NYT Op-Ed: The Siege of Planned Parenthood

[XanaDUer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/opinion/05collins.html

Maybe it’s all part of a grand theme. Last month, they voted to repeal the health care law. This month, they’re going after an organization that provides millions of women with both family-planning services and basic health medical care, like pap smears and screening for diabetes, breast cancer, cervical cancer and sexually transmitted diseases.

Our legislative slogan for 2011: Let Them Use Leeches.

There is no comparable organization to Planned Parenthood, providing the same kind of services on a national basis. If there were, most of the women eligible for Medicaid-financed family-planning assistance wouldn’t have to go without it. In Texas, which has one of the highest teenage birthrates in the country, only about 20 percent of low-income women get that kind of help. Yet Planned Parenthood is under attack, and the State Legislature has diverted some of its funding to crisis pregnancy centers, which provide no medical care and tend to be staffed by volunteers dedicated to dissuading women from having abortions.

In Washington, the new Republican majority that promised to do great things about jobs, jobs, jobs is preparing for hearings on a bill to make it economically impossible for insurance companies to offer policies that cover abortions. And in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry, faced with an epic budget crisis that’s left the state’s schools and health care services in crisis, has brought out emergency legislation — requiring mandatory sonograms for women considering abortion.

[AngryOldDem]

1. Did you see the Acornesque hit job done on PP?

Some obscure "pro-life" group sent two people into a clinic in Virginia posing as pimps and proceeded to ask advice on how to care for teenage prostitutes -- abortions, curing STDs, you name it. The ONE person they spoke to provided answers, which of course PROVED how evil PP is. As soon as PP found out about it, it fired the employee. This ambush has been done at other clinics, and PP says it has informed the authorities whenever people come in asking about medical care for young prostitutes.

Nevermind all the basic health care PP provides to women. If the pro-birthers are successful in running PP out of business, will they be willing to provide health services to all the women who need them, but would otherwise not be able to get them except through PP? I highly doubt it. Which is why the "pro-life" movement in general is such a colossal fraud. Their concern begins and ends in the delivery room -- they couldn't give a shit about what happens after that, even though they say they do. Actions speak much, much louder than words.


http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/02/03/abortion.video/index.html?iref=allsearch

[XanaDUer]

2. Yes

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=350453&mesg_id=350453

And no - they won't pay for any medical services for poor or working women, kids, or anyone else.

[NC_Nurse]

3. Assholes. Pure and simple.

[Gregorian]

4. Too many stupid people on the planet. I fear it's all over now.

I think the human race has run it's course. We survived the ice age, wars of all kinds, diseases, famines, plagues. We grew a brilliant society full of food and warmth. Machines to do the work we got tired of doing. And now it appears we've evolved in a way that is no longer a benefit to our well being.

There is nothing wrong with thinking. After all it is how we created the table of elements, and used phase change energies to create refrigeration. But there is some kind of neurosis that involves a special kind of twisted thinking. I guess it's just uneducated thought. But there is one more criteria that enables it. Power. Bad thought combined with power. And that is what we have in a fair percentage of our population. A dumbed down, yet powerful population. For whatever reasons, we have evolved into a state where a number of us are lacking, and yet still able to have a sway on the entire society. This didn't happen in the jungle. Idiots tended to lose their way, and suffer the consequences of the brutal nature of nature.

[XanaDUer]

5. Kick

nt.

[roody]

6. Today is a good day to donate to PP.

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/index.htm

[MH1]

7. Thanks for posting

I also posted this because I didn't see your post, but this deserves a few threads, I think.

(Re: the article: Assholes.)

[Bluebear]

8. kick

[Warren DeMontague]

9. Of course. Because they want to outlaw all contraception. That's always been the agenda. nt