This Tuesday, Oct. 27, Tacovore and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon (PPAO) are teaming up to host Trick or Tacos for Planned Parenthood.
Seven percent of all food purchases from Tacovore on Tuesday will go directly to PPAO’s Lane County Leadership and Advocacy Team. From 5-8 p.m., Lane County volunteers will demonstrate at Tacovore in support of Planned Parenthood.
“We’re working on landmark legislation that will ensure that abortion in Oregon not only remains safe and legal, but affordable and accessible,” said Nichi Masters Linder, Field Director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. “Expanding access to reproductive health care will have the greatest impact on young women, women of color, low-income women, immigrant women and survivors of domestic abuse.”
Trick or Tacos will also award a $25 Tacovore gift card to the person who receives the most Facebook likes for their Halloween costume. As an added bonus, Tacovore will create a Pink Taco Special for this event. “What could be scarier than a ‘gynotician’ who wants to come between a woman and her doctor?” asks the event’s Facebook page.
Planned Parenthood acts as a valuable health care resource to women who are unable to access certain medical services. Currently, Oregon is in the frontline of reproductive freedom in the US and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon assists in sustaining that title.
Planned Parenthood has been a particularly contentious issue during the 2016 presidential campaign. Pro-life advocates are skewering the organization for providing women extensive access to health care and contraceptives; Republican legislators are working to pass a bill to halt all government funding to the organization for a year.
According to The Guardian, the organization receives $500 million a year in government finances, through Medicare reimbursements and grants, and none of this money goes to abortion services – a mere three percent of the services that Planned Parenthood provides.
The organization also provides STD testing, counseling and treatment, emergency contraception, permanent birth control, breast exams, free pregnancy testing, among several other beneficial services to its visitors.
At the first GOP debate, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina mentioned a Planned Parenthood video that she claimed showed “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”
Rather than pedal back on this statement, which references a patently non-existent video, Fiorina’s deputy campaign manager Sarah Isgur Flores stated, “Planned Parenthood doesn’t and can’t deny they are butchering babies and selling their organs. This is about the character of our nation.”
PPAO’s Leadership and Advocacy Team works to maintain accessible reproductive care in Lane County as well as actively promoting Planned Parenthood in Eugene. Whenever Planned Parenthood is being scrutinized, these are the people who step in.
Tacovore (530 Blair Blvd) is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.