The move is expected to affect an average of 120 low-income women each day. Other services provided by Planned Parenthood, including pelvic exams, were also in peril.
Planned Parenthood provides privately in New Hampshire abortions which are paid for by private donations. But state and federal funds provide approximately 20% of the funding of New Hampshire's Planned Parenthood clinics, which the Concord Monitor writes in 2010
provided contraception for 13,242 patients in New Hampshire, Trombley said. The organization also provided 6,112 breast exams, 5,548 screenings for cervical cancer and 18,858 tests for sexually transmitted infections. If the contract is not renewed, Planned Parenthood will drastically reduce its services, Trombley said. The organization employs 80 people in New Hampshire.
The manager of one site, Amanda Mehegan
said she also worries the denied contract will lead to women with breast and cervical cancer going longer without a diagnosis, both because of direct cuts in funding for examinations and because many women are drawn to the center to pick up their birth control and then receive checkups.
A visit to Planned Parenthood serves as the annual checkup for many women. But they are just collateral damage to the all-Republican Council. Three of its members voted against renewing the contract and one of them, Raymond Wieczorek, stated "I am opposed to abortion.... I am opposed to providing condoms to someone. If you want to have a party, have a party but don't ask me to pay for it."
That no doubt will persuade all New Hampshire citizens in need of family planning services not to "have a party." A practitioner at one of the centers noted "It's crazy to not give women birth control if you want to stop women from having abortions."
But that is what might be motivating conservatives in Indiana, Kansas, and North Carolina, who have moved to cut Planned Parenthood off at its knees. To some conservatives- such as Wieczorek- eliminating family planning is not a bug, but a benefit. In the Pledge, distributed by the right-wing Iowa group Family Leader, included among the "vow(s)" to which each presidential candidate is asked to express allegiance is
Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial health and security.
That presumably would meet with the approval of Rush Limbaugh, who would take it a step further, given that in June he blared "we don't face a problem of overpopulation in the world." (Honestly, this is a direct quote; go to the pseudo- transcript, available for a week to non-subscribes, if you don't believe a living, breathing human being would make such a claim.)
For those of you earnest about the view that life begins at conception: criticism of abortion rights is only the tactic of the pro-life movement; encouraging the "robust" conception of unwanted children is the goal. And then, in a commitment to "downsizing government," assiduously neglecting them.
1 comment:
Encouraging the robust conception of unwanted children?
They or at least most of them say no coital sex outside of marriage (and then some), not just no condoms.
If their tactic was to pierce holes through condoms in the drug store (or on their way to other distributors), you might have a valid argument.
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