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Poor Women Are Not 'Pork' (barf alert)
Talking Points Memo ^ | 1/2909 | Ruth Rosen

Posted on 01/30/2009 11:55:07 AM PST by lewisglad

Poor Women are Not "Pork"

By Ruth Rosen - January 28, 2009, 5:22PM

Responding to President Obama's request, House Democrats cut a provision from the stimulus package that would expand contraceptive family planning for Medicaid patients--usually poor women and girls. He, in turn, was responding to Republicans' opposition to expanding Medicaid family planning for poor women and girls.

Why did this happen?

For years, reproductive justice activists have argued that the religious right's real agenda is not just to eliminate abortion, but to end the historic rupture between sex and reproduction that took place in the 20th century.

I understand why that rupture is unsettling. Ironically, I was on my way to lecture about Margaret Sanger in my history course at U.C. Berkeley when I heard the news. Sanger was vilified for wanting to give women the choice of when or whether to bear children. In short, she challenged all of human history by proposing an historic rupture between sexuality and the goal of reproduction. Iif reproduction ceased to be the goal, sexuality might become yoked to pleasure and that is quite unsettling to many Americans.

That is the legacy the religious right has fought against, and it's that agenda that cut funding for family planning.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said, "How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?"

Well, here's the answer. First, the package is filled with health care services, many of which will help uninsured citizens, but not stimulate the economy. Family planning services for poor women and girls is also health care. So those who argue it's no big deal should realize that the package is filled with health care services, with the exception of family planning.

Secondly, family planning actually does save the government money. The Congressional Budget Office reported that by the third year of implementation, the measure would actually save $ 200 million over five years by preventing unwanted pregnancies and avoiding the Medicaid cost of delivering and then caring for these babies. The same CBO report found the House version of the stimulus would have a "noticeable impact on economic growth and employment in the next few years, with much of the mandatory spending for Medicaid and other programs likely to occur in the next 19 to 20 months." During the first three years, the CBO report said, the cost and savings are negligible.

Finally, think about the women and girls we are discussing. Consider the teenage girl who's sexually active. What happens to the economy when she bears a child without the means to support it? Conversely, what happens when she finishes her education, enters the labor force, earns a salary, and pays taxes? Do we want an unemployed poor woman to have more children than she can already feed, or do we want her to have access to contraception, get her life back on track, and hopefully find work,instead of raising another child she cannot afford at this time?

This decision was an unnecessary political capitulation to Republicans. According to the AP and the Austin American-Statesman, the president was "courting Republican critics of the legislation" who had argued that contraception is not about stimulus or growth. Unfortunately, too many people have uncritically accepted that argument. But many others have noted that the package is filled with provisions for health care, which certainly includes family planning. Many other provisions, moreover, are also not growth-oriented, and yet it was poor women's bodies that Democrats bartered for the approval and votes from Republicans that they don't need and will seldom get.

That same morning, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert asked "Why anyone listens to [Republicans]?" Why, indeed. They want the Democrats to fail. They want the new president to fail. And so they described women's bodies as "pork" and asked that the funding be cut for contraception.

Women's groups are legitimately outraged at what has happened. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America called the measure a "victim of misleading attacks and partisan politics." Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, said: "Family planners are devastated that President Obama and Congress have decided to take funding for critical family planning services out of the stimulus. Their willingness to abandon the millions of families across the country who are in need is devastating."

"The Medicaid Family Planning State Option fully belonged in the economic recovery package," said Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center. "The Republican leadership opposition to the provision shows how out of touch they are with what it takes to ensure the economic survival of working women and their families."

While Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) defended the measure as recently as last Sunday, President Barack Obama and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, bowed to Republican pressure and agreed to drop the measure. And although the Senate has not yet voted, it's unlikely that funding for expanded family planning will be approved. In short, the Democrats decided it just wasn't worth fighting about. According to the Washington Wire, one House Democratic aide said, "It ended up being a distraction and it will be removed."

So, poor women who want reproductive health care and contraception are both "pork" and a "distraction." Is this the change we have dreamed about?

President Obama certainly believes in contraception for poor women and girls on Medicaid. He won the election, as he recently pointed out. He doesn't have to cave in to Republican demands to restrict women's choices and health care.

The best way he and Democrats can handle this terribly misguided decision is to pass legislation to fund expanded family planning as soon as possible, before half the population wakes up and realizes that once again, women have been treated as expendable, and that their bodies have been bartered for political expediency.

This article first appeared on Religious Dispatches. www.religiousdispatches.org


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: biggergovernment; democrats; doesntcreatejobs; notstimulus; stimulus
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1 posted on 01/30/2009 11:55:07 AM PST by lewisglad
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To: lewisglad

Republicans refuse to bow to The Messiah. Women and minorities hit hardest!


2 posted on 01/30/2009 11:57:27 AM PST by Redgirl (Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance)
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To: lewisglad

They’re not the pork and they don’t make the pork— they consume the pork and make more pork eaters.


3 posted on 01/30/2009 12:00:18 PM PST by mc6809e
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To: Redgirl

Yawn. Some of us have actually been “poor” and have lived where there are “poor” and thusly we know that people are largely poor by choice. Consequently we are tired of being told we have to support lazy alcoholics and such.


4 posted on 01/30/2009 12:00:29 PM PST by Seruzawa (Obamalama lied, the republic died.)
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To: lewisglad
In short, she challenged all of human history by proposing an historic rupture between sexuality and the goal of reproduction.

I find it disconcerting that anyone would seriously contend that this rupture is unambiguously a good thing. Surely much of the trouble in our society is directly or indirectly a result of exactly this rupture.

5 posted on 01/30/2009 12:00:41 PM PST by Sherman Logan (Everyone has a right to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.)
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To: lewisglad

Sorry lady it’s a porkulus bill. It’s supposedly for “shovel ready” projects that will keep workers out of the soup lines. If these medical things are so great, pass them on their own merits. Obama is a fool for trying to load up what should be an easy win with this pork-barrel special interest spending.


6 posted on 01/30/2009 12:01:19 PM PST by MovementConservative (Oregon Ducks 42, Oklahoma St. Cowboys 31)
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To: lewisglad
ooohhhh, don't get me started on this! Don't want/can't afford babies???? Quit being nearsighted!! Simple!!
7 posted on 01/30/2009 12:02:40 PM PST by graywaiter (You can't multiply wealth by dividing it.............Dr. Adrian Rogers)
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To: lewisglad

YEs......they are when the money going to “family planning” is billed as an “economic stimulus”.........heeeeeeeere piggy piggy....


8 posted on 01/30/2009 12:04:27 PM PST by ElectricStrawberry (1/27th Infantry Wolfhounds...cut in half during the Clinton years.)
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To: lewisglad
Sanger was vilified for wanting to give women the choice of when or whether to bear children.

Goebbels would be proud.

9 posted on 01/30/2009 12:04:46 PM PST by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: lewisglad

http://www.upload-mp3.com/pfiles/55348/charlie_browns_teacher.mp3


10 posted on 01/30/2009 12:06:16 PM PST by chuck_the_tv_out
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To: lewisglad

Fine, if it’s worth funding, put it in an appropriations bill, let it stand on its own merit, and fund it if it survives the process. But don’t hide it in the middle a “stimulus” bill that’s being ram-rodded through at lightning speed without the proper procedures. That’s true for ALL the pork that has been added to the so-called stimulus package. None of it belongs there.


11 posted on 01/30/2009 12:07:40 PM PST by Hoffer Rand (There ARE two Americas: "God's children" and the tax payers)
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To: lewisglad

The “stimulus bill” is loaded with pork. This woman is distorting the whole thing.


12 posted on 01/30/2009 12:08:15 PM PST by popdonnelly (The problem with Obama is that he believes his own hype.)
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To: lewisglad

A lot of poor are porkers.


13 posted on 01/30/2009 12:10:06 PM PST by razorback-bert (Save the planet...it is the only known one with beer!)
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To: lewisglad

Poor women are a stimulus?


14 posted on 01/30/2009 12:16:37 PM PST by PBRSTREETGANG
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To: lewisglad


perhaps the "poor women and teens" should consider that they can't afford to have the kid before they go screwing around.
15 posted on 01/30/2009 12:20:12 PM PST by absolootezer0 (thank God for Chicago: makes Detroit look wholesome by comparison.)
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To: lewisglad

I’ve seen a few who I’m quite sure are pork.


16 posted on 01/30/2009 12:20:53 PM PST by cripplecreek (The poor bastards have us surrounded.)
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To: lewisglad

Get a friggin job, pork.

New term for poor skank broads: Pork. I like it.


17 posted on 01/30/2009 12:21:07 PM PST by Travis T. OJustice (Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy.)
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To: Sherman Logan

“...before half the population wakes up and realizes that once again, women have been treated as expendable, and that their bodies have been bartered for political expediency. “

Seems to me the women quite willingly bartered their bodies in this case. Perhaps they should have considered not volunteering their “services” quite so freely.

As for the expendable bodies, I see whose is tossed out in the trash after these lovely little aboritions would have occured.

And yes, you’re absolutely right about the rupture that occurred. It’s shameful, frankly.

In 1953, 2% of white babies and 24% of black babies were born out-of-wedlock. That has since ballooned 20% of whites and 70% of blacks. It’s pathetic, really.


18 posted on 01/30/2009 12:22:03 PM PST by CaspersGh0sts
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To: lewisglad

must not say it.....


19 posted on 01/30/2009 12:23:13 PM PST by NeoCaveman (I'm a RINO, he's a RINO, wouldn't you like to be a RINO too...)
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To: lewisglad
Actually, a quick trip to Walmart and some simple observation will almost certainly prove that many poor women are pork.
20 posted on 01/30/2009 12:26:04 PM PST by SampleMan (Community Organizer: What liberals do when they run out of college, before they run out of Marxism.)
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