women, but it sure seems a lot of American women are in harm’s way. 

Ken Collins

Oak Creek