Contraception, Abortion and Komen

I think most of my readers are by now well aware of the storm that was raised by the decision of Susan G. Komen to defund Planned Parenthood. What they may not be aware of, is that this is a very small part of what can only be dubbed as the war on women. What used to be the Republican Party’s determination to end the right of women to have control over their own bodies, has now descended into an attempt to turn abortion into a capital crime, for logically, if human life indeed begins at conception, which was never the concept before, then the taking of that life is a capital crime, and it turns the millions of women who have always turned to abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy into “murderers."

           

But what has now happened is that they are no longer content to stop at trying to end abortion under any and all circumstances, including rape and incest, and even under conditions where the life of the mother is endangered. They are now determined to take away from both men and women the right to contraception. The Komen incident is but the tip of the iceberg.

           

This prompted me to write a Letter to the Editor of my local newspaper and to the Star Ledger. My local newspaper will print it. The Star Ledger will not. I did not write to the New York Times because I have given up on their ever printing one of my letters again. 

The letter I wrote follows:

The Arab Spring has arrived in the US. We have now discovered that we, the people of the US have people power, no less potent than that wielded by the people in Arab lands.

           

When Congress was about to restrict our freedom on the Internet, we followed the lead of Facebook and Google and others and protested. The legislation was withdrawn almost immediately.

           

When we discovered that insider trading was rampant among our Congressmen and Senators, we rose up and Congress is about to pass legislation that may put a stop to it.

           

Most recently we discovered that Komen, under pressure from right wing sources opposed not only to abortion, but to all forms of birth control, had defunded Planned Parenthood to the tune of $680,000, we rose up and Komen reversed course and refunded Planned Parenthood.

           

But we appear to have missed out. For this defunding has been going on for a long time and it appears to have gone under the radar. Planned Parenthood spends a $1 billion a year providing services to poor and middle class women throughout the US. $487 million, or 46 percent of its revenue, came from government health service grants and reimbursements. But defunding throughout the US is under way.

           

New Jersey, under the leadership of our Governor, Chris Christie, defunded Planned Parenthood completely to the tune of  $7.4 million, far more than the $680,000 that might have been lost through Komen defunding. These services included life saving cancer screenings, birth control, prevention, and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), breast health services and pap tests, and was not used for abortion services. In 2009, this funding helped support services for over 136,000 patients including over 70,000 breast exams and 65,000 pap tests, but there was no outcry.

           

Other states have taken similar action and have defunded Planned Parenthood to the tune of $80 million, far, far more than the $680,000 that might have been lost through Komen defunding, but there was no outcry

           

Last year, the House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget - including about $75 million that would have gone to Planned Parenthood's preventative care and treatment programs for low-income women, far more than the $680,000 that might have been lost through Komen defunding, but there was no outcry.

Deciding that this plan wasn't disastrous enough, the House also passed an amendment to eliminate all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, an estimated total of $363 million, far more than the $680,000 that might have been lost through Komen defunding. Much of this goes to care for the Medicaid patients who make up almost half of Planned Parenthood's clientele. Fortunately, the bills died in the Senate, where Democrats are in control. The amount that Komen would have cut from Planned Parenthood's women's healthcare was significant-- but the amount that House Republicans were prepared to cut was 500 times larger, but there was no outcry.

           

Now that we know that we have people power, isn’t it time for us to be heard.

           

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