Defunding Planned Parenthood would curtail N.J. care

It's business as usual these days at the Planned Parenthood center in Paterson, but if Republicans in Congress succeed in defunding the organization, big change may be coming.

On a recent afternoon, a 22-year-old woman stopped by to pick up birth-control pills. Another, age 20, dropped in to find out about Depo-Provera, the birth-control injection that lasts three months, and other options. Another arrived with her boyfriend, for reasons she did not want to discuss with a reporter.

Thirty patients a day, five days a week, visit the center. They come for family-planning information and supplies; tests for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV; screenings for cervical cancer; and, in some cases, medication that induces an abortion, or a referral to a center that performs one.

The Paterson center's quiet orderliness stands in contrast to the heated rhetoric in Washington about Planned Parenthood. The organization's foes, fighting abortion with the passion that 19th century abolitionists fought slavery, are pushing to end all federal funding for the century-old provider of reproductive health services. And with Republicans in power in the White House and Congress, they see this as their moment.

Read more: http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2017/03/05/defunding-planned-parenthood-would-curtail-nj-care/98005556/