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Let's be honest, Planned Parenthood
The News-Sentinel ^ | Thu. Jun. 09, 2011 | Kevin Leininger

Posted on 06/09/2011 11:31:00 AM PDT by presidio9

Because advocates who mask their motives promote skepticism about their cause, Planned Parenthood and its allies clearly have the most to lose even if the organization's Indiana operations manage to keep $1.4 million in annual Medicaid support.

At least supporters of the funding cut admit they're driven by opposition to abortion. Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, insists it is challenging the state's new funding ban simply to ensure continued medical care for thousands of poor women – not to protect its ability to “provide” abortions at taxpayer expense.

The claim is, at best, a self-serving exaggeration.

“Planned Parenthood makes it sound as though it's the only source of these services. But that's selling all the other clinics short,” said Allen County Right to Life Executive Director Cathie Humbarger, noting that the amount of Medicaid funding hasn't been curtailed; the list of recipients has been. Even so, she added, at least one clinic and 53 doctors in Allen County continue to accept Medicaid despite the law passed this year by the General Assembly that cuts off funding for organizations that offer abortions. And her figure may be low: Gov. Mitch Daniels has said there are 63 Medicaid providers in Allen County, including the Lafayette Street Family Health Clinic, which offers the kind of family planning services Planned Parenthood also provides. Statewide, Daniels adds, there are still about 800 Medicaid providers in the counties affected by the law.

But complex political and social issues are never quite as black-and-white as the lobbyists would have you believe, and this one is no different.

Linda Finke, dean of IPFW's College of Health and Human Services and primary investigator for the Lafayette clinic, said the numbers cited by Humbarger and Daniels don't tell the whole story. “Any law that in some way blocks people from receiving health care is a problem,” she said, since there were already relatively few doctors accepting Medicaid for financial reasons.

So let us concede, at least for the sake of argument, that poor Hoosier women will continue to have access to family planning and other health services, if not quite as easily as before the law took effect. Does that justify or explain the bitter legal battle the law has sparked – a battle that will spread to other states if Indiana's law prevails?

Of course not. Because this isn't really about health care, remember?

That's why Humbarger – and other pro-life leaders, presumably — make no apologies for any inconveniences caused by efforts to prevent taxes from subsidizing abortions.

And make no mistake, that's exactly what government payments to Planned Parenthood do, despite federal laws that prohibit it. Although Medicaid payments to the organization did not directly fund abortions, Planned Parenthood has acknowledged that it commingles funds, creating at least an indirect abortion subsidy.

Planned Parenthood could eliminate that situation and keep its Indiana Medicaid funding simply by creating a separate legal entity to perform abortions, something Planned Parenthood officials have called “logistically challenging” – but not impossible.

So why don't they? Because to do so would represent a partial surrender in the great abortion battle.

In Fort Wayne on Wednesday, Attorney General Greg Zoeller said Planned Parenthood's challenge is questionable because the organization in effect has no legal standing (it is simply asking a judge to protect its market share). Zoeller, who will defend the law in court, said the federal government's challenge will be complicated by the Hyde Amendment, which bans tax-funded abortions, and by the 10th Amendment and the public's growing resistance to federal meddling in matters the Constitution reserves to the states.

Planned Parenthood has seen an increase in private contributions in the wake of the new law, and if it can continue to generate support through its newfound “victim” status, more power to it.

But an organization that receives $363 million in tax dollars every year (most pro-life groups get none) should at least be honest about its agenda – as should a president whose administration won't defend the Defense of Marriage Act, has sued Arizona for trying to enforce its borders and, now, is fighting Indiana's attempt to stop something federal law says shouldn't be happening in the first place.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 06/09/2011 11:31:01 AM PDT by presidio9
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To: presidio9

Planned Parenthood is a Deat abortion Mill.

A slaughterhouse for the unborn.

Their name is a joke Planned Parenthood.

Should be named Unplanned Birth Control Inc.
“ You Concieve, We deceive”.


2 posted on 06/09/2011 11:41:37 AM PDT by Venturer
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To: Venturer

 

 46,000,000 and counting.

A WTC EVERY DAY!

3 posted on 06/09/2011 11:51:13 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Venturer
Hey America!

Remember when you forced the German and Polish populations to confront what they allowed?

Your day is coming...


4 posted on 06/09/2011 11:53:32 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: presidio9
Planned Parenthood cites their cancer screening services. Isn't that just pap smears required by law to give out birth control pills?

The opposite of "planned parenthood" is 'unconditional love.'

5 posted on 06/09/2011 11:58:40 AM PDT by eccentric (a.k.a. baldwidow)
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