I am proud to be a woman. I am proud to say I am pro-life. And I am proud to say I have called my congressman and senators urging them to vote to defund Planned Parenthood. I am proud to be a voice for change.

In the videos that have become public, executives at Planned Parenthood are casually haggling over the price of unborn children’s organs. This is horrific enough, but then it gets worse as they eat their salads and talk about what steps they can take to alter the abortion procedure to make sure they get an intact brain.

There must be an in-depth investigation into how long such corruption has taken place, and even after we defund this organization, the American taxpayers have a right to hold Planned Parenthood accountable. The fact that hardworking Americans who are vehemently against abortion are having their tax dollars go towards funding this horrible act is a crime in itself.

These gruesome, appalling and downright sickening videos from this most recent Planned Parenthood controversy comes at time when our country is at a crossroads. We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to be a country that subsidizes this criminal enterprise? Do we want to be known as the country that wiped out an entire generation of Americans?

Last week the House of Representatives successfully voted to defund Planned Parenthood, but unfortunately the Senate has failed to do so because Majority Leader McConnell’s Republican caucus “does not have the votes.”

It is our responsibility to call our elected officials, specifically our senators, and passionately express our desire to have a bill sent to the President’s desk that eliminates federal funding to Planned Parenthood.

This is a human rights issue, not a Republican versus Democrat issue.

Profiting off the death of an aborted child is not only illegal, but more importantly, it is immoral.

Washington, D.C. liberals and progressives throughout the country have waged a full-fledged assault on those of us who have the courage to stand up to Planned Parenthood.

They demonize our pro-life beliefs as being “anti-woman” and “anti-women’s health.”

As a woman, I wholeheartedly take offense to this. Our efforts to protect our most vulnerable citizens, the unborn, have been and will continue to be a focal point of the conservative movement and I look forward to combating the false claims of my pro-choice counterparts.

Planned Parenthood is notorious for preying on vulnerable women — women who believe they have no other option than to walk into one of their clinics for an abortion. Planned Parenthood has made children an “inconvenience” that can easily be taken care of. For the women out there who may find themselves in this situation, please know that you do have options!

In Iowa alone, for every one Planned Parenthood, there are 16 federally qualified and rural women’s health centers. These health centers are all Medicaid clinics and receive Section 330 funds for those who are not eligible for Medicaid.

These are the women’s health initiatives that we should be funding with our hard earned tax dollars, not Planned Parenthood. I would also like to highlight the following: Since 2012, 13 Planned Parenthood clinics have closed in Iowa. They are the ones responsible for limiting their services to Iowans in rural areas, not conservatives.

The section of their website titled “Care. No Matter Where” leaves me questioning their commitment to this slogan and the people they are supposed to be providing services.

Also, in light of this controversy, a new Twitter Hashtag has emerged: #shoutyourabortion. While I am supporter of the First Amendment, all #shoutyourabortion does is glorify arguably the most horrific, emotional and painful experience a woman can go through in her lifetime.

Receiving an abortion should not be propped up as an act of bravery.

We as a society should console these women, as they have undergone a traumatic experience. But using them as progressive rhetoric is simply wrong. I believe women deserve better and I believe that as a country, we are better than this.