Opinion: Republicans in Congress are ignoring crucial aspects of Planned Parenthood

This past week the U.S. House of Representatives voted to defund Planned Parenthood. That is a win for anti-abortion groups, right? Not really. What people do not seem to understand in 2015 is Planned Parenthood does more clinical medical work than it does abortions.The most recent statistics recorded show that the organization’s work is mostly attributed to STD screenings and contraceptive services; only three percent of the organization's work is abortions. The government did not pay for the three-percent of their work that was abortion related. So anyone who feels the government has cut abortion spending, they have mistaken themselves. However, they have cut funding that goes to cancer screenings. I really hope Congress is proud.There are 2,840,000 individuals for whom the program provides services. Of those individuals, some of them are men, as the program performs various STD screenings. Seventy-nine percent of patients served by Planned Parenthood are at or below the federal poverty level. So Congress is targeting health care once more.I am not rallying for abortion here, let me get that straight. I am just saying this organization is being targeted because of one thing they do. Taxpayer dollars do not fund abortions. Hold the phone America. Not every individual walks into Planned Parenthood and gets an abortion. Actually, an estimated 260,000 abortions have been avoided thanks to the organization.I am very interested to know why cutting funding to Planned Parenthood was a hot topic for Congress when there are more important issues to be working on. This, in reality, is a political stunt by Republicans before election season. They are trying to steal votes by not educating Americans on what they are truly cutting. The sad thing about this incident is individuals who are uneducated about what Planned Parenthood truly does will fall into the trap that House Republicans cut funding to abortion.The public feels Republicans in Congress have made a major move in preventing abortion. When in reality, they are attacking issues they are educated on but ignore the fact funding does not go to abortion. I wonder how many of them read the legislation they were passing or if they just scrolled through the terms of agreement like the new Apple update.Republicans are attempting to cut funds to the healthcare of 2,840,000 individuals who are mostly poor. Maybe one day, class warfare will be eliminated from the dictionary. Until then, these are our social and medical realities. People need to do their research on what an organization truly does before they tear down their walls.