US women worry about Trump threats against Planned Parenthood

Arizona: When President Donald Trump took office last month heading one of the most vocally anti-abortion administrations in modern US history, it was clear that one of his first targets would be Planned Parenthood.

He has promised to end federal funding for the non-profit health care group with some 650 centers across the United States offering abortions and other health services -- a longtime goal of Republican politicians even though Planned Parenthood says only around three percent of the services it provides are abortion-related.

Shelby Weathers voices a common response to the threat.

"As a woman, I feel almost attacked," the 18-year-old student says at one of the group`s centers in Phoenix, Arizona, where she has access to contraception.
"It`s really discouraging to hear people are trying to take away access to health care."

In a clear sign of the administration`s position, Vice President Mike Pence recently headlined an anti-abortion march in Washington, where he told the gathering that Trump`s election in November proved that "life is winning in America."

Trump himself told the marchers in a tweet that they had his "full support."Samaria has just undergone an abortion at the Phoenix clinic. A single mother of two who opposed abortions for many years, she says she is in an unstable relationship and wasn`t ready for a third child.

"I felt so depressed," she said with tears in her eyes. "You have to say goodbye to someone you don`t even know."

Deanna Wambach -- the head doctor for Planned Parenthood in Arizona -- wears green hospital scrubs as she prepares to examine a patient in a room equipped with a gynecological examination chair and a model representing the female reproductive system.

She`s worried. If the new administration goes through with its promise to defund Planned Parenthood, many of the patients the group serves -- typically low- to middle-income Americans -- will no longer have access to health services.
The group, which serves some 2.5 million men and women a year, relies on federal funding for more than 40 percent of its operating budget.

"That would be devastating for women," she says. "In Arizona alone, we serve over 33,000 women."