Posted on 04/04/2011 7:11:52 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
"An Open Letter to Fellow Conservatives"
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives--urged on by conservatives opposed to abortion--has voted to defund Planned Parenthood. On this issue, Republicans and conservatives are dead wrong.
My grandmother was a friend and supporter of Margaret Sanger, one of America's earliest, most effective advocates of birth control.
I met Sanger several times before her death in 1966 and was impressed b y her intellect and her commitment to many issues, not the least of which was enabling every woman to be "the absolute mistress of her own body" as she put it.
I didn't agree with everything the formidable Mrs. Sanger espoused. Yet I respected her dedication to making health-care and birth-control services available to all Americans, especially to those with low incomes, no insurance and no other recourse to medicall services.
And I admired her fearless, relentless readiness to stand up for what she believed, despite decades of angry, mean-sprited, often hypocritical attacks on her ideas and her character.
So I am aggravatged by the continuing attacks on Sanger and her primary legacy, the Planned Parenthood network that still serves so many Americans today.
Now the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives--urged on by conservatives opposed to abortion--has voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
On this issue, Republicans and conservatives are dead wrong.
Abortions are a minor aspect of Planned Parenthood's mission to provide reproductive health care, education, and other services to Americans, regardless of income.
More than 90 percent of its work focuses on preventive care, including preventing unintended pregnancies that often lead to unwanted, neglected and abused children.
In Pittsburgh and across America, Planned Parenthood offices help people to make better decisions about whether to have children. They help to arrance adoptions for women or couples unable to raise a child but unwilling to end a pregnancy.
Many of their clients are poor Americans who cannot afford birth-control measures that can cost $50 a month or more.
Of the 10,000 to 12,000 people who use local Planned Parenthood services, about 20 percent are teenagers, half are ages 20 to 30 and the rest are older than 30.
Of course, no one wants tenneagers to get pregnant. Yet far too many do--and they need reliable, honest advice about what to do next. For many of them, Planned Parenthood is the only reliable source of that advices. For many others, Planned Parenthood is the only safe, reliable source of counseling to avoid getting pregnant in the first places.
If not for Maragaret Sanger's vision and bravery, many poor Americans would have no place to turn for birth-control measures and counseling or for other health-care services.
To take that away makes on sense.
Dick Scaife
(Mr. Scaife is chairman of Trib Total Meida Inc., parent company of hte Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and its family of publications. Note: this op-ed was originally published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
Paid for by Republicans for Planned Parenthood, a project of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
That sounds vaguely familiar, let's take another look at it:
.I ampro lifeanti-slavery, period. It has been PROVEN over the past 40 or more YEARS, that fighting this on the federal level is a lost cause. Whenever a state imposes restrictions, the feds overrule it.If this does indeed becomeKeeping this a states rights issue ( and according to our constitution, it is ) the battlefields become much smaller, and easier to handle. This can then be attacked with a much greater chance of success. The problem with this approach is that there are so many that attempt to stand above everyone else, with their noses pointed skyward, and their fingers pointed downward towards the masses, that a sound strategy for fighting this cannot be formulated.
Need I remind you how your approach worked the last time it was tried?
please.....enlighten me
Real men dont support baby killing.
Fact is, no government has any "rights" in the area of the people's unalienable rights whatsoever. All they have are God-imposed, constitutionally-required sworn obligations, which they must act upon if they are to fulfill the reason for the existence of their offices.
The "pro-choice for states," "states' 'rights' trump unalienable rights" position is a Stephen A. Douglas Democrat, Gerald R. Ford Republican, position. And it destroys the very basis of American self-government and our claim to liberty.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."-- The Declaration of Independence
"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature."-- Samuel Adams, The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772
"No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.""No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
-- The United States Constitution
The pro-choice for states abortion position is immoral and blatantly unconstitutional. No candidate for public office who holds it is fit to serve at any level, as they are in breach of the sacred oath of office.
Please enlighten you how?
Are you unable to see the similarity between slavery and abortion?
Do you believe that it is a person being aborted? YES or NO.
Do you believe that the Constitution authorizes individual states to legalize murder of citizens?
"We the People of the United States, in Order to...secure the Blessings of Liberty to...Posterity..."-- The ultimate stated purpose of the United States Constitution
Slavery and abortion are pretty much the identical topic at their base...
you have one group of humans defining “human” in a way that excludes another group of humans,
therefore entitling the first group to treat the excluded group in any manner they choose.
*******************************
That's the question, isn't it? Murder should never be a states' rights issue. All citizens have the right to life, not just citizens of certain states.
Enlighten me by telling me how the slavery thingie worked out...and please, do not insult my intellegence by regurgitating the crap that the lib schools taught in high school...explain to me how making abortion a states rights issue in any way will turn out the way civil war did...
There is no simalarity between abortion and slavery....please enlighten me on this one
I stated that I am pro life....and my statement about the “Morally Superior” judging me based upon statements I did not make comes true
If you cannot comprehend what I have stated, and that it is a way to fight this battle, then I have to challenge your IQ...
You have yet to explain to me your plan to defeat this issue...you can complain and call names, but cannot come up with a way to defeat this travesty...but, I can see you are morally superior to me....what is your plan? Do the same thing that has been done for 40 years, and expect a different result each time it is tried??? that is the definition of insanity..
Or Richard Mellon Scaife's Obscene Support, for that matter...
That’s exactly what I was thinking as I read that. The word “LIAR” ran continually through my mind.
Thanks. I have a link to a Jan or Feb 2006 Trib Rev editorial endorsing Murtha but can’t find it. Tried google but can’t bring it up there either.
Seems that you and joe are arguing about how to get to the same conclusion, and, if I’m reading correctly, I think I’ll have to go with his method of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Right now we have a situation where the states aren’t allowed to restrict abortions due to an unconstitutional court ruling.
Letting the states decide the issue would be a huge step in the right direction, then we can work for a specific constitutional amendment banning the practice, as slavery was.
states not allowed to restrict -> states allowed to restrict -> constitutional amendment banning the practice
No problem. But your baby is another distinct person and the absolute master of his own body, not you. Keep your evil, brain-forking, spine-snipping, life-vacuuming, murdering hands off him.
In other words, we want to make sure that there are more abotions of those we don’t like to be around.
Culture of death.
Sorry, I keep forgetting that libertarians aren't all that happy with how slavery was ended.
There is no simalarity between abortion and slavery....please enlighten me on this one
You're right, abortion is more barbaric.
I stated that I am pro life...
Perhaps, but you think that each state should get to decide, that makes you PRO-CHOICE at best.
If you cannot comprehend what I have stated, and that it is a way to fight this battle, then I have to challenge your IQ...
I comprehend perfectly, you are a pro-choice libertarian.
You have yet to explain to me your plan to defeat this issue...you can complain and call names, but cannot come up with a way to defeat this travesty...but, I can see you are morally superior to me....what is your plan? Do the same thing that has been done for 40 years, and expect a different result each time it is tried??? that is the definition of insanity..
Your post has a great deal of babbling, I notice that libertarians do that a lot.
The ONLY WAY to end abortion is to declare the unborn to be persons. I notice that you have yet to address the issue of personhood.
There is ZERO REASON to believe that your pro-choice by state approach would save a single life. States such as New York and California will NEVER abolish abortion on their own and these states, along with a handful of others, constitute well over 90% of American abortions.
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