Stephanie's Reflection

I can honestly say that ever since I was a teenager I have been a supporter of Planned Parenthood. My reasons behind this stem from knowing what it is like not to have health insurance but having a personal health issue that needed to be treated almost right away. If I did not have the resources available to meet with this doctor then it would have turned into a serious problem. So, to learn about the funding for places like this being cut by MEN, who have never had to worry about cervical cysts or mammograms ,really upsets me.  I never thought that one day I would be advocating for an agency that does so much for women (and men) in the lower social class of society because of funding cuts.  I also never thought that I would be the one saying everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but be sure to look at the facts first; don’t just listen to the government officials or the religious views.

In fact,  from doing this project I wonder how people can go about making laws, cutting funding, and bring about change, when they don’t even have (or care) about the facts.  It is interesting to see how easy it is for the government to just cut the funding for places the can have controversial services, like Planned Parenthood, but overall are doing something really good for the lower class.

In many ways Planned Parenthoods most recent funding cut out in Texas sums up what I have learned from this project, and how harmful it really is to cut Planned Parenthoods funding. “Texas Governor Rick Perry moved to effectively sabotage the state's entire Medicaid Women's Health Program, which provides 130,000 low-income women with basic reproductive health care services. This comes on the heels of devastating cuts to women's health funding across the board — cuts already expected to leave 160,000 women without care this year.  Within days and weeks, even more women — who very often have no other options — will be cut off from health care. Governor Perry and his conservative allies have once again chosen politics over the lives of Texas women. He will never know the reality of the women who rely on these programs. He will never know what it's like for a woman who feels a lump in her breast, but has to worry about the cost of a doctor's visit.”

I also know from doing my service learning project that there really are a lot more people out there who support Planned Parenthood then we would think.  I couldn’t believe how many women said “oh, Planned Parenthood—I love Planned Parenthood.”   I also couldn’t believe the amount of guys who were just as supportive; although not as many of them knew about a whole lot about it.  In some ways, I think I also expected more people to disagree with Planned Parenthood simply because of the reputation it holds, but I was able to see that it actually holds more of a good reputation than a bad one with the younger people (men and women) of this generation. I really enjoyed doing this service learning project because I was taken outside of my comfort zone, as I supported but never once pushed my beliefs upon others. In the end, we were able to get over 60 people to support Planned Parenthood and because of that I was able to walk away from the night grateful I went.

As to adapting this service learning project to the classroom, I do not feel as if this topic would be appropriate for an elementary school classroom. However, Planned Parenthood does have an excellent amount of resources on their website that has links for implementing sex education in the classroom, program evaluation tools, activity and lesson plans, books, curricula and manuals, pamphlets, research papers, videos, and websites.  So, if you need these resources they are available. Also, instead of sex education the class could have a topic that relates to proper health and hygiene.

In the end, I am glad that I chose to become an advocate for Planned Parenthood, and I am grateful that I was able to partake in the service learning project where I was given the advantage of seeing other people’s reaction to the topic.  I know that I cannot use this topic in school, but I am glad that if I ever had to for some reason there are resources available.