My name is Andrea. I live in Pennsylvania, and I … Planned Parenthood is important to me. When I was a college student in the 1980s at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, it was one of the few places that was doing free, anonymous HIV testing.
And I went down there with a group of girlfriends just … it was … the counselors were fantastic in the ways that they provided support; there was so little information and so little knowledge about what was going on, and they really clear things up and and helped us understand the risks and what it meant to engage in safe practices.
Planned Parenthood provides necessary support and women's health and screening for multiple diseases and maladies that provide service to low income women and women who lack insurance. And it is an essential piece of the health care that is provided in this country. It's also the case that Planned Parenthood's distribution of contraceptives actually has contributed to lower rates of abortion in this country Cutting funding to Planned Parenthood is like cutting off a vital part of your body. We can't afford it in this country. Thank you