Excerpt: "No woman is doing anything illegal if she has an abortion. One is entitled to their ideology, religious or otherwise and to hold fast to whatever he/she interprets as morally just, but to sneakily attempt to superimpose that belief on the rest of us, under the guise of law, is dangerous."
A pro-Planned Parenthood demonstration. (photo: TPM)
04 July 12
n Sunday, it was Mississippi. On Monday, it was North Carolina. In a midnight vote, North Carolina's Republican House voted to defund that state's two Planned Parenthood clinics.
On Sunday, a judge temporarily blocked Mississippi's law that would have closed their only abortion clinic (read more on this here: http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12506770-abortion-law-signed-by-republican-gov-to-close-only-clinic-in-miss-blocked-by-federal-judge).
But North Carolina was not so lucky. The Republican-controlled state legislature successfully managed to strip all funding to Planned Parenthood, overriding Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue's state budget veto. Read more here: State Lawmakers Override Veto, Defund Planned Parenthood.
What is behind the GOP's frenetic attempt at dismantling Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics? The rehearsed "talking points" used on a loop, simply do not ring true.
America is a country of laws, and they are the first ones to point out the fallacies of "big government" intruding on its citizens lives. Yet their systematic dismantling of laws that protect women's health do the very thing they accuse the government of doing::intruding on women's deeply personal lives. They want to legislate a woman's vagina but get squirmish and forbids that word from being used on the Michigan House floor.(read more here:http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12417399-vaginalogues-at-michigan-capitol-you-cant-say-it-but-we-can-legislate-it-video).
They shrill from every conservative talk radio, television propaganda program, the House floors across America and on Capitol Hill, of tax payer dollars being used for abortion, when they know that to be false. They know most of these clinics provide valuable services like mammograms, pregnancy, HIV and STD testing, teen pregnancy prevention literature and birth control to low income women. All the things that would go towards making responsible and cost-effective decisions. Isn't that the battle cry of conservatives?
Fiscal responsibility, while not being a "burden" on society? Therefore, I am deeply puzzled by their singular march to wipe the U.S. clean of Planned Parenthood and birth control. They have already succeeded in closing the doors of another valuable service to the poor--ACORN's. Incidently, I do not hear not even a low tenor rumble about men's rampant Viagra use or Vasectomies. Aren't they all related to artificially tampering with life, the "un-Godly" way?
But just for argument sake, let's say federal funds were being used to help low-income women when they have nowhere else to turn. Which is more repulsive and blatantly unfair? Helping women who cannot afford medical services, or giving cushy tax breaks to the very wealthy in a time when the income divide is the widest it has ever been and the Middle Class is dwinding faster than it takes the super rich to fire up their private jets?
Then there is the most disingenuous argument used yet. The sanctity of life. The anti-abortion conservative crowd who cite their protection of all things living as the most pressing defense against abortion.
First of all, we have already won that federal fight. No woman is doing anything illegal if she has an abortion. One is entitled to their ideology, religious or otherwise and to hold fast to whatever he/she interprets as morally just, but to sneakily attempt to superimpose that belief on the rest of us, under the guise of law, is dangerous.
If the GOP would scream as loudly to "defund" over a decade long tax break for them and their wealthy friends; if they would scream as loudly to "defund' senseless, endless wars and bigger military budgets on weapons never used, then it might sound a lot less like high hypocrisy.
Secondly, if they were as concerned for all life as they profess to be, Republican legislators would not be rabidly pushing to slash social programs that help the most vulnerable among us. They would not be aggressively advocating 'defunding' healthcare for low income familes and the elderly. They would not be pushing to rob women of their reproductive rights.
Thirdly, if a woman is penalized for taking birth control, then punished if she cannot afford another pregnancy and wants an abortion, then also punished by being denied healthcare, housing or food assistence if she decides to have that child, what is she to do exactly?
If the sanctity of life was as important to them as they make it out to be, it stands to reason that compassion should extend to those already here just as much as to the unborn, shouldn't it? Or do they think only the rich should have access to healthcare, housing and food? Only rich women who can discreetly pay private facilities for their abortions, should have them? Do they think that only the rich should have access to life?
Now where did they get that kind of ideology, that some in our society are expendable? Following that line of thought too far can result in genocides and holocausts.
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