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TechnoratiShell Game on Women's Health
Please, someone. Pull the plug on this administration.
Justify it by the energy savings alone, megawatt hours that could be better used, now squandered in lame-duck lamentations.
Moreso, justify it in averting what lamebrain rule changes are likely in this administration's waning days.
Consider a directive that in one lunging swing would redefine abortion to include basic birth control, and at the same time acutely undermine health services for poor women.
The Department of Health and Human Services is considering draft language that would do two destructive things: (1) qualify organizations that oppose contraception to accept Title X family planning money; (2) fundamentally alter the definition of abortion to include many forms of contraception.
Abomination No. 1 is funneling to so-called crisis pregnancy centers money that's supposed to help poor women avert pregnancy and otherwise deal with health-care issues.
Often operated by abortion foes, crisis pregnancy centers help women deal with an unwanted pregnancy through adoption.
Meritorious though that is, it is light years removed from the work of Title X-funded women's health clinics. They provide contraception, do cancer screenings, test for HIV. They also, yes, counsel women with fertility problems about how to get pregnant.
The fact that some of these clinics perform or refer for abortion makes them targets for destructive shell games with funding.
Lone Star insanity
The Texas Legislature in 2005 directed $5 million in family planning funds to crisis pregnancy centers. It also took $20 million over two years away from traditional family planning providers and sent it to federally qualified health centers. That's a health-care segment that handles a broad range of health needs but don't specifically fill the niche traditional women's clinics do.
The clear intent of both of these initiatives was to undercut funding for women's clinics like Planned Parenthood, with their traditional role of using public funds to provide family planning and health care to the poor.
This has served as a double wallop for some agencies that do the heavy lifting for helping poor women stay healthy and control their reproductive destinies shy of abortion.
Planned Parenthood in Austin has had to stop offering free services to some of its poorest clients, limiting its no-cost services to those under 20. Though those 20 and older get reduced-price services, some can't afford even them.
Yes, let's make a tough job tougher -- the job of preventing pregnancies that end up in abortion. More abortions. Great policy.
Speaking of the latter, an ideologue's thrust is attempting to redefine abortion to include basic contraception, thereby matching the claims of people who oppose both. The HHS directive would prevent the recipients of federal dollars from discriminating against employees who oppose contraception and consider certain forms of it abortion.
Family planning organizations say this rule would be tantamount to redefining abortion and therefore conception. The accepted definition of the latter is the implantation of the fertilized egg. Some anti-abortion groups call the birth control pill and the morning-after pill abortifacients, though they prevent implantation of the egg.
Redefining abortion to include basic birth control could preclude federal funding for affected forms of contraception, as funding of abortion is prohibited.
That's the amazing thing about these many attempts to undermine family planning. Our tax dollars don't pay for abortion. What our tax dollars do with these agencies is prevent abortion in the most effective, real-world way we know -- birth control -- understanding that some people are going to have sex whether the purity police want it or not.
So, who's for pulling the plug? And for flipping the switch for sane policies supportive of family planning?
John Young's column appears Thursday and Sunday.
Copyright 2008 Waco Tribune-Herald
10 Comments so far
Show AllThese new rules are not about anything other than controlling the lives of women in general. As if American women would put up with this nonsense for any real length of time. I doubt these new polices will exist if a democrat is elected of office in November. I say we should all write to our elected officials in Washington and at the state level and demand that they refuse to comply with funding for these policies and also demand that the people in Washington IMPEACH DUBYA AND DICKIE.
hemp4victory,
Unfortunately, that means that like the ban on hemp, the shell game against women that's going on right under our noses will also apply to men. By the time, the damage is complete America won't know what hit them yet again. Come to think of it, the ban on Cannabis was the road to banning healthcare for all except the uber-well-to-do.
Polishing ! Yes, that's the verb I was looking for. The GOP is polishing every turd on the lawn, looking for the stinkiest ones for Obama to step in. All together NOW: "The Right Wing and John McCain Have NOTHING".
BETSY: You raise a good point about the fiscal beneficiaries, but don't under-estimate what 50 million American authoritarians, a/k/a Christian fundamentalists think about women's rights starting with reproductive choices. In other words both you and Jane M are corect, and I suppose we could layer this analysis with yet other motivations behind these misogynistic policies. I happen to see the PR possibilities inherent to the craze of "right to life" utilized by the first to clamor FOR war. To me, it's the spiritual equivalent of troops shining their boots before they go in for the kill.
I disagree that the goal is to subjugate women. I suspect rather that the real goal is to shovel tax dollars into the pockets of a particular constituency (right-wing "Christians") and its institutions. (You can't say that, however, so you say "of institutions that are willing to hire medical personnel who oppose contraception.") Defunding groups perceived as "leftist" is a helpful side-effect. The effect on women is, well, "collateral damage." We're the pawns, not the targets.
This sort of "regulation" isn't susceptible to rational argument, because it's not designed to make sensible policy. It's designed for kleptocracy.
In the past decade alone, plenty of Democrats joined the GOP in outlawing pro-women's health by associating women's health with abortions the same way both parties outlawed hemp by associating it with marijuana. Learn to reframe the issues and let's get real progressives and liberals please.
What will our CristoCorporate misogynists think of next. Perhaps prosecuting headaches as abortions? Barbara should have been childless!
Republicans are against women's right to choose.
You ended up here because you allowed Republicans to be elected to too many offices, especially the presidency.
There is no reason to do it again in 2008, but betcha that several below will advocate it by railing on that Obama is not good enough somehow.
The intent has to be the total subjugation of women, much like many of the Muslim societies. Is that really what the conservatives want? This is amazing.
The only sure way to reduce the numbers of abortions is to provide education and the availability of contraception to anyone over the age of 12 that needs it. It should be free! Our local high school nurse's office used to give out condoms, but that was 20 years ago. How the heck did we end up here?