Taught from the high-chair to disdain Planned Parenthood and the women who seek help there, many Evangelical women nonetheless many times find themselves in positions that warrant making use of the services they provide.
Whether they lack the resources to see a doctor, or wish to conceal their activities from parents by not using their health insurance, they take their concerns (probably in near the same numbers as their more secular friends) to the people who will not foist judgement or exorbitant bills upon them, Planned Parenthood.
The Secret Evangelicals at Planned Parenthood tells the story of just some of them and highlights how many will be affected, even blissfully ignorant parents, if the fools in the GOP have their way and cripple or kill PP.
“Voices from the religious right have long been some of the loudest and most vitriolic critics of Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides reproductive health services to an estimated 2.5 million women and men in the United States each year. They've called Planned Parenthood a baby-killing factory and a bastion of evil. Evangelical Christians are the most visible aggressor in the fight to overturn Roe v Wade. And this is a social group with hefty political sway: 25 percent of Americans identify as evangelical according to the Pew Research Center, and 82 percent of those evangelicals identify as politically conservative or moderate.
"When I walked in there, I was so embarrassed," Elizabeth says of her first reluctant visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic. "These were all people getting free services to possibly kill their child. They were a stereotype, to me. But I was out of resources." The only place Elizabeth could think to turn was the one place she'd been taught forever to avoid.
There are many more women like her, all around the country. Women who grew up in conservative Christian environments that push abstinence-only education, unwavering anti-abortion attitudes, and adherence to the Republican party line—and who, out of necessity, are secretly visiting Planned Parenthood clinics for pap smears, birth control, STD tests, and other reproductive health services, including abortions.”
It is a harrowing read and cautionary tale of what could happen if women are cut off from services for health concerns in parts of their bodies that their parents taught them not to think or talk about, arising from sexual activity or any number of other less stigma producing, but equally terrifying, reasons.