Posted on 01/07/2002 9:36:18 AM PST by Notwithstanding
The Herald Palladium Archives
January 05, 2002 Planned Parenthood funding threatened By LYNN STEVENS / H-P Staff Writer With help from Southwest Michigan legislators, family planning agencies that merely mention abortion options could be pushed to the end of the state funding line. And poor people seeking birth control could suffer the consequences, say those opposed to the bill passed last month by the state House. Opponents say the bill is a thinly veiled attack on Planned Parenthood, which has offices in Benton Harbor and South Haven. Berrien County's state representatives Ron Jelinek and Charles LaSata voted for the bill as did Mary Ann Middaugh of Paw Paw. The Senate will likely take up the bill in February, said state Sen. Harry Gast, R-Lincoln Township. Gast is skeptical about the bill, calling it little more than a legislative litmus test thrown down by Right to Life of Michigan. He said he has long tired of the organization's uncompromising ways. "Even in a life-and-death situation, there's no deviation in the Right to Life scorebook," he said. If Right to Life shows no compromise, then "I'm ready and willing to walk the plank on this one," Gast said. It could be a lonely walk. "Every bill that I can remember that was a choice whether or not people would have access to abortion, the Right To Life people have prevailed. In the Senate, I would say it's 2/3 to 1/3 in favor of Right To Life." Gast said no one is for abortion, "but I would not condemn anyone for it, in very limited circumstances." If the bill is carried out as written, public health departments may lose federal money - distributed by the state - and Planned Parenthood offices may cut family planning services to poor and moderate-income women, say the bill's opponents. Ironically, public health officials and Planned Parenthood officials say eliminating pregnancy prevention services could increase the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions in Michigan. The bill would grant funding priority to agencies and organizations that do not perform abortions, do not make abortion referrals, and do not advocate for continued legal abortion. Jelinek, (R-Three Oaks) said he understands "all the services that have been available will continue to be available ... organizations that do not perform abortions will have higher priority. "Now if nobody else is available, funds will still go to that institution," which could be Planned Parenthood. He said the bill does not affect public health departments because they do not perform abortions. But according to federal law, health departments would be affected because they and all other providers that get federal Title X funding are required to explain all reproductive health options. At the moment, abortion is a legal procedure in the United States, and therefore, federal law requires it to be included in the list of options. LaSata (R-St. Joseph) said the bill would not affect state funds going specifically to Planned Parenthood in Southwest Michigan. LaSata said all state funding for health services is allocated by county, and each county's share is determined by its population. Because there is no alternative health care provider in Berrien County, there would be no change in family planning service levels. "Charlie LaSata is not correct on that," said Margy Long, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood-Mid-Michigan Alliance. "Charlie may be making the assumption that Title X funds are dispersed the same way as other state funds, but in fact, there's nothing in this bill that says that's how it has to happen," said Long, whose alliance includes Cass, Van Buren and Berrien counties. "There's nothing to prevent the money from going to some other place. "The money all goes into one big pot. It gets dispersed among all the providers in the state. The goal is that services should be geographically widespread. There's nothing in the bill that requires that." Jelinek and LaSata, endorsed in 2000 by Michigan Right to Life, justified their votes on the basis of a 1988 state referendum banning use of public funds for abortions for women receiving public aid unless necessary to save the life of the mother. Although state voters stopped tax-funded abortions, legislators should not believe the public opposes legalized abortion or supports the House bill, said Charlotte Wenham, former president of Planned Parenthood. The longtime St. Joseph resident said every poll in the last decade, including polls paid for by sitting legislators, has shown that people in Southwest Michigan overwhelmingly support abortion rights. Wenham said Right To Life's ideology is overshadowing health care issues. "The question is: Are legislators voting in the best interest of health care of all individuals, including those who can't afford it, or in favor of the strongest lobbyists in Lansing? I don't think health care is an area where we can experiment for religious and political reasons." Mark Bertler, executive director of the Michigan Association for Local Public Health, wrote in August 2001 to the chairman of the House committee considering the bill. He wrote that his board, representing public health departments across the state, opposed it. "The board is concerned that this legislation may put Michigan's successful family planning and pregnancy prevention programs at risk. Over the past two years Michigan has received $40 million in federal bonuses for reducing teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock births and reducing the number of abortions in our state. ... As currently written, the bill stigmatizes all providers, including local health departments."
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This is real objective journalism, isn't it?
It is unless you're one of those judgmental extremist meanies who dare to oppose abortion as a means of birth control.
(/sarcasm)
Planned Parenthood is a major funder of pro-abortion propaganda. It's also a huge business, which makes money by selling teenagers on sex, then selling them condoms and abortions. Abortion brings in huge profits, usually said to be in the neighborhood of a billion dollars a year.
Why, indeed, should taxpayers be funding people who profit by seducing and corrupting our children and then aborting their babies?
Planned Parenthood Romanticizes Violence and Criminal Conduct to Teens
Boy there is an oxymoron if you ever saw one. PP is a thinly disguised abortion mill whose prime function is to exterminate children.
It is the greatest tragedy of our times. Pray for the holy innocents!
The definition of "public health organzation" can always be changed in law.
Planned Parenthood helps suppress minority births. That's why they were founded, and that's what they've always aimed to do. Title X was sponsored by Spookdaddy Bush, aided by Rockefeller Republicans, who make no real secret of their goal to mold humanity into the image of the white northern-European producer/consumer.
If a body system is functioning perfectly well, then the body is healthy. Elective convenience procedures or treatments have always been private matters. Birth control is elective and for convenience or pleasure - not necessity.
What is more, birth control is not healthcare - birth control shuts down a healthy system and causes it to malfunction.
And abortion - th emain profit center for Planned Parenthood - could be considered health care by no objective definition of the term. No one's health is preserved by 999,999 abortions out of 1,000,000. And one person is killed in every abortion. And the mental health of a majority of moms who have had abortions is negatively affected for life.
I wish I had more modern equivalents, but these will do, hopefully you may already know what they are.
That the guise, but it doesn't answer the question.
Here is a nice explanation. Start a couple of paragraphs above "There is also a reason why American elitists like the Harrimans and the Bushes become such fanatics for eugenics and population reduction."
Check out the history of PP and find such winsome figures as Lothrop Stoddard, Ph.D. in history from Harvard and Margaret Sanger's and PP's "official observer" at the sessions of the 1930's Nazi Eugenics Courts, writing breathless monthly dispatches back to America about what a spiffy job Herr Hitler was doing cleaning up the gene pool in der Vaterland.
I am no more eager to fund Planned Barrenhood's 100,000+ infanticides per year and their incessant propaganda in favor of the business of other paid killers of innocent children with tax money, no less, than I would be willing to fund a revival of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.
Don't believe me? Fine. There are still copies of the books of PP's original leading lights: Margaret Sanger, Lothrop Stoddard, Madison Grant, etc. Check the books out and read their own words.
War is peace. Love is hate. Big Brother loves you.
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