Planned Parenthood and Defunding

Teenage Pregnancy in the United States Teenage pregnancy has long been on the public health agenda in the United States. There are a plethora of different perspectives in which this public health issue has been addressed from any many forms of interventions have been designed and implemented. Despite making significant progress on teen sexual activity and teenage pregnancy, there still exists many disparities in access to care across many demographic categories (Brindis, 2006).

Therefore, there are many opportunities for policy makers to support more effective regulations and policies to continue to combat the public health issues related to teenage pregnancy. School-based health clinics can have many advantages over traditional health care delivery methods for many demographic categories. The main advantage is that school-based health clinics can specialize in the individual needs of the adolescents and teenagers while a primary care physician. Other healthcare channels may not have an intimate knowledge of this age group and the specific challenges that they may face.

However, with the school-based clinics, the healthcare providers concentrate and specialize in the specific challenges that these adolescents face while also and providing information about how they can get access to traditional healthcare providers. Given the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the entire health care environment has changed and there are specific policies that have the potential to help with the interventions focused on teenaged pregnancies.

School-based clinics can offer a wide array of different types of care from primary care, mental health care, substance abuse counseling, case management, dental health, nutrition education, health education and sexual health promotion activities; including reproduction education. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more than $14 million was awarded today to 45 school-based health centers across the country allowing the number of children served to increase by nearly 50%, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced (HRSA Press Office, 2011).

Strengthening school-based clinics has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to respond to the unique challenges that face teenagers and can offer preventive, comprehensive, mental, and other sensitive care that has previously whereas there have been previous barriers in place (Brindis & Sanghvi, 1997). However, there are also many policy threats that could also influence teenage pregnancy rates by limiting affordable access to contraception and other reproductive services.

One of the most popular provider of low cost contraception and reproductive services in the United States has historically been Planned Parenthood. Very recently, a video produced from undercover anti-choice advocates has sparked a national controversy and could potentially led to the organization having its funding cut at a Federal level.

Abortion opponents, outraged by a series of hidden-camera videos that depict Planned Parenthood employees discussing fetal tissue donation, have called for Congress to investigate Planned Parenthood and strip the organization of the more than $500 million in federal funding it receives each year (Szabo & Ungar, 2015). If Planned Parenthood has its funding cut, it could have the potential to eliminate millions of low income teenagers access to contraception and to reproductive services. This is not the first attack on Planned Parenthood however. Since the organization also provides abortions,.