In a largely partisan vote, the call to strip Planned Parenthood of its $530 million in federal funding fell short by seven votes earlier this month. THE TROUBLE is, politicians know the facts. They know that Planned Parenthood serves an important role by saving lives and preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Kansas Republicans Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts supported the effort as did every other Republican save one, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, which gives him the right to bring it back for a vote at a later time.
The vote was called on the heels of the release of several undercover videos that were spliced together to depict Planned Parenthood officials discussing the price of fetal tissue.
The hoped-for outcry ensued. Politicians desperate to prove they are the evermore conservative likened Planned Parenthood to something out of a horror movie.
Except it’s not, and never has been.
And federal funds — which come by way of Medicaid reimbursements and family planning grants, not cash in hand — do not go toward abortions, which comprise only 3 percent of the organization’s services.
By law, federal funds cannot be used to fund abortions except in the case of incest, rape or where a woman’s life is in danger.
So, when you call for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, you’re asking to eliminate funds to women’s health programs such as contraception, cancer screenings and pap smears — the stuff that saves lives and prevents unwanted pregnancies.
Last year, of the 2.7 million women who visited a Planned Parenthood clinic, 80 percent came for the purpose of contraception, the majority of whom subsist on meager incomes. In other words, the very demographic that is hard-pressed to provide a nurturing environment for their children is being denied services that could help them manage the size of their families.
For every dollar the government spends preventing an unwanted pregnancy, it saves more than five times that in Medicaid expenditures allocated to low-income women who become pregnant, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
As a society, we are winning the war against abortion. Rates have dropped by more than one-third since 1990 thanks to effective and widespread birth control measures.
Defunding Planned Parenthood would bring such success to a halt.
But they also know the above essay is too long for a sound bite and that their re-election depends on such.
And society is to suffer for such vanity.
— Susan Lynn
Outrage against Planned Parenthood nothing but a sham
