Planned Parenthood fights back against defunding

Planned Parenthood fights back against defunding August 3, 2015

We taxpayers give Planned Parenthood a half-billion dollars a year, something a measure that goes before the Senate as early as this evening would end.  So the abortion-industrial complex has issued talking points for its followers (see this and this in a single issue of the Washington Post) arguing that to defund Planned Parenthood would be a pro-abortion bill.  The reasoning being that if the organization can’t give give out contraceptives, then there will be more abortions.

But even if you accept the premise that contraceptives are a good thing, Obamacare makes them free from any drug store!  And even those who don’t have health insurance, even the government-subsidized plans, can get them free from community health clinics.  There are 9,059 of those, compared to 669 Planned Parenthood offices.  Even taking abortion off the table, why should taxpayers give all that money to Planned Parenthood AND the community clinics AND the insurance companies in Obamacare?

From Kathleen Parker,  The tipping point on Planned Parenthood – The Washington Post:

Planned Parenthood, faced with a renewed push for federal defunding (to the tune of a half-billion dollars), has begun a public relations campaign of its own. As of Friday, two ads had been released, each featuring a breast-cancer survivor who says she wouldn’t have survived without the health care she received from the organization.

But is this true? Negligibly.

Planned Parenthood offers only a manual breast exam that any woman can do herself — and performs no mammograms. Rather, it refers women to other clinics. Thus, the ads are at least exaggerated if not purposely deceptive.

Also deceptive is the claim that defunding Planned Parenthood would strip women of health care. In fact, a Senate bill to defund Planned Parenthood, co-authored by Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), stipulates that all of its public funding be reallocated to federally qualified community health centers, which provide all women’s health-care services except abortion, without regard to a person’s ability to pay. . . .

Maine has four Planned Parenthood installations and 135 community health centers that could accommodate women’s basic health needs. Throughout the country, community centers vastly outnumber Planned Parenthood, totaling 9,059 to 669. It would appear that women could still get the health care they need.

In final ironies in this theater of the grotesque, Planned Parenthood doctors performing abortions often use sonograms so they can ensure that the imminently deceased baby’s organs aren’t damaged. Yet, Planned Parenthood has persistently fought “informed consent” laws requiring that women be shown their sonograms pre-abortion, arguing that abortion is hard enough without showing women what they’re about to destroy.

From Manny Alvarez:

With the inception of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014, President Obama created a new system of health care that aimed to allow all Americans to carry health insurance, and in many cases, that insurance is subsidized by the federal government with our tax dollars.

His sales pitch to America was that by expanding access to health insurance, he would help create better patient-doctor relationships that would be effective in prineventing several of the chronic health conditions and concerns that affect the U.S. population— many of which affect women.

Now, no matter your stance on universal health care, a concern that every tax-paying American, man or woman, should take issue with centers on waste. This is especially true given the recent events surrounding the claims that Planned Parenthood seems to be in the business of selling aborted fetal body parts.

Now, if my tax dollars are being used to subsidize our national health care program, then why are my tax dollars also being allocated for Planned Parenthood? This isn’t a matter of ethics, but rather, of practicality.

Many of the clinical services Planned Parenthood offers— including Pap smears, breast exams, tests for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and abortions— can be performed by gynecologists, family practitioners and pediatricians. The ACA guarantees coverage for the vast majority of women’s reproductive needs.

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