Ban Birth Control? They Wouldn't Dare...

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/163808/ban-birth-control-they-wouldnt-dare

First they came for abortion, but I didn’t care because abortion was for sluts. Then they came for sex ed, but I didn’t care because the kids can learn all they need to know at home. Then they came for birth control, but… Wait a minute! Birth control? They’re coming for birth control? I need that! For nearly a decade prochoicers have been warning that abortion foes were gearing up to go after contraception, but the possibility of losing birth control was too far-out for most people to take seriously. And you know prochoicers—they’re always crying wolf. Well, wake up, sleepyheads, it’s happening.

After the Senate rejected a House attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, Republican Representative Cliff Stearns, chair of the energy and commerce subcommittee, demanded that PP turn over reams of documents going back twenty years. The official purpose was to see if PP’s abortion services, which cannot receive federal funds, are sufficiently segregated from its contraceptive and other health services, which do receive federal dollars. Since Republicans believe this separation is impossible—money is fungible, and all that, except when it goes to a church for supposedly nonsectarian social services—who knows what Stearns and Co. will decide counts as evidence?

Meanwhile, House Republicans continue their attempts to ban federal support for PP, this time through a draft bill on agency funding that would also completely defund Title X, the government’s main family-planning program. Title X, which provides family planning services to more than 5 million mostly low-income people each year, has nothing to do with abortion, which kind of proves that the “fungibility” issue is just a fig leaf. (Bill supporter and Tea Party Caucus member Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican who opposes raising taxes on the wealthy—did I mention that he’s the twenty-fourth-richest member of Congress?—claims that zeroing out birth control funds for poor women is necessary to lower the deficit. Because what could be cheaper than babies?)

As is so often the case in the war on abortion, the most damaging action is in the states. GOP-led governments have voted to cut or eliminate PP funding in New Hampshire, North Carolina, Indiana, Kansas, Wisconsin, Texas and New Jersey. Yes, New Jersey, where Governor Chris Christie, hero of Republicans who also happen to be sane, eliminated the state’s $7.5 million budget for family planning. And yes, Texas, where Governor Rick “N-wordhead” Perry slashed family planning funds from $111.5 million to $37.9 million. Meanwhile, since you can always find money for the things you really want, he boosted aid to antichoice crisis pregnancy centers to $8.3 million.

[PCIntern]

1. i've been saying it here for years...

I confronted George Will during a Q and A years and years ago on this issue, and he just smiled and wouldn't answer my question/accusation.

k and r

[elehhhhna]

3. will has a son with down syndrome and thus priggily and snobbishly

assumes that this somehow makes him not only an expert on the moral implications of reproductive choices but the grand fucking poo-bah or all uterii, everywhere.

Dude has NO BIZ telling my 15 & 17 y/o daughters what they should and shouldn't do with their bodies. It's a form of enslavement.

[get the red out]

2. Of course they want this

This has been their goal the whole time, back to the "good old days" of barefoot and pregnant. I would imagine it pisses them off even more now that more young women are getting college educations than men. They want women out of any position to have a voice in anything. I hate religion because religion hates me.

[Tesha]

5. Well if you'd just creep back into the house where you belong, there'd be plenty of jobs...

...for those God-fearin' Republican white men, just
like there used to be back in "the good ole days"
before they let just anybody apply for (and take)
their jobs!

Tesha

[elocs]

4. Posted here Thursday night with 157 Recs:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2072663

[MH1]

6. good. a new post for the weekend crowd is good too, this needs to be understood.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. Is this about banning birth control or removing funding for it?

The former would genuinely surprise me.

Given how appalling America's health care generally is, the latter wouldn't suprise me in the latest - if the state isn't funding lifesaving medical treatment for the poor, I'm somewhat surprised it's funding birth control for them either.

I wish I could say something more productive that "emmigrate to Europe", but frankly I don't expect American health care to improve significantly any time soon.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. removing funding has the same effect as banning it

for the very poor.

[iamjoy]

9. No, It's Actually Banning It

Defunding it, which is defacto banning it for the poor is just one step.

States keep pushing laws that challenge Roe vs. Wade. Key in the Roe Vs. Wade decision was privacy. In my humble, lay-person opinion, one precedent for Roe Vs. Wade was Griswold Vs. Connecticut. The GvC ruling declared a state law restricting birth control as violating Constitutional right to privacy.

For that matter, Lawrence Vs. Texas could also be at risk. Since that relates directly to sex acts between consenting adults, it may be a stretch. However, privacy was also cited in that ruling.

The most politically active and vocal pro-lifers are appalled by the idea of sexual liberation and want to control women

Or maybe I'm just a paranoid kook.

[Hydra]

10. You're not paranoid, you're paying attention

I've been waving the red flag for years at various churches and religious movements. These people are NOT harmless, and they will NOT stop attempting to erode whatever progress we've made.

A new dark age would occur with just a few more steps back...and it could take another thousand years to come out of it.