By Kate Sims

While investigating the questionable practices of Planned Parenthood, a jury in Texas indicted two anti-abortion activists (a Mrs. Merritt and Mr. Daleiden) for tampering with government recordings, and charges related to purchasing human organs on Jan. 25. All acts were for the sake of selling the idea that Planned Parenthood was selling fetuses illegally for profit. Grand juries have cleared Planned Parent of any wrongdoings. The activists were caught with fake California IDs and evidence reveals there were multiple accounts of tampering with footage and records that were released to the public about Planned Parenthood, as reported by CNN. Even after the legislative dust settles, I can’t help but to think of damages beyond the company’s name being slandered. What has it done to the people on the frontline?

Just last year, in late summer and early fall, four similar arsons were committed in Illinois, Louisiana, Washington and California, where Planned Parenthoods were set to flame. The arson in Pullman, Wa. left the building uninhabitable and costing thousands of dollars in damages. Workers had to move to a temporary location to continue operations. Now imagine being a nurse or doctor that had worked there, or an assistant on her first job. The California incident was 28 days after Washington, coinciding with Planned Parenthood’s president telling the Supreme Court that the company hadn’t broken any laws, as told by the Southern Poverty Law Center. These are damages caused by tampered footage, edited to ignite the wrath of protesters across the nation. That fraud destroyed not only the clinic, but hindered jobs and services, and stigmatized the comfortability of being a patient at Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is almost synonymous with abortion, but that is only a small percentage of the work they do. Their primary mission is in reproductive health and sexual education, as seen all over their websites. I remember the first time I walked into one, a junior in highschool. There were so many pamphlets, and the nurses did their best to make an awkward Q&A about my sex life as easy as possible. I remember how helpful everyone was, and it was all about what I was comfortable with. Never had the idea of abortion crossed my mind in that clinic, for I was to focused on how bubbly my doctor was.

This comfort is not corrupted with forced images by extreme activists. Where activism has a strength in changing the world for the better, there are those who abuse the ideology and harm more innocents than they set out to save. I remember, along with the bubbly doctor, when the receptionist asked if I’d sign a petition to keep that clinic from losing their funding, back in 2012. I also remember when I had to withdrawal as a patient because my services jumped from $30 to $230, due to Planned Parenthood losing their funding.

No one ideal can truly trump another, no matter where a person can stand in a fight. It comes down to a single person sticking to their beliefs and not imposing harm to those who don’t share the same belief. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Would you like your neighbor to burn your home down simply because they believed an unverified rumor about you that they didn’t agree with?