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Ah, yes…womb controlling is on the move under GOP rule in the House. Question to John Boehner: so how does cutting this create any jobs? Just asking. (ABC):
The measure would eliminate cutting about $330 million through the end of September for preventative-health services, including federal funding for contraception and cancer screenings, at Planned Parenthood clinics across the country.Planned Parenthood is already prevented by federal law from using federal dollars for abortion services. The amendment takes away the money they use to provide for family planning, birth control, medical and preventive services.
It is the most dangerous legislative assault in our history, and it cannot go unanswered. We – Planned Parenthood and the three million women, men, and teens who are at risk of losing access to basic care – need you to stand united with us now.Sign our open letter to every single representative in the House who voted for this cruel, unconscionable, unthinkable law, and to every senator who still has a chance to stop it.
Yesterday, the reality of reproductive freedom hit home as Rep. Jackie Speier, D-CA. Gave a smackdown to Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, citing her personal story of having an abortion.
“I had planned to speak of something else, but the gentleman from New Jersey has just put my stomach in knots because I’m one of those women he spoke about just now,” said Speier. “I had a procedure at 17 weeks, pregnant with a child that had moved from the vagina into the cervix. And that procedure that you just talked about was a procedure that I endured. I lost a baby.”
“But for you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous. To think that we are here tonight debating this issue when the American people, if they are listening, are scratching their heads and wondering what does this have to do with me getting a job? What does this have to do with reducing the deficit? And the answer is nothing at all,” Speier said.
…Speier went on. “Now you may not like Planned Parenthood, so be it. There’s many on our side of the aisle that don’t like Halliburton. And Halliburton is responsible for extortion, for bribery, for 10 cases of misconduct in the federal database, for a $7 billion sole-source contract. But do you see us over here filing amendments to wipe out funding for Halliburton? No, because frankly that would be irresponsible. I would suggest to you it would serve us all very well if we moved on with this process and started focusing on creating jobs for the Americans who desperately want them.”
Moments ago, the House passed an amendment from Rep. Mike Pence that would eliminate all federal funding to Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide critical health services to millions of women each year.The Pence amendment further reduced support for women’s health care in a spending resolution that, if passed, would also eliminate all Title X family planning funds. Title X clinics provide everything from annual exams, to cancer screenings, to contraceptive services, to testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. The provision would take the program, which has been in place for over 40 years, from $317 million dollars a year to nothing virtually overnight.
Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way, said:
“The House GOP promised to focus on job creation and helping Americans out of hard economic times. But instead Republican leaders are spending their energies fighting culture war battles that hurt unemployed Americans–especially women–and do nothing to put people back to work.
“This attack on American women is shameful; that it’s being done in the name of ‘fiscal responsibility’ is ludicrous. What is responsible about denying funds to organizations that help millions of women prevent unintended pregnancies? What is responsible about depriving women across the country of what is often their only source of critical screening for and treatment of disease?
“This provision hurts women while helping nobody. It’s a shameless attempt to appeal to a small and noisy base, while throwing the needs of millions of American women under the bus.”
18 Comments
I hope Jackie introduces legislation to defund Halliburtonas a tit for tat.
This the alternativehttp://www.thestranger.com/sea…
http://cpcwatch.org/Women%27s-…
Terrifying
Only 2% or so of PP’s clients go there for abortions. But in most cases, they are the only secular, scientific free/cheap source for health care.
So here is my questionOkay, I believe there are people who are rabidly anti-abortion and not specifically anti-woman (and by that I mean they cannot conceive that being anti-choice, at minimum, places extra burdens on females). And sure, there are true believes who are anti-contraception. Those people are lost causes. But what is the percentage of those who voted for this who simply wanted to stick it to the under-privileged?
Depends on who you count…“Wanting to stick it to the under-privileged” is part of the qualifications to be considered for office as a GOP candidate these days, for multiple sorts of privilege. A number of Dems seem too be on board with that too, though.
Just plain anti-woman.Times like this I remember I am more discriminated against because I am a woman much more so than because I am lesbian.
Torn…I’m about as rabidly anti-abortion as they come, hate Planned “Parenthood” with the passion of a thousand fiery sons, and would like to see them nuked from orbit as much as the next person (it’s the only way to be sure).
And I still have a lot of issues with this bill.
First off, if you dislike abortion, you should really support contraception. Some people shouldn’t be parents, some people won’t be parents – no matter what you do. So, the ideal is gasp help them not get pregnant in the first place! Every kid who is never conceived is one more kid who will never possibly be aborted.
Second, there are legitimate reasons for terminating pregnancy. So many of these right-wing politicians support guns and the right to self-defense. They see abortion as killing (which I agree with). They (theoretically) believe in the right to defend yourself – with deadly force, if necessary. Put the two together, and you have justification for abortion in many cases. It’s still killing a human (or the potential for a human), but that’s OK in self defense.
Third, PREVENTION IS CHEAP. 300 million over 7 months is a nice chunk of savings, but you have to be an absolute idiot to cut all the funding for preventative care. Even if you have no compassion whatsoever, a healthy baby will be a taxpayer for life. Kids who grow up non-functional as a result of preventable illness end up being a drain on society (and their parents). The same goes for people who die from cancer, and who suffer impairment from STDs.
Condoms are cheap, AIDS medication is not. Even if you cut 100% of the health funding so that they can’t pass the cost back on to the taxpayers, they still won’t be contributing to the tax base.
Don’t get me wrong – I think that’s a horrible, heartless way to do things, but what they are doing makes no sense from a moral OR fiscal sense.
They have a point in that giving federal money to Planned Parenthood relieves a lot of the financial pressure, letting them spend their own money on abortions. If one wants to gut planned parenthood, then it needs to be funding organizations that provide similar health services, and abortions only when medically necessary. Otherwise, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot financially, and doing a lot of harm in the process.
typopassion of a thousand fiery suns…
GenocideIncreased numbers of pregnant women
Increased numbers of children
Decreased benefits to feed them
No preventative medicine to stop empdemics resulting from weakness due to malnutrition
Pestilence, Plague and death.
Britain did it in Ireland in the 1840′s–worked great.
We called it “The Hunger;” The world knows it as the Potato Famine, where Ireland was feeding the British Empire while the Irish starved.
Aye, that’s the rub…Many of these folks are also anti-contraception. And being reasonable is often punished, e.g.,:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
This is horrible, butit won’t get past the Senate or Obama. It’s all grandstanding for their most rabid voters. And the moderates and independents and Democrats who stayed home to show those Democrats can now see what damage they have inflicted.
Why do you hate Planned Parenthoodto nuclear fusion levels?
Millions of women receive basic medical care and family planning help they’d get no where else thanks to PP.
It transforms the Dems into the Party of Noand keeps the moniker off of the Republicans; the Right will claim that the Dems started the obstructionism first
Jackie Speier, was Beyond AwesomePoliticians talk about everythign in the abstract. You’d swear the things they do have no particualr consequence for anyone. They invariably framew their “arguments” in windy prosecovered in “mroal” rhetorical sauce. What Jackie Speier did was simply point out that real people and real consequences are involved in all of this. She was very brave to do this. It’s exactly the sort of thing the Rethugs expect women won’t talk about. But she did. And we ALL must talk about everything these cavalier monsters do to make our lives miserable their own richer.
Yep OmI’ve never understood the blind hatred for PP. It’s helped countless women (and men) with basic health services, pap smears, gyn care. I’m so damn sick and tired of the misinformation.
I doubt itPeople are already seeing what a horror the House Republicans have become in only a month.
And Anti-choicers more than anyone…… do so. Women’s lives are at best an intellectual game to them.
It’s how half my family came to the US. n/t
It’s bad enough what Pence and the Republican dweebs do in the House11 Democrats also voted with Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood,I hadn’t been able to find a list of the votes yet, but I’ll donate to Emily’s List to have a pro-choice woman Primary each one of them.
We can be fairly sure the Senate will kill most of this garbage in committee, or Obama will veto it.
It’s in States where the truely awful sh*t will pass and become law.There are days when reading the crud from South Dakota, Wisconsin, Montana and I just want to be sedated for two years.