Only 14 More Hours of Family Planning Hostage-Taking

I always seem to be doing this: forgive me.

The Republicans really just don't want you to notice the funny man behind the curtain in the wheelchair doing his best possible Dickens character impression. He (sic) is busy hoovering all your money to space robots while pretending to give a damn about what anybody else does with their lives. Bait and switch. Divide and conquer. Shock and awe.

That is all.

Thanks SB! 'PP also provides affordable general health care.'
I am out of breath from repeating this over and over and over; to clients, friends, family, kids on the bus, etc.

Welcome.

You say pull the plug on what we can't afford. Is that right?

So in this future crumbled economy, if your children and grandchildren aren't able to make a living, where can they go for reliable healthcare and health education? Where will they look for unbiased news coverage, if public radio doesn't exist? How will their environment look when the EPA has control wrested from them and put in the hands of polluting coporations? What do you suggest this money be spent on, if not government services to the people who have been most heartily fucked over by the recession?

I would argue that sex ed and family planning are an investment in a cheaper-to-run society in the future. Cutting access to it is penny wise and pound foolish.

Pro-choice or pro-life isn't the issue here, in the sense that none of the money under discussion is subsidizing abortion services. It is the issue, of course, in the sense that people hear "Planned Parenthood" and think "abortion," but that's another story.

Um, did you not read Josh's post above? It's pretty clear. The direct effect will be to weaken family planning programs without impinging on abortion services. Further, and this is the irony Choire pointed to, that will only increase the demand for abortion services overall.

Now, as for your own mix-and-match approach to family planning, I suppose that works for you, but it is not a real social policy option in the world as it exists There is not a single major pro-life organization that has stepped into the debate offering massive, free family planning services as a way of driving down the abortion rate. They all work the opposite way: fighting against sex ed in the schools unless it is abstinence only, fighting against the morning after pill, depo, low-dose contraceptive research, etc., etc.

As for your deficit handwringing: Reid and Boehner have agreed on the overall number. This $363m won't affect your children's economic future one way or another. Unless they want to be abortion providers, in which case, the market is looking up.

I don't think you used enough first-person pronouns.

Yeah, you're a fucking idiot.

Planned Parenthood provided over 5 million women with health care last year – the vast majority of those services were pap-smears, mammograms, and birth control prescriptions. Absolutely ZERO federal dollars to Planned Parenthood went towards abortion, so there's no "family planning" going on with federal funding aside from access to birth control, which you've already said you're fine with using. Perhaps you're not okay with poor women using birth control?

This is not about abortion. This is about healthcare. And if you're so worried about the economy? Every dollar spent towards preventative health care saves about $4 down the road towards health care costs. You really think the misogynistic Republicans are going to fix the economy by eliminating access to preventative cancer screenings?
The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Planned Parenthood is not a pet project. It is a lifeline for millions of women in this country.

(Also that "50 percent of Americans are anti-abortion" number is more like "50 percent of Americans don't like abortion when asked about it." When you ask "Do you think abortion should be illegal?" or "Do you think that women who get abortions or doctors who perform them should go to jail" you get very different numbers!)

"Propping up" billionaires and corporations, on the other hand, seems to be A-OK. Still waiting to feel the tingle of that trickle-down effect! LIFT MY BOAT, BABY!

Intelligent conversation? I'm here for the free tote bag and foosball table.

You make an excellent point about pet projects. I'm so tired of pet projects like air traffic safety, clean water, meat inspection, disease prevention, law enforcement, highways, power grids and the Navy. Third world nations get by without these and achieve life expectancies of nearly 50 years old!
Why do you hate America and your unborn grandchildren?

Don't like abortion? Don't have one.

Don't have a rational argument? Tell everyone!

Now that we've cleared up the politics of this, let's hear more about your sex life.

"We can't continue to prop up EVERYONE."

Omigod! You are right! I've turned into a conservative. Praise The Lord, it's a miracle!

As always, this is a debate about what we believe the purpose of the government should be. Hiding behind the crummy economy and the "fact" that "we just don't have the money to pay for X" is a cheap way of not having to make some pretty radical and, I'd like to think, unpopular claims like "I don't think we should be paying for family planning at all" or "I don't think we should be regulating industry to ensure that we have clean air and water." Instead, we get to throw up our hands and act like if only the government had more money, we could have all the services we want. Of course, the government doesn't have the money because the wealthiest citizens and corporations have it, and there's no real will to take it from them.