Planned Parenthood, Solve the Federal Funding Abortion Problem
It’s that time of year again. Republicans have introduced a bill that will ban federal funding for abortion procedures and Democrats have gotten all up-in-arms because this will put funding for birth control at risk because they have threatened to cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization which supplies millions of women and girls with vital and necessary birth control.
Every year this happens: if there is a sitting Democratic President and a majority Republican Congress, Congress passes the bill and the President vetoes it. If there is a sitting Republican President and a majority Democratic Congress, Congress passes the bill and the President vetoes it. If both the President and Congress are Republican, Planned Parenthood relies on private funding until Democrats come back into power and unwittingly, Republican representatives increase the abortion rate by decreasing access to birth control and driving up the rate of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. If both the President and Congress are Democrat, Planned Parenthood gets its funding, Right-to-Lifers are up-in-arms protesting louder than ever and tend to take to the Supreme Court.
Year after year after year after year. Same story. Year after year after year after year.
And every year, it’s the same tone of outrage and shock on both sides.
I have a proposal that would SOLVE the problem once and for all. Law of Attraction and Money at work, folks.
Planned Parenthood should become two separate non-profit family planning organizations.
- One should supply birth control family planning services as it has done since its conception in 1966.
- One should focus on the termination of pregnancy and be completely privately funded.
- It would allow Republicans to Save Face. Which is necessary in any compromise. Republican voters need and use low cost and free birth control and family planning services, such as Planned Parenthood provides, as much as anyone else. By dividing into two different organizations Planned Parenthood becomes an organization that gathers the support of the masses, rather than divides the support of the masses.
- This measure stops asking the Religious Right to surrender their religious convictions about abortion. Which is not only unfeasible, it is never, ever going to happen. It’s also blatantly an unfair request. Planned Parenthood and political conviction cannot trump God. Not even the Supreme Court can trump God. One of the primary foundations of this country is Freedom of Religion and these people are entitled to it. They are entitled to believe that conception begins at birth and to destroy it is wrong. They are entitled not to be harassed for this belief. They are entitled to stand up for their convictions. They are entitled to fight for the unborn. If Planned Parenthood divides into two separate organizations one that performs termination and one that does not they allow the Religious Right to hold fast to their religious conviction that termination of life is profoundly wrong and allow them to withhold their support of such a thing, while allowing them to simultaneously support the birth control and family planning arm of Planned Parenthood. It’s a win-win for the Religious Right AND Planned Parenthood AND every woman and girl in this country.
- This measure would provide a soft middle ground for the swing voter like myself who is growing increasingly uncomfortable with many forms of abortion due to the increased availability of birth control methods, the viability of younger and younger babies living outside the womb, the lack of social stigma of unwed and divorced mothers, the increased social and career status of mothers, the invention of the morning after pill and various other reasons.
- It’s an achievable compromise and frankly, this country is due for a compromise that works. We’re all sick to death of the same old crappy arguments that go nowhere. We’re sick of the revolving door of the same bills, the same Supreme Court arguments, the same political battles and the same Pundit cable battle cries.
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