Why Lambda Legal Is Standing With Planned Parenthood

Lambda Legal signed on to a letter today opposing all efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.

Access to nondiscriminatory, quality health care and reproductive freedom are two core goals of our work at Lambda Legal. We have long fought against efforts to control, limit or condemn the sexual and reproductive choices of LGBT people, same-sex couples and people living with HIV.

In order for LGBT people to have the freedom to choose whether or when to have children, we must have fair and equal access to fertility counseling, reproductive health care (including assisted reproduction services) and adoption.

To protect our health, we also need access to HIV, STI (sexually transmitted infection) and cancer screening and treatment in a setting that is affordable, confidential and nondiscriminatory.

We stand with Planned Parenthood because it provides affordable and critically needed quality preventive health care and treatment to 2.7 million women, men and young people across the country. Their clinics provide routine examinations, cancer screenings, contraceptive services, abortion, and HIV and other STI testing.

Approximately one in five women in America, including LGBT women, will rely on Planned Parenthood for health care in their lifetimes, and both transgender and cisgender men seek essential health services there as well.

Planned Parenthood has been attacked by a campaign of fraud and distortion. The group behind this fraud has undertaken 10 separate attack campaigns like this over the last eight years. They are linked to violent extremists who attack medical clinics and stalk physicians. Their real agenda now is a massive defunding of Planned Parenthood in order to end access to basic health services, particularly for low-income women.

We stand with Planned Parenthood because of the importance of affordable, nondiscriminatory care for LGBT people and people living with HIV, and also as an ally to all women. We all share a basic civil and human right to health care. Seeking to reduce or eliminate safe and affordable reproductive health care is an assault not only on our well-being, but also on the sexual and reproductive liberty of us all.