US cannot give up on Planned Parenthood
Posted March 2, 2011 at 9:24 pm in Opinion
The House of Representatives approved a series of budget cuts totaling about $61 billion dollars on Feb. 19.
These budget cuts will affect a slew of government organizations, most notably Planned Parenthood, which, according to its website, is the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider for both males and females.
Approximately $317 million will be detracted from Planned Parenthood’s funding if this proposal is passed in the Senate and signed by President Obama.
Yes, the United States is in the midst of a devastating financial crisis and our country’s debt is in the trillions and rising.
Cutting spending from Planned Parenthood, however, is most definitely not an appropriate solution.
Considering the House is overwhelmingly Republican and the Senate is Democratic, the bill will hopefully be defeated.
Still, the fact that members of the House felt detracting funding from Planned Parenthood was a good idea in the first place raises a series of important questions.
Are female reproductive rights being made a political issue, rather than a personal issue?
And are political figures throttling female reproductive rights for the sake of budget cuts?
Speaker of the House John Boehner explained to the Los Angeles Times that in voting to remove funding from Planned Parenthood, the House was simply “carrying out the will of the voters who sent nearly 100 new Republicans to Washington in November.”
Based on previous conservative voting patterns, however, the proposed withdrawal of funds appears largely based on the fact that Planned Parenthood provides abortion services at its clinics.
Pro-life voters who sent new representatives to Capitol Hill deserve to be heard — but in this case, the House just might have gone too far.
Currently, no federal funding goes toward abortion. In fact, ninety-seven percent of the program’s funding, in fact, goes to preventive care services, such as breast cancer and prostate cancer screenings. In addition to preventive care services, the money goes toward funding for HIV tests and birth control.
It is therefore logical to deduce that if this bill is passed in the Senate and is not vetoed by President Obama, millions of women, men and families will be affected.
If that’s not bad enough, consider this: Planned Parenthood is the only form of medical treatment that 60 percent of its patients will receive throughout the entire year.
Yet ironically, the House decided to keep the $7.4 million the Army uses to sponsor a NASCAR driver.
I indisputably support the ideologies of all — pro-life and pro-choice. I applaud the Republican representatives for listening to their constituents’ desires.
Yet the issue at hand does not deal with the question of whether or not the U.S. government condones abortion.
True, Planned Parenthood does provide abortion services, but none of the money allocated to it is used for these services.
All abortions are privately funded. Thus, Boehner’s argument for using Planned Parenthood’s abortion services as an excuse to eradicate funding is flawed because in reality, Planned Parenthood provides an abundance of services that benefit both genders and both parties of our society.
Mellissa Linton is a freshman majoring in English.
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This article is tagged: Abortion, family planning, john boehner, Planned Parenthood, women's rights
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Great article planned parenthood needs to be funded.. Obama stop supporting Irack war and support PP once and far all……
Planned Parenthood is Blood-Thirsty. They lie & deceive for the purpose of murdering little kids who looked just like you & I when we were their age. These kids experience the pain of being torn to shreds or aborted by saline injections. Why the hell should you or I pay for this ugly practice? Because making money by killing little kids is a “Hard Sell” to the public, so they enlist government help, mostly Atheists & Democrats, to further their practice. Wake Up! It’s not that hard to figure out. Planned Parenthood cannot be trusted. Even their name is a lie…they give NO credit to our Maker for making us…it’s “all” up to OUR planning. We need to abort this from all our budgets … State & National. It is a dangerous weed that will suck the life out of all of us. Not convinced? Watch a movie of an actual abortion taking place…e.g. Silent Scream. See what actually takes place in these procedures. The ruthless OBJECTIFICATION of women has a price.
Planned Parenthood is a for profit corporation disguising itself as a charity. Every dollar sent to PP is two dollars in new debt to taxpayers. Presently, monthly federal overspending our tax receipts is more than the entire annual budget of California – the largest state. We need to cut back now – PP is just one of many extras that needs to start standing on its own.
That’s an incredibly narrow view of a huge issue. Cutting budgets for non profits and social services before considering the vast other expenses (for instance, ALL of the taxes we give to pharmacies and corporations, the HUGE amount of money the government spends on itself, the fact that we refuse to tax the few people who hold about 50% of our country’s economic welfare in their bank accounts..) is a complete defacing of the priority of our country to survive. This kind of move will create upset, and people are already galvanizing. We all pay for things we don’t necessarily support, what the House and Senate should be considering is what we are paying for that doesn’t immediately serve a citizens best interest. Planned Parenthood is undeniably a hugely needed form of health care and provides services to people who otherwise would have no method of helping themselves.
As someone who works for a nonprofit, it is disgusting to see how quickly people are making a decision to defund a whole community of helpless people. For instance, in the deveopmental disabilities community, cost containment has caused hundreds of people who literally cannot help themselves to go homeless, and the people who are lucky enough to still be in a surviving developmental disabilities nonprofit are going into debt more and more every year because Social Security disability literally won’t cover cost of living anymore. Social services are the only way that we address the people who have no other help or options, and they don’t need to be under any more attack than they already have been. You want to save your tax dollars? Get rid of our absurd and useless war budget. Tax the wealthy. Go where the money is, for God’s sake. Isn’t that the smart thing to do in the end, or has everyone gone batty?
In terms of what it says about Planned Parenthood, this post could not be more incorrect. First of all Planned Parenthood is a NON profit. Second of all there is conclusive research showing that every dollar spent on family planning saves this country almost $4 in public health care costs. It makes no sense to cut this program.