54 CommentsWith midterms madness, Bwog sometimes forgets it’s a national citizen. A few months ago we tried to sort through the lame duck congress that soared, and now we’re back covering the craziness on Capitol Hill. Bwog probs shouldn’t be your go-to source for national news, but things are happening in the world outside of Morningside Heights! Over the past two weeks, the House has erupted in debate over federal funding for Planned Parenthood, America’s largest sexual and reproductive healthcare provider. Planned Parenthood receives funds under Title X, a federal grant program dedicated to providing family planning and preventative care services, particularly for low-income women. We offer a very brief summary of the controversy.
- On February 1, a group called Live Action (a self-described “youth led movement dedicated to building a culture of life and ending abortion” according to their website bio) posted video of an undercover operation in a New Jersey Planned Parenthood. The video features a man posing as a pimp, asking the manager for advice about STD testing, abortions, and contraception on behalf of his prostitutes. The manager appears to give advice freely. He was subsequently fired.
- The same operation was repeated at other centers. In the other cases, those who spoke to the “pimp” reported him to their superiors.
- Obama has defended Planned Parenthood, despite the negative reaction to the undercover video.
- Just over two weeks later, on February 18, the House approved Republican Rep. Mike Pence‘s amendment on a budget bill to completely strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood under Title X. The federal family planning program for low-income women offers birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing, and other reproductive health services. By law, no Title X funds—no federal money— can be spent on abortions.
- The 240-185 vote to defund Planned Parenthood, mostly split on party lines, ignited fierce debate between liberals and conservatives.
From a New York Times editorial and “most-emailed” story for about a week, “The War on Women:”
Republicans in the House of Representatives are mounting an assault on women’s health and freedom that would deny millions of women access to affordable contraception and life-saving cancer screenings and cut nutritional support for millions of newborn babies in struggling families. And this is just the beginning.
From Republican Rep. Mike Pence’s editorial:
I believe that ending an innocent human life is morally wrong. I also believe it is morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund organizations that provide and promote abortions, like Planned Parenthood of America.
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54 Comments
@i guess since this is now on the 2nd page no one will see it again. oh well
@see below for my response to your comment
@so I have not once claimed anything from a religious standpoint and while I am religious my reasoning has been simply logical. Like I have said above, the abortion issue comes down to the value of human life. We can agree that human life has significant worth so the next step is to decide what you believe is human. (For now, I am only talking about the typical abortion so focusing your rebuttals on the rape, incest and “immediate danger to mother” cases avoids the real issue as these account for only a tiny percentage of abortions.)
I encourage you to tell me where I am wrong. Don’t just hide behind the “thumbs down.” Stand up for your beliefs.
First, HIV is not a living thing. It is a virus that only replicates by hijacking human cells. Second, the difference between a human embryo and cancerous, bacterial and animal cells is the fact that this cell is human. It contains all the DNA needed (as opposed to sperm and eggs) and if nothing goes wrong it will one day look like you and me. Development is a continuum (meaning each day the organism is only slightly different than the one before and after) and besides conception and death there is no moment of significant change. As such, I can’t think of a way to decide “okay now you are human enough to bar abortion.”
This is not an “ideology,” it’s just fact. Believing a 1 month-to-term fetus is the cutoff point for being human is an ideology as it has no basis in fact. 150 years ago babies born 1 month early had a survival rate close to 0. Today this rate is much higher. In fact due to advances in care and understanding of fetuses, each year the 50% survival rate moves closer to conception; it is now around 24 weeks with the youngest surviving at 21 weeks. One day, we will (probably) be able to combine some sperm and an egg in a lab and grow the human there (see Brave New World for how this plays out). Will these beings be any less human than a baby born from a woman? I don’t think so and therefore the location of an embryo does not make it any more or less human.
Some people believe we should protect beings that are “capable of thought or emotion” or have a “thinking and willing nature” but then my dog has more worth than a brain dead human. Clearly this is not true so thought and emotion is not enough to make someone human.
The moral obligation is not on the woman but is really on the doctor. Abortion is making the decision that one person deserves to die for the sake of the other person’s convenience/hopes/dreams/welfare. Ex: If someone were hanging off the edge of cliff, seconds from falling to their death, would you help? What if you were running to your bookie to pay off your debt and have 5 minutes to get him your money or he is going to break your legs (you’re 4 minutes away and helping the guy on the cliff is going to take you 2 minutes)? No one would know you let the guy fall to his death and you could continue using your legs. (I know this isn’t a great example but you get the idea.) If you believe that a human life is more important than pretty much anything (like the use of your legs), you’d help. Your legs may heal, but that man is dead no matter what happens down the line. Your dream of going to going to college, buying that house, or just making ends meet may be ruined or delayed by that baby is dead forever if you have an abortion. (This is place where the discussion of rape and danger to the mother cases should be held.)
Specific responses:
– I said before, pregnancy doesn’t just happen. Sex is fun, but its primary function is procreation. Women may not have abortions recreationally, but women and men who have sex recreationally must realize that the consequence of sex is sometimes pregnancy even if you’ve done everything you can to prevent it. Many people seem to miss the connection between sex and pregnancy.
– PP is important to our society but calling it vital is probably going too far. Many of its services are vital but without PP these services could be offered by a group that does not promote abortion.
– The issue of welfare is only applicable if you believe ending a life is better than inconveniencing others.
– There are also studies that show that black people, the poor and immigrants are more likely to be criminals. Does this mean we should abort all of them?
– Actually, Roe v Wade does not “ultimately” make it the mother’s choice. It legally makes it her choice before viability. Once the fetus is viable, abortion is no longer an option (in most cases). Either way, it doesn’t matter as this is just the decision of 7 old guys not a
I know this is a long response but this is not a simple issue and I wanted to make my points clearly so that they can be challenged. Yes, I want you to tell me why I am wrong (not why you think I am wrong) so please respond and tell me where my logic fails at the heart of the matter (conception = human) or my assumption that human life has significant worth is invalid.
@so I know this is a long response but give it a chance. I read all of your comments and believe I addressed all of them above.
@econ major “There are also studies that show that black people, the poor and immigrants are more likely to be criminals. Does this mean we should abort all of them?”
just a small interjection –
the reason blacks and immigrants are shown in these studies is because race is closely linked with class. Usually people of color tend to be poorer but it is only because in our society, socioeconomics are so closely tied together.
@probably true but I don’t think it counters that point significantly. It is a small point anyway and I am more interested in the larger issue but I appreciate the close reading.
@Anonymous The issue is not taking responsibility. Your premise depends on someone not wanting to take responsibility, which would imply that, if they were, they’d have the baby, la-di-da.
In some cases, this might be true.
But in many cases, it’s not that simple, and to pretend that it is is disheartening and offensive to every woman’s experience you’re passing judgment on. There are myriad reasons why women have abortions, not least of them because of health risks that could be fatal to the mother, because of rape, or incest. And there are still others that may offend YOU, but are patently none of your business: for example, that women on welfare in many states don’t get an increase on their payments if they give birth while receiving benefits. Low-income women tend not to have access to the kind of family planning that would prevent these unexpected births from happening, so how is it fair to punish them for something that is in many ways out of their control and will make their lives–in addition to the future child, and however many other people she’s taking care of–worse?
All this is to say that whatever the circumstances, you can’t make assumptions about why women have abortions. This isn’t some philosophical debate about whose life is more important, this is the condition on the ground. Women don’t go out and have abortions recreationally, and legal restrictions on it aren’t going to populate your life with lots of cute little babies that you can use to tell those would-be-abortion-getters ‘I told ya so!’ Real rates will probably stay the same, you’ll just see more dangerous backroom abortions, and most likely more fatal complications because of it. So–unfortunately, there won’t be any more cute little babies no matter which way you slice it. Sorry.
@John From above, since you didn’t realize: Rape/incest are less than 3% of all abortions. Newsflash: mortality rates for mothers are incredibly low in the US. You’re bullshitting yourself if you feel like those percentages justify the 90% who do so for economic reasons, economic conditions which don’t change after the baby is born. You wouldn’t want to justify them leaving their baby after birth on a hill somewhere because they can’t afford it. So it all comes down to is it a person.
Saying real rates will stay the same is ridiculous. Of course making it legal would decrease the occurrence. You think if people were jailed for abortions that wouldn’t be a deterrent at all?
But more importantly: Consider the side of a pro-lifer. If you think that abortion is murder, do you really think the argument people will continue to murder sounds persuasive? I mean, people continue to break the speed limit and we have laws against that. Hell, people still thieve etc. But that doesn’t mean that we should change the law because some people will break it.
If you honestly believe something violates the rights of another human being (which pro-lifers do) than that concern is irrelevant. Even if outlawing thievery (hypothetically) led to not one decrease in the amount of robbing from before such a law was enacted, it still would be unjust not to have the law and just not to have it.
so: NOTE TO THOSE WHO ARE PRO-CHOICE. Your only arguments that could ever carry real persuasive value are those trying to demonstrate the point at which you consider a human fetus/baby a person. If you don’t change a pro-lifers mind on that subject, they aren’t gonna be swayed by some bs about economic situations and “a right to choose.” (Choice isn’t a value. Most laws criminalize choices that interfere with others rights. You can choose to shoot someone, but you’ll be imprisoned for assault with a weapon, because you violated the rights of that person.) If you don’t persuade a pro-lifer that it’s not a person, than all the circumstances pro-choicers reference don’t matter a flying fuck, because they don’t outweigh straight murder. If it were a 4 yr old, for all these example pro-choicers and pro-lifers would agree that the kid can’t be killed for whatever reason.
And yes, it is a person. but pro-choicers. please only argue why you think it isn’t one. because every other argument is so much unpersuasive noise. if i don’t change my belief that it’s a person, i won’t care about all your whiny complaints.
@John * just to have it
@Pro-choice conservative Compelling a woman to absorb the risks and obligations of pregnancy is a violation of her a fetus at anything but the last month is a violation of her self-ownership. There is no moral obligation to subject onesself to serious physical requirements to protect a person- if we call a blastocyst that – when it is intruding on one’s self. There is no amount of forethought or planning that changes the fundamental right of a person to decide what uses their bodies.
Besides, nothing about a somewhat differentiated ball of cells reflects humanity, in its thinking, willing nature, except the woman that carries it.
@Pro-choice conservative First sentence should read: “Compelling a woman to absorb the risks and obligations of pregnancy is at anything but the last month is a violation of her right to self-ownership.
@pro-choice What about children who are born to parents who can’t afford them? There’s been many a study that says children born into horrible environments are more likely to become criminals.
We are never going to be able to convince a pro-life person that a life isn’t at conception. That is their ideology. Just like it is mine that at conception, it is just cells.
Don’t force your ideology on me. Government is supposed to be separate from church and we know that we don’t do a good job of it here in the US but at least acknowledge that you are forcing your beliefs on someone else.
Roe V. Wade allows to it to be ultimately the woman’s choice. If you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one.
I just as much as you don’t want people to have to go to the extremes to get abortions. I want the number of abortions to go down. But making it illegal won’t do that. It will just make women seek out other dangerous ways of getting abortions.
@see below for my response
@Van Owen Sadly, 1 out of 4 Columbia women has herpes.
@Ouch. The pro-life comments on this feed hurt my soul. Imposing your anti-abortion policies on others is the same as imposing your religious, sexual, etc. preferences on others. Pregnancy happens, no matter how cautious partners are – it happens. It also happens in cases of rape and incest. If a woman feels that she is invaded and wants to terminate her pregnancy it is HER choice. Not yours. It’s not your body. This is not Rosseau’s social contract – we are not enslaved to a general will.
Furthermore, the moment a sperm and egg meet and create a cell does not constitute a living human. It is a living CELL. It multiplies just like cancerous cells do – is cancer something that should be protected? HIV is a living thing – should we protect it too? Should we protect every living thing? Even if it is a microbial cell, incapable of thought or emotion?
Planned Parenthood is a vital part of American society whether you support it or not, and it’s here to stay. The women of America will not stand for something this vital to be taken away from them.
@John I have a religious conviction you shouldn’t shoot someone in the chest. Does this mean I’m imposing that conviction on you by expecting the government to make murder a criminal activity??
Your real argument here is that you think it isn’t a person, which is a separate debate than “how can you legislate your morality” since if it is a person, of course it needs to be protected.
So try thinking a little bit. And understand the logical pitfalls in your argument.
@Pimp stings? I have to say I don’t understand the supposed expose of the pimp stings. Wouldn’t it be in the public interest and a public good to make sure that prostitutes aren’t spreading sexually-transmitted diseases? Wouldn’t it be in the public interest and a public good to prevent prostitutes from getting pregnant?
In fact, if prostitutes are prevented from getting pregnant, it would minimize the need for prostitutes to get abortions. Can’t we agree that that’s a good thing, too?
So, what exactly IS the nature of the expose of those pimp “stings”??
@Anonymous I’m so incredibly saddened by the “pro-life” comments on this post. If you were really pro-life you’d care about an actual person with experiences, hopes, and aspirations instead of a collection of barely differentiated cells living inside of that person
@pro-choice exactly. i am pro-every child having a good-life.
@so you want to start deciding which life matters more (see my definition of human above)?
I do feel sorry for the woman who is pregnant but not enough to believe she should kill her baby. Sex is a responsibility. When she and the father decided to have sex they took on that responsibility. They should not be bailed out at the cost of an innocent fetus.
More and more, American’s refuse to accept responsibility for their actions and it is one reason why the country is struggling these days.
@John You can care about someone’s aspirations and not believe that pursuing those aspirations is a legitimate reason to kill someone. The whole debate really comes down to if we regard the moment of conception as when it is valued person, or some other point (which pro-choicers can never exactly specify). It’s pointless to debate anything but that point, because if it is a person abortion is horrible, and if it isn’t, then it correspondingly isn’t horrible.
But if you believe it is, the thought someone will have to deal with the pregnancy doesn’t justify killing the person. Could I kill someone who is ahead of me for a promotion, of which I only have one chance to obtain, and my life will certainly be more difficult without it? No.
Rape/incest are less than 3% of all abortions. Newsflash: mortality rates for mothers are incredibly low in the US. You’re bullshitting yourself if you feel like those percentages justify the 90% who do so for economic reasons, economic conditions which don’t change after the baby is born. You wouldn’t want to justify them leaving their baby after birth on a hill somewhere because they can’t afford it. So it all comes down to is it a person.
And yes, it is.
@BC'11 So you all want every single pregnancy to be kept? except for the special cases of rape or incest or the mother will die? Are you going to pay for ALL these children? Because I’m pretty sure their parents won’t.
Because people seem to forget that welfare and food stamps go to families that don’t have jobs and can’t afford their children. And that comes from TAXES.
See I’m pro-choice because I think women should have access to an abortion performed by a doctor who knows what they are doing and in a safe, clean place. No one LIKES abortion. No one does. It is not a pretty thing. Its unnatural and harsh. But instead of forcing your ideology on others, I think rationally about it.
But my thing is I’m not against life. I love babies, I want to have three kids WHEN I’m ready and I can afford them. I want every baby born in this world to be given everything they need but some people can’t do that at the time they get pregnant.
And SHIT HAPPENS. You could be on the pill, use condoms, and get pregnant. Birth Control isn’t 100% effective. That’s why they say 99.99%; there still that 0.01% that it will happen.
@so because they can’t have “everything they need” they should be killed? Why stop with the unborn. Instead of welfare just kill everyone who doesn’t have “everything they need.” This would balance the budget in a matter of months.
Yes, welfare cost a lot but I can live with my taxes supporting someone’s life. What I can’t live with is my taxes ending innocent lives.
You say “shit happens” but women don’t spontaneously become pregnant. Having sex is choice and has consequences. When you decide to have sex you are accepting those consequences. Sex exists with one purpose and just because its a lot of fun doesn’t mean you can justify killing babies for it when a condom breaks.
I am one of the most rational people I know and abortion (except in the very, very rare cases) is not rational. The fact is a fetus is just as human as you and has the right to life just as you do.
@was going to say this but you already said it. the reasoning that if certain babies are born rather than aborted then they will be unwanted/not taken care of and should be killed is appalling. i can’t believe we have gotten to this point where a life has so little intrinsic value. i am an all-around conservative who is VERY reluctant to make people part with their money, but supporting babies who have no one to take care of them is where i draw the line.
@BC'11 But see this goes back to the root of this issue and whether or not a child is a person at conception or not. I don’t believe it is. It is just cell at the beginning.
People will continue to have sex. Accidents do happen. I accept my responsibilities and I’m on birth control and my boyfriend and I use condoms. But there is a possibility of both things failing.
So you would prefer for abortion to be illegal? So women can go back to getting abortions from sketchy people or doing it themselves, risking their lives? I think making abortion legal is a rational choice because abortions are going to continue to happen whether you like it or not and whether they are legal or illegal. Making them legal provides at least a clean place with a trained professional to perform it.
We need a reform of sexual education that provides everyone with information and birth control because sex is going to happen and telling people to not do it hasn’t worked. If we can provided everyone with birth control, we’d stop the problem at the root and they would be less abortions.
@so we should legalize murder since its going to happen anyway?
I am glad you accept the responsibility but wonder if you have decided to have an abortion if you become pregnant.
You’re right this does go back to the root issue and here is my logic. We hold human life a high value so we first must define human life. What makes us different from everything else? I cannot think of anything that makes us human except our DNA (if you think of something else let me know but I’ll continue with this as the definition of human). Are DNA and first cell is a product of a sperm and an egg and once these two meet, we have a human being. It may just be one cell but this cell will multiply and grow until it dies. Besides conception and death, there is no definitive difference from any day in the life of this human to the one after it (meaning that there is no significant change in a human from 29yrs 364 days and 30 yrs or 30 days after conception and 31 days).
With no clear markers, we have no choice but to define a human as conception to death.
I am not preaching abstinence and agree that sex ed is a joke. However, abortion should be illegal* and not seen as a viable alternative or back up to birth control.
(* again except in very, very rare instances)
@Guttmacher institute is a offshoot of planned parenthood so I can’t say I’m surprised their “stats” support PP. Telling a surveyor/doctor you had protected sex doesn’t mean you really did. Oral contraception is 99.9% effective if taken properly. When both a condom and oral contraception is used it is the odds of a pregnancy are astronomically small as both must fail.
And yes there are a dumb mass of people who go around thinking abortions aren’t a big deal. PP existence is proof of that. PP allows abortions to be an relatively easy alternative increasing the number.
The stigma of abortion is deserved. The killing of fetus is still the ending of a human life and my tax dollars should not be supporting any organization that encourages this deplorable act.
@why should my money go to stupid people? If you don’t want HIV or a baby don’t have unprotected sex with multiple partners. NYC has free condoms. Use them.
@CC '13 I understand that you are frustrated, but you shouldn’t oversimplify this situation. Fifty-four per cent (a majority) of women seeking an abortion used a contraceptive method at the time of conception (source: Guttmacher institute). Good and careful women can still experience the failings of birth control with either a broken condom or ineffective pack of pills. Twenty per cent of American women will visit a Planned Parenthood in her life. Frightened women seeking medical help are all around you. You probably know someone who has had an abortion, and because of the stigma, she has to deal with that event mostly by herself. These are not a dumb mass of people who sleep around and don’t think abortion is a big deal.
Furthermore, Planned Parenthood helps prevent 612,000 unwanted pregnancies every year by providing women with birth control. They also provide sex education to 1.2 million adolescents every year. The number of abortions per year has dropped significantly since 2000. (Sources: Planned Parenthood, and the Guttmacher institute)
@Guttmacher institute see below for misplaced reply
@Anonymous As a pro-life woman I dislike the fact that my tax money goes towards subsidizing abortion costs. I am, however, totally in favor of Planned Parenthood’s other services and believe that the organization should be able to continue to provide breast exams, STD screening, etc. to patients.
Does anyone know if there is anyway to financially divide PP into a segment that provides abortions and a segment that provides other health-related services?
@CC '13 Your tax money does not subsidize abortions, which are 100% paid for by the woman seeking the service (or her insurance company). Your taxes go toward the cancer screenings and STD treatments. The only abortions the government pays for are in the cases of rape or incest. There were only 191 of these cases in America last year, and many of them were not even performed by Planned Parenthood.
@the siege of liberalism has begun and good riddance to it
@Anonymous The videos of acorn were fakes done by the same group, Live Action that did the planned parenthood videos. Here is the proof: democracynow.org/2011/2/16/a_war_on_women_gop_bills
and on planned parenthood
democracynow.org/2010/3/12/judge_instructs_fed_agencies_to_resume and about planned parenthood
@Anonymous The videos of acorn were fakes done by the same group, Live Action that did the planned parenthood videos. Here is the proof: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/16/a_war_on_women_gop_bills
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/12/judge_instructs_fed_agencies_to_resume and about planned parenthood
@Anonymous Did you see the report that almost all of live actions recordings have been edited to make planned parenthood look bad? Bwog should look into that story.
@CC 11 Men and women should have as much information as possible available to them to help prevent STI transmission, unintended pregnancies, and a host of other problems. I think that an obvious place to start would be teaching high school students the basics of what it means to be a human with a human body that will almost certainly wind up having sex at some point and will face many risks involved with sex and the organs involved with sex. Sex ed was pretty useless where I come from, and it’s not even required in New York. It’s a shame education officials and legislators are too gutless to deal with the basic issue of giving students information about their bodies.
@on lighter note LOLZ at the ” 435 representatives picked to live in a house” tag
@did you know... 49% of pregnancies in america are unintended. and half of those will be terminated in abortion. at today’s rates, about 1/3 of all women will have had an abortion by the time they turn 45
also, catholic women make up the same percentage of abortion patients (28%) as they do in the general population. look it up: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
no one talks about abortions, but people you know have had them–friends, sisters, aunts, mothers… abortion on demand is an integral component of women’s reproductive health care and of women’s rights, and each step backwards from roe v. wade is a dangerous step backwards for all women
@Van Owen This is why a guy ought to put the babies on the belly, not in the belly. Otherwise aim for the chest, mouth, or just give her a pearl necklace. If she gets pregnant you don’t have to worry about birth control for 9 months.
@CC '13 The abortions at Planned Parenthood are entirely payed for by the patient, and they are no reason to eliminate this source of healthcare that many women, especially in cities, rely on. Twenty per cent of American women will visit Planned Parenthood in her lifetime, and 60% of patients who receive care at a center like Planned Parenthood consider it their primary source of health care.
Source: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/planned-parenthood-glance-5552.htm
I also highly recommend this article (link below) further explaining the undercover videos. Many audio clips of counselors advising women to consider adoption were cut out to make it look like Planned Parenthood pressures women into abortions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/planned-parenthood-funding_n_827886.html
I hope everyone can keep an open mind in this issue. One of the frustrations of democracy is that our tax dollars often go to causes we don’t fully support, but this is no reason to cut funding that goes to cancer screenings, STD screenings and treatment, and birth control for five million men and women each year.
@bc'11 But also this isn’t about abortion as much as everyone makes it seem. Planned Parenthood does 97% other services.
If anything, we should nip the problem at its root and get everyone educated and give them some form of birth control so abortions wouldn’t have to happen anyway. I, as much as the next person, want to see the number of abortions go down.
@i think it's terrifying that Planned Parenthood could lose funding. They offer crucial services like HIV testing, Pap tests, and contraception information. According to their website, only three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services! To make these services unavailable to women because the organization provides a perfectly legal (if controversial) procedure is scary. It’s a step back for women and our society as a whole.
@Prolife I’m opposed to abortion but I think stripping all funding for PP isn’t the answer… as this article states, PP provides all kinds of other services that are essential for reproductive health and pregnancy prevention. I think they should move to stop abortion funding in a way that doesn’t affect their other services.
@all kinds of other services like performing eugenics in black and hispanic communities!
@aaa yes You are with the black dignity site that runs ads against PP. It’s ok to be pro-life, but that site had these interesting comments. Basically , the movement wants to achieve equality through population, which, frankly isn’t going to work. You’ll need a deep, global cultural change before real equality occurs. And, frankly, something that really irks me about modern society is our oversexualization. Every popular (In both white and black communities) song is about banging, why do we have songs to celebrate higher pursuits like family, education or even religion. Abortion is just the duct tape we have on a broken society: I know so many people who are in abusive relationships to gain some sort of meaning and fulfilment…the modern idea of gaining happiness through something other than the happiness that is independent of anyone or any event is wrong.
PS, if you want to look at these arguments more in depth, here’s the site with their ad: blackdignity.org I find them ridiculous and they fail to hit the real issues.
@please get your facts right the govt doesn’t fund abortions because of the hyde amendment. no federal funds can go to abortions.
@Please get your logic right My parents give me money for food, and specifically say that I can’t use it on partying, so I use my own money for booze. Still, they’re funding my partying. If I had to pay for my food I wouldn’t be able to spend my money on partying. (I would probably starve, too, but hey)
@wat The Daily Show did a funny bit on this ‘theory’…
– Federal tax break on higher education tuition frees up your $ that you will now spend on abortions
– Federal tax break on solar panels frees up your $ that you will also definitely spend on more abortions
– Etc.
@Please get your logic right Ok, now say there’s an organization that provides AIDS treatment to homeless people, but they have a random side project that’s a PR campaign arguing for the reinstitution of slavery. Would it be okay for the government to give them money and say “hey, don’t use this for the racist thing, okay?” Or should we find/create an organization that does the AIDS treatment stuff without being racist?
In Stewart’s example, that’s giving money to individuals who may or may not be doing things you disapprove of with it, versus giving money to an organization that is definitely doing things you disapprove of with it.
@hhaha Abortion is a common sense issue. Pro-life supporters are thoughtless and idiotic.
@Yes. You need to believe in fables, deny objective truth, and lack any power of reason to hold a different opinion. There is never any societal value in disallowing any practice that is economically beneficial, and clearly those people who oppose this one either simply do not grasp this intuitively obvious fact or are not able to conceive of the obvious benefits. Poor slow witted fools. It is simply a matter of common sense not to oppose a societal practice of permitting the destruction of nascent human life for economic exigency or convenience.
@Yes. On the other hand, this amendment has multiple negative ramifications beyond the abortion issue, which I think is ultimately only of tangential inspiration for its supporters. If you’re calling them foolish, I have no argument.
@... No one is “for” abortion. No one decides on a whim to have one. It is an operation that is intrusive, painful, and often comes with social condemnation. Women would continue to have abortions whether or not there was funding. Back-alley abortions were all too common 50 years ago. The horror stories I have heard from my grandmother (who was a nurse at the time) of women coming in with botched attempts and dying as a result are enough to make me a strong supporter of a women’s right to choose.
You may choose not to have an abortion, and I respect your decision, but please don’t try to impose your choices on other women by advocating the removal (or “redirection”) of funding from abortion services.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zCJigrTb9Q