4 Things About Planned Parenthood That Your Facebook Friends Keep Ignoring

It’s true. Nothing shows your ignorant Facebook friend’s true colors better than a national (or international) tragedy. You go through this every time. An unarmed black teenager is shot, Facebook friend says he deserved it because he was probably a thug, unfriend. A public place full of innocent civilians is shot up and another Facebook friend wants to make statuses arguing how the gunman was misunderstood and doesn’t deserve to be called a terrorist or a bad person, unfriend. #AllLivesMatter posts, ‘nuff said, unfriend.

I’ll admit, I haven’t had to go through the Facebook purge of friends who share different opinions (or who state completely false “facts”) because I did a serious purge of people from my small hometown in Indiana as soon as I dutty wined across my high school graduation stage (I’m kidding, I can’t dance, but I did do a serious Facebook purge).

But then I went to college and added an entirely new batch of people with views different from my own. While I have let a few go here and there, I always promised myself I’d message them first and try to have an open and frank conversation about why they feel the way they feel before I just delete them passive aggressively. This is because a lot of the time, when you have a conversation one on one instead of attacking publicly, you get to root of a person’s beliefs a lot faster than you would leaving snarky comments on their posts that you clearly disagree with. I’ll admit, I’ve let a few rude comments slip through the cracks, but for the most part, this new method of communicating with love (or at least respect) first has worked a lot better for me.

It wasn’t until the Colorado Shooting at Planned Parenthood that I felt like there was so much ignorance on my Facebook newsfeed, that I had to do a purge. But, I took a few deep breathes, turned off Adele’s new album (which may or may not have had something to do with the way I was feeling) and decided to create the list below instead.

From what I’ve seen on social media, a lot of people who aren’t standing with Planned Parenthood are doing so for three reasons: 1) they consider themselves a Christian, 2) Planned Parenthood only performs abortions for mothers “too lazy” (seriously someone said that) to take care of their child to be and 3) because supporting Planned Parenthood means supporting “that feminist bullshit.” Got it.

So apparently because I do stand with Planned Parenthood I am not a Christian (false), I’ve probably had an abortion (false) and as a feminist I spew “feminist bullshit” all day long (okay I talk about feminism A LOT, but none of it is bullshit to me).

Instead of messaging these slew of people one by one, I figured this would be more effective and possibly reach even more people. I want to start by saying that everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how much I agree or disagree with it. However, I also believe that there are few things worse than a completely uneducated opinion. So let me help some of you out:

1. The shooting in Colorado Springs is not the only act of violence Planned Parenthood workers and patrons have experienced. One woman shared her experiences of working at Planned Parenthood in Kansas and they are disturbing. While some choose to just write statuses on Facebook and share right wing articles or bible versus, others are taking their hate and lack of knowledge to a new level by attacking Planned Parenthood centers and harming innocent people.

2. Only three percent of Planned Parents services include abortions, however, it is unclear how much revenue abortions bring in for the clinics. I understand why those who do not stand with Planned Parenthood are upset by this statistic, but it is a fact. While we don’t know how much revenue Planned Parenthood gets from abortions, we can’t assume workers are walking up to pregnant women on the street urging them to get an abortion just to make money.

3. Being pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. Pro-choice is the belief that it is the woman’s right, not the man’s nor the government’s, or the family’s, right to choose what happens to an unborn child. Pro-choice includes the right for a woman to put her baby up for adoption and also the right for her to change her mind on said adoption and keep the baby before it is born.

4. Lastly, just because your cousin’s boyfriend’s ex step mom had an abortion and regretted it does not mean that 1) every woman having an abortion will regret it and 2) that you even have the right to share that story with 1,000 of your ~closest~ Facebook friends. It’s rude, none of their business and truly none of yours either.

So there you have it. To my Facebook friends and others out there who may disagree with every line of this, I just have one thing left to say to you: knowledge is power and reading is fundamental.