House Democrats are trying to use COVID-19 relief bills to fund Planned Parenthood
“Democrats are ready for another attempt, and the latest iteration of the new stimulus bill in the House includes no Hyde Amendment language. As it stands, the legislation would permit state and local governments to disburse their portion of stimulus funding to abortion providers, make Planned Parenthood eligible for small-business loans, and include elective abortion in subsidized health-care coverage for furloughed workers.” - NR
….to those who support the notion of taxpayer funded abortion is “by what moral logic do you want to force pro-life people to pay for acts they believe are murder?” What’s next, taxing Hindus to pay for ranches and slaughterhouses for cattle? (in a manner of speaking, we might say we do via corn subsidies, but that’s a bit further down the line)
The next argument is “well, we’re just paying for non-abortion-related services”, and to that, there are two good responses. First, those “non-abortion-related services” are keeping the abortion clinics open, so it’s nearly as offensive to pro-life people as direct funding of abortion. I don’t think the left understands that, or really how precarious the economics of abortion are without that funding.
Second, if I want to provide medical services to the poor, I want to use full service clinics and general/family practicioners, not ob/gyns whose skills are are pretty much limited to contraception and abortion, along with writing referrals for Pap smears and mammograms. If medical services are provided narrowly, one first of all misses things like screening for heart disease and diabetes, which are the big killers of poor women, and worse yet, you’re pushing full service providers out of neighborhoods because they don’t get the business that Planned Parenthood takes.
In other words, funding for Planned Parenthood actually creates the “healthcare deserts” that the left would love to lecture us about. You want poor people to be sick? Keep funding Planned Parenthood. You want them to be healthier? Let’s try directing funds to full service doctors, not filling the gaps in budgets for abortionists.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I always wonder how many of the legislators are personally passionate in support of PP and abortion vs. how many feel the need to pander to a constituency for votes and $. Editing the Hyde protections out of the bill doesn’t seem to have a lot of campaign zing to it (“I helped make room for state level abortion funding in a COVID relief bill!”), but maybe it helps with bullet points for campaign fund raising dinners and such with the donors? (Or personal conversations with deep-pocketed zealots?)
It’s just always seemed like a weird thing to be passionate about, even if one supposes that a fetus is not human life (which I do not personally suppose, btw). It feels like an identity thing… “we’re this because They’re not.”
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
My guess, Aaron, is that there are indeed hard core supporters of abortion who are aware that abortion doesn’t pay the bills except in big cities because even nominally pro-choice people are reluctant to hire an obstetrician who does abortions. Hence a doctor needs to choose; does he do abortion, or does he do medicine? Not too many can get away with doing both in this country. Hospitals will steer clear of abortionists, in general, for the same reason. They cannot risk pro-lifers avoiding their hospital because they hire abortionists, or give them admitting privileges.
And while they cover their tracks well, that is, in my view, why the battles over PP funding and abortion clinic regulations are so intense. They are well aware that without the subsidies, and with meaningful regulations, the clinics cannot survive.
Now most pro-choice people are not in this category, and that’s why the fiscal reality isn’t stated plainly. But there is, IMO, a core of ghouls out there who really are all about legal abortion.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Discussion