Prison Clinics – RWNJ’s Idea Of A Replacement For Planned Parenthood

 

The Conservative war on women and Planned Parenthood has waged since 1973 – the day the U.S. Supreme Court made abortion legal as a result of the landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling. More recently, the extreme right wing anti-choice faction of the GOP launched multiple attempts getting a Planned Parenthood defunding bill to pass according to Slate. Some states already defunded the PPFA entirely, leaving Medicaid clients with nowhere to go.

Enter GetYourCare.org. A new website, run by anti-choice extremists, attempts to prove that women, men, and children won’t be harmed if Congress succeeds in gutting Planned Parenthood.

GetYourCare.org is right, sort of. PPFA clients can easily find alternative care without the stigma – so long as they don’t mind going to jail, drug rehab, elementary schools, or mental health and counseling centers for their pap smears, birth control, prostate exams, or pediatric care, according to RH Reality Check.

Seem Delusional? It’s Not…

GetYourCare.org says the clinics it lists offer a “full range of women’s health services without all the scandal of Planned Parenthood.” The Susan B. Anthony List and the Family Research Council are among the 17 groups on the list of backers, all of which range from sane-ish conservative to the truly terrorist-esque extreme. The Family Research Council is so extreme in its homophobic sentiment that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls it a hate group.

The site promises the listed clinics don’t provide abortion services, but whether they do provide abortions or not shouldn’t matter by their own admission.

GetYourCare Helps Planned Parenthood And Birth Control
Screenshot of GetYourCare.org by JC Torpey

In its zeal to make a point, GetYourCare.org made Planned Parenthood’s point for it by saying:

As a matter of federal law, no federal funds can be used for abortion. So whether or not they perform abortions is not relevant to whether women can receive quality comprehensive health care at the alternate centers on this map.”

According to the Daily Signal, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior counsel, Casey Mattox, said the money can instead fund the thousands of community health centers. It’s good to have choices when searching for quality health care and birth control – especially if Congress somehow succeeds in killing off the Planned Parenthood.

Why Is Defunding Planned Parenthood A Problem?

GetYourCare.org’s list doesn’t offer true alternatives to Planned Parenthood, as one for RH Reality Check reporter who “called hundreds of clinics,” and 60 schools found out. She asked for a breast screening.

When the reporter called the Correctional Treatment Facility –a clinic for prisoners – in Washington D.C., she received this response:

“‘This is a jail,’ the receptionist said. The reporter asked whether people from the community could nonetheless make appointments at the facility for a breast exam, a Pap smear, or a test for sexually transmitted infections. ‘Ma’am, this is a jail,’ she said again, before suggesting that the reporter contact doctors’ offices nearby.”

Of the other “clinics” available on the GetYourCare.org list, they include:

“…hundreds of elementary, middle, and high schools; clinics that provide care for homeless people; nursing homes; pediatrics centers; and even the D.C. jail.”

Each of the “clinics” was “bewildered,” at finding out their particular establishment would be expected to provide sexual and reproductive health care like birth control – or any care – to the public.

The reporter was able to get care at two schools, but not until 2016.

GetYourCare Map of Clinic in Ambler
Screenshot of GetYourCare.org map of Ambler, PA, by JC Torpey

The Extent of GetYourCare.org’s Delusion

At least half of the listed clinics, such as mental health or counseling centers, do not offer medical services or employ medical doctors. Those that do generally don’t serve the public, or only have psychiatrists on staff.

What pregnant woman could, or even wants to, have a baby in a children’s’ ADHD counseling center?

What’s worse is that GetYourCare.org forgot to tell the clinics they’d have to provide “comprehensive health care” to the public, while also forgetting to tell poor and pregnant women and children they’d have to become a drug addict, lose their homes, or get arrested to receive the health care, birth control, or prenatal care they need.


Sure, poor and pregnant women, children, and men could visit one of the many public health centers. However, as this writer found out some time ago, most are so overcrowded and underfunded that they aren’t taking new patients. Those that are can take up to three or more days to see someone, especially if they use a first come-first serve protocol, and close for the day whether everyone’s been seen or not.

GetYourCare.org is just another delusional attack to shame women who excise their right to control their bodies, have sex, or have an abortion, but… Make no mistake. This website is real and the threat against Planned Parenthood is real.