Of All the Issues, the Republican Congress Wants to Fight Over Planned Parenthood

Immigration reform is a major issue in this country, one that Republicans are saying is a “crisis,” but they do nothing on it. Mass shootings are a major issue in this country, and yet the Congress does nothing on guns. Syria is in a major crisis, and no one in Congress has any solution. Our environment needs protecting, but there is no action there either. On issue after issue, Congress fails to act.

They don’t fail to have sideshows though. Yesterday they spent the day on Capitol Hill holding “hearings” about how bad Planned Parenthood is. Their evidence? Falsified B.S. videos that are doctored beyond credibility. The chairman of the House Committee actually said the bit money we throw towards Planned Parenthood for non-abortion services is the reason his parents are dead of cancer. If there was ever a complete waste of time in Congress, it was yesterday.

The argument the House Republicans are reduced to at this point is that they don’t like their tax dollars going to an organization they don’t agree with or support. They go further and cite political donations from Planned Parenthood to Democrats (mind you, from a separate entity, but whatever). If we applied that same standard in reverse, I might say that Democrats should shut down the government to stop several military contractors from getting public contracts, because war offends my conscience and I don’t like that military contractors give a lot of money to Republicans. If you’re saying, “that’s ridiculous,” you’re right, it is. It’s the exact same argument House Republicans are making though, the only difference is that it’s real in their case. They’re actually spewing this nonsense, and wasting the people’s time on this. Please, don’t talk to me about your religious views on abortion either- Jesus actually told us in the Bible to help the poor and make peace. That doesn’t mean I want government shutdowns over the next Boeing contract.

Republicans want to force their will on America by any means necessary. Never mind the nearly three million people treated by Planned Parenthood with this money. Never mind the functions of our government. Either give these clowns their way, or they’ll throw sideshow hearings and threaten shutdowns. Not only do they serve no purpose for America, they actually do us harm. It’s sad.

The Ridiculous Republicans Will Do Anything to Kill Planned Parenthood

Let’s be clear here- everything in the “Planned Parenthood videos” should be considered false, because the videos were doctored. While several Republican-lead states have investigated the videos and concluded that they are doctored, that has not stopped the GOP from trying to kill Planned Parenthood off of the planet by any means necessary, using the videos as their rationalization. A little lie is not enough reason for the Republicans to back off of their long stated goal of killing one of the largest providers of women’s health care in the nation. Truth has no place in that debate for them.

Obviously, Carly Fiorina was willing to get on a stage in front of the nation and flat-out lie about what she “saw” on the Planned Parenthood videos, videos that were doctored to begin with. She was willing to just make up a scene in those videos, complete with grizzly details, and talk about it as though it was fact. Obviously, Fiorina has a loose relationship with the truth to begin with, but this was even special for her.

She’s not alone though. The Republican controlled House has now voted to defund Planned Parenthood of all federal funding for one year. Now remember, not one dime of the federal funding they received previously went to abortions, as that is already illegal under the Hyde Amendment, and is audited and checked by the government and outside sources annually (as many people make it their mission to make sure the government doesn’t fund abortion). That doesn’t matter to the Republican House though, as they are willing to force a government shutdown over starving Planned Parenthood of the money it uses to help underprivileged women, provide cancer screenings, and provide all sorts of health care for women who need it. The Republican House is willing to harm millions of women to kill Planned Parenthood.

All of this is ridiculous. Planned Parenthood’s overwhelming majority of work has nothing to do with abortions. Yes, they do abortions at some locations, and no, there’s nothing wrong with that. Whether you or I like abortions, they are legal and protected under the Constitution of the United States. By no means do you personally have to approve of them, but trying to destroy a non-profit for providing a legal procedure is dangerous grounds to walk on. The Republican Party is showing that it is willing to harm millions of women in order to kill a non-profit they don’t like. That is truly sick.

The GOP Actually Wants to Shut Down the Government to Stop Women’s Access to Healthcare

No, there’s no debt ceiling fight, or fight over Obamacare this Fall. That’s good, right? The GOP is maybe growing up and acting like adults in Congress, realizing that those are crazy and stupid fights, fights that the public wants them to stop having. Maybe our politics are growing up.

Don’t bet on it.

The GOP is considering a government shutdown over their demand that all government funding for Planned Parenthood be cut off. Even though Planned Parenthood is banned by federal law (The Hyde Amendment) from using one cent for abortions, they say it’s the principle. They don’t want an organization that does any abortions with any money to get any money. Of course the federal money Planned Parenthood gets goes to all other areas of women’s health, especially for lower income women who desperately need that help. That doesn’t matter though. The ghouls that inhabit the GOP Congressional delegations want the organization starved into non-existence over a small portion of it’s work, work that is constitutionally protected and legal. They don’t like it, so it shouldn’t be.

The GOP has spent nearly seven years now throwing a temper-tantrum, demanding their way on everything from government spending to starving out women’s health. They want to take away the health care of millions, and of course this latest move only re-confirms that fact. The Republican Party does not care about the health of women, only that they get to kick and scream, and cause a scene, to let people know how right they are. They are more of a whining toddler than a political party.

There is no Planned Parenthood Scandal

Why was I ignoring the Planned Parenthood “scandal?” Because there was none.

Last week, Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey became the latest in what’s sure to be a long list of state attorneys general to conclude the same thing. Specifically, Healy concluded,

“Over the past week, my office has conducted a thorough review and found that Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts’ health care centers are fully compliant with state and federal laws regarding the disposition of fetal tissue. Although donation of fetal tissue is permissible under state and federal law, PPLM does not have a tissue donation program. There is no evidence that PPLM is involved in any way in the buying or selling of tissue. As such, our review is complete.”

Sure, Massachusetts is a leftward-leaning state, but Indiana is very much not. Back on July 16, Gov. Mike Pence, R-Ind., launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood following the release of what was obviously a doctored and misleading video. The probe focused on facilities in Indianapolis, Bloomington and Merrillville, and this past week the Indiana Department of Health reported it was “unable to find any non-compliance with state regulations. Therefore, no deficiencies were cited.”

I’m hardly shocked by this, in fact i’m not at all. Facts are brutally clear here, from the Salon article:

Objective reality includes the following facts:

• Planned Parenthood is not selling fetus parts for profit or otherwise.

• Only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities involve abortions.

• Per the Hyde Amendment, no federal funds can be used for abortions. And there’s no evidence that Planned Parenthood has done so.

• Consequently, de-funding Planned Parenthood would put into jeopardy its ability tosave lives and, germane to this issue, prevent abortions. The Washington Post editorial board concluded:

“No federal money is used by Planned Parenthood to provide abortions except in some rare exceptions. So cutting off government funds, mostly through Medicaid and grants, would only hurt the thousands of people, most of them low-income women, who each day depend upon Planned Parenthood for birth control, cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and other health services. Given that many of the clinics are in medically underserved areas, it’s a myth, as Republicans claim, that other providers can fill the gap. Shutting down clinics would make it harder for many women to obtain birth control — and the last thing either side of the abortion debate should want is an increase in unwanted pregnancies that result in more abortions.”

• Along those lines, in 2013 and 2014, 3,577,348 patients were provided with birth control services by Planned Parenthood. That’s upwards of 3.5 million potential abortions prevented. What happens when these services disappear? Maybe the press should quiz anti-choice Republicans about this one.

• Additionally, Planned Parenthood would lose the ability to conduct breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screenings — hundreds of thousands per year. It’d also lose the ability to perform thousands of vasectomies every year. How many unwanted pregnancies will result from the loss of this particular option?

• Journalist Nicholas Kristof reported that Planned Parenthood and other family planning facilities “prevent about one million unintended pregnancies a year, of which 345,000 would have ended in abortion.” This according to the nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute. Again, why do Republicans want to create circumstances that’s produce an additional million unintended pregnancies and a third-of-a-million abortions every year?

• If women who visit Planned Parenthood are forbidden from donating fetal tissue to biomedical labs, that tissue will be tossed in the waste bin. Republicans appear to prefer this option for some reason. Meanwhile, eliminating the legal tissue donation program would put a damper on research into preventing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

• Here’s a salient fact. When fetal tissue research was authorized by the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993, how many Republicans voted against that law? Exactly four. The other 41 Republicans voted “yea.” This, among other things, highlights how sensible Republicans were in 1993 compared to the lunatics running the show today.

Well, that settles that. I’m going to go back to being angry about the lion that got killed.

Yes, I’m More Concerned About a Lion Than a Fake Planned Parenthood Scandal

I can’t resist here- yes, I’m disgusted by the Cecil the Lion story. I read people saying on Twitter I should be more disgusted by the Debouse murder story, and by the Planned Parenthood “video scandal.” When I have people on all sides telling me i’m worried about the wrong stuff, I feel pretty good about my priorities. Don’t get me wrong, I’m concerned by the Debouse story- it appears that a man was unjustly killed by the police. I just am capable of multiple cases of outrage at once.

I’m not at all outraged about the Planned Parenthood “scandal” though. Yes, Planned Parenthood offers some abortion services. It’s a minority of their services, many times over, but they do it. That’s legal in the United States, and I support the right to choose. Yes, an anti-choice group has videos of Planned Parenthood personnel offering to sell body parts from the aborted fetuses. They’re not selling them to me though, or randomly on the street to people though. It’s fairly understood that Planned Parenthood sells the body parts to scientific research. That’s scientific research that saves lives. That’s a good thing. Given that abortion is legal, and there are body parts left afterwards, I’d rather see them sold to research than discarded as trash.

Abortion is a topic I really don’t discuss much, because I honestly don’t like it. I don’t think that legally there is a good argument to ban abortion, nor do I think that abortion is a good thing. I also don’t think that I, as a man, should make the decision of what a woman can do with her own body. Even so, if I got a girl pregnant tomorrow, I would strongly urge her to have the child, because I do think that in my life situation, it is the right thing to do. How I feel though does not constitute a good reason to set public policy. For that reason, I’m pro-choice- a woman should make her own choice. Ask me to make these decisions when I can get pregnant.

So, I’m not at all bothered by the Planned Parenthood fake “scandal,” or the push by those creating the “scandal” for a new national debate on abortion. I’m very concerned that men are paying $35,000 or more to kill lions that are increasingly rare, using illegal poaching methods, and skating just beyond the rule of law that protects those magnificent animal. In fact, I’m not at all moved by the Planned Parenthood “scandal.” You may think what you would like about that, but I’m also a pro-choice supporter of the environment, so I guess my position is not at all shocking or surprising. I’m not going to be troubled by a clearly hit-job video that in no way should move anyone’s position on abortion from where it is before. I’m going to be very troubled by an incidence of poaching of one of the world’s greatest creatures, a creature man is putting into peril. I’m even more troubled by worse cases of poaching, too.

I’m actually kind of perplexed as to why conservatives are linking the two, in the first place. There are plenty of people who are pro-life and pro-choice that agree that poaching is wrong. Attacking people for being concerned about poaching seems counter-productive to their message, for me. Other than trying to force people to pay attention to their false controversy, I can’t see any point in linking two totally different stories.