As I approached the group huddled together, shivering in the breeze of the first cool day of autumn, I had already formed an opinion of them.

The people were pro-life protesters, praying outside the local Planned Parenthood on East Genesee Street. As someone who feels strongly about giving women a choice, to me, they seemed absurd.

Homemade signs made it laborious to get to the front door without winding through photos of fetuses and newborns. As I advanced, it was impossible not to imagine having to walk by these heart-wrenching images while deciding whether or not terminate your own pregnancy.

It would be sickening.

When I reached them, they were deep in prayer. Not wanting to be disrespectful, I stood to the side and waited. A young man broke away and came over to me. He asked the obvious yet audacious question.

“So, are you pro-life or pro-choice?”

I was hesitant to reply. While this is usually a topic I am quite uncompromising about, I didn’t want to push the protesters away before having a chance to speak to them. Clearly sensing my reluctance to answer, he quickly added, “I only ask because I am pro-choice, but I want to have a conversation with them,” tilting his head toward the group.

This man, Sriharsha Gowtham, is a student at SUNY Upstate Medical University. While walking down East Genesee Street, he happened upon the group and decided he wanted to converse with them.

Gowtham, a vegetarian, harped on the fact that life is “incredibly important” to him. But, he stressed that by criminalizing abortions, he was confident they would only increase in number and become far more dangerous. He referenced India, where feticide is illegal, yet more prominent and more vulgar.

Perhaps Gowtham is correct. According the Washington Post, after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, which legalized abortions across the United States, the legal abortion rate has been on the decline since the ‘80s and hit its all-time low in 2010.

“These protestors,” Gowtham said, “they’re all kind, gentle, respectful people who genuinely care. They’re just ignorant and that’s why I need to have this discussion with them. I need to show them that by supporting abortion they would actually be saving more mothers and babies.”

As the prayers tapered off, both Gowtham and I approached the group. While they forced a number of pamphlets into my arms as we spoke, I realized Gowtham was correct: Not one of them was a hateful individual.

In my head, I had them pegged as an evil clan who craved to take opportunities away from young women and force victims of assault to live with the memories. But, they spoke of god and of life. They persistently repeated that their intentions were simply to show girls that they had other options such as adoption. Even as they spoke of the recently released, controversial videos of Planned Parenthood allegedly selling tissue of the fetuses they aborted, they were not vicious. While I was not sold on the pounds of propaganda they offered me, I never once felt chastised.

One lady, who asked to remain anonymous, divulged that she had a child aborted and it was her most horrific memory. She said that she comes to pray and to hopefully save other young women from making the “mistake” that she did.

Despite perhaps initially being too quick to judge, I remain steadfast in my belief that Planned Parenthood is an organization that does too much good to be shut down. With more than 700 centers nationwide, Planned Parenthood not only offers the option to terminate a pregnancy but also offers STD testing, Pap tests, birth control options and breast exams for those who do not have health insurance.

The services are offered on a sliding fee scale so people can talk to a financial assistance representative at Planned Parenthood and receive healthcare regardless of their financial situation.

While abortions make up a decent amount of Planned Parenthood’s revenue due to its expense, Betty DeFazio, the Planned Parenthood Director of Community Affairs and Public Policy for the Rochester/Syracuse region, said 90 percent of the work Planned Parenthood does is preventative.

“About one in every five women in the U.S. visits a Planned Parenthood in her lifetime,” DeFazio said. “These people know that Planned Parenthood is a trusted provider of reproductive healthcare. We know that for a lot of people this is the only healthcare they will receive all year.”

To me, it seems absurd that anybody would want to take funding away from a program that offers so much more than just abortion services. People who wish to defund them need to take a step back and recognize not only the plethora of other things the organization does but also understand that for many people who choose to have an abortion, it is the most appropriate option.

As Gowtham put it, “It’s impossible to say that I like abortions, because nobody likes abortions, but it’s also impossible for me to not support them. They, and the work Planned Parenthood does, are essential.”

Alex Archambault is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. You can email her at [email protected] or follow her @Alex_And_Raa on Twitter.

Published on October 5, 2015 at 9:37 pm