Indiana Planned Parenthood Offering Gift Vouchers For Health Care, Contraceptive Services

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 02 Dec 2008 - 6:00 PDT

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Planned Parenthood of Indiana recently announced that its network of 35 clinics across the state will be selling holiday vouchers for basic health care services, including the recipient's choice of birth control method, AP/Google.com reports. Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, said that the group decided to offer the vouchers because many people in the state are uninsured and delay seeking needed health care because of costs. According to Cockrum, nearly 800,000 people in Indiana do not have health insurance. Diane Quest, spokesperson for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that the Indiana affiliate is one of a small group of its 99 affiliates that currently offer vouchers or have done so in the past. The vouchers can be purchased online in increments of $25 or for any dollar amount at some Planned Parenthood of Indiana health centers.

Planned Parenthood's annual exams for women -- which include Pap tests and breast exams -- usually cost $58. The vouchers can be used for the exams as well as insurance copayments and medication. In addition, the vouchers can be applied to the cost of an abortion, but spokesperson Kate Shepherd said, "I certainly don't think anyone would consider giving it for that purpose." She added that the group dispenses more than 500,000 units of birth control -- including pills, condoms, diaphragms, spermacides and emergency contraception -- each year.

Indiana Health Commissioner Judy Monroe lauded the program and said it is a "meaningful gift." However, some abortion-rights opponents said that Planned Parenthood is making a "mockery" of the holiday season. "The tragedy is that almost 6,000 fewer children will be celebrating a first Christmas this year because they were aborted in Planned Parenthood's Indiana clinics," Mike Fichter, president and CEO of Indiana Right to Life, said. Sister Diane Carollo, director of the Office for Pro-Life Ministry for the Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, said, "They deserve coal in their stocking, not money for lethal gift certificates." Cockrum said that the vouchers aim to provide access to basic health care. "Birth control is the best way to avoid unintended pregnancy," she said, adding, "Avoiding unintended pregnancy is the best way to reduce abortion" rates (Kusmer, AP/Google.com, 11/28).

Editorial

Planned Parenthood of Indiana's gift voucher program gives girls and women "another means and an economic incentive to choose death rather than to choose life," a Washington Times editorial says. "Planned Parenthood is trying to cast the certificates as benevolent, the usual tactic used to mask their heinous agenda," the editorial states. According to the editorial, Planned Parenthood's "justifications" for the vouchers are "disingenuous" because "[w]omen do not need Planned Parenthood for their basic health care. And the vouchers are not lifesaving, they are political instruments of the pro-choice movement."

The editorial continues, "More importantly, contraception and abortion are not forms of 'health care': They are lifestyle choices with life-altering consequences." It concludes, "Shame on Planned Parenthood for granting death certificates. The organization fails to grasp the meaning of life, let alone the spirit of the holiday season" (Washington Times, 12/1).

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