But when they’re really loud, hold elected positions and make or uphold laws…
I mean, I’m sure there a small percentage that thinks just about anything is wrong, but you don’t hear about it. The minority of people that thinks BC is wrong is a large and loud enough minority that you know it’s there and it’s in the news on a semi-regular basis.
I guess there’s a vocal segment of our population who think it’s a good idea to punish women who aren’t abstinent by making them have unplanned and/or unwanted babies.
For a start. The key paragraph:
“The videos show Planned Parenthood doctors discussing the donation of fetal tissue after abortions – a legal practice. But the CMP edited the videos into episodes that make it look as though Planned Parenthood is selling fetal parts for profit and changing abortion methods to deliver intact specimens. The family planning provider strongly denies both charges, and five separate state investigations into Planned Parenthood have cleared the organization of any wrongdoing.”
Also, according to one of the OP’s own links (the second one), 3% of Planned Parenthood’s activities relate to providing abortions. The other 97% relates to women’s health. I first heard this figure on the Bill Maher show when Wendy Davis was arguing with some conservative wingnut who, incidentally, was also going on about baby parts. It’s apparently the wingnut talking point du jour, to such a degree that I imagine Planned Parenthood must have an illustrated baby parts catalog one can browse.
Well it was Passover, and you just can’t make a decent matzo without fetus.
:dubious:
Errrr what? I am all for giving women unfettered access to free and safe birth control and information on options, but seriously, WTF? Did they not teach birds and the bees? Absent physical coercion no woman in history has gotten preggers because “someone says so” (and before you say, pressure from menfolk would be just as effective in stopping her from taking the pill as any other method).
Contraception has been around for millennia. The Romans managed to drive the herb Silphium extinct because of demands for it.
The pill is easy to use and (generally safe). Its also not the most reliable method around (that IUD).
I said that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. The article that I linked to says that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms.
It is actually possible to read a report, rather than merely searching for a word within it. From p. 15 of the report I linked to: “Contraceptive use in the United States is virtually universal among women of reproductive age.” If virtually all women use birth control, than obviously virtually all women can access birth control. The report also contains a survey of reasons why women who didn’t use birth control chose not to do so; lack of access wasn’t even mentioned.
I’m not grasping your argument at all. First of all, you say “up to half of the population at any time might take the pill”. Huh? While you might not know it from listening to Democratic Senators, there are plenty of women and girls who don’t use the pill, either by being to young or old to get pregnant, or not sexually active, or simply choosing not to. According to the CDC report I linked to, 17% of women in the relevant age range use the pill.
Second, there’s no reason why the level of funding for a medicine would be tied to the percentage of the population that uses it. Statins are used by tens of millions of Americans. So are anti-depressants. But the coverage requirements for those are no different from medications that are rarely used.
But surely you can concede that a clinic that has more than 800 locations in the United States and four million annual visits related to contraception is a significant part of access to birth control, right?
I’m not aware that there is any war against it. Could I have a cite for that?
Everyone in the USA has been able to get birth control for decades; I linked to a CDC report in the OP which says so. Yet we’ve had tens of millions of abortions over those same decades. Plainly the claim that birth control will prevent abortions is not true.
I’m not sure that the OP is calling for the defunding of PP, but it would be helpful if he clarified his stance on that issue. And, if he’s calling for defunding (by the government) does he still believe that, as a privately funded organization, PP still is an important part of reproductive care for women.
You realize that’sa rhetoricaldevice, right? And that no one is literally suggesting people are lined up with tanks and rifles?
The abortion rate continues to decline. No one is suggesting that universal access to birth control will eliminate all abortions.
Most Republicans (including, presumably, ITR Champion) will of course claim that they have no problem with birth control itself, but then they go ahead and propose all sorts of legislation that will make birth control harder to get. They’ll then say that they’re not *trying *to make birth control harder to get; rather, they’re proposing bills that will lower taxes by eliminating unnecessary services, or “protect religious liberty” (scarequotes required), or to protect the legal rights of fetuses and zygotes which they think are people. And then they wonder why Democrats, who find all of those reasons so terribly unconvincing, focus on the birth control aspect. Boggles the mind.
Hey, you know, above, when I said, “Freely available birth control is the single best way to cut down on abortions”?
“Cut down” means “reduce”, not “prevent”. But hey, you’re really knocking that strawman around really well.
Very eloquently said. PP makes a megaton of difference for young women in America. The extreme vast majority of what the organization handles are women’s health issues (not abortions). The targeting based on a super edited video by both Congress and in the debate last night is in very poor form.
Emphasis mine. Honestly, I think you’ve just disqualified yourself from participating in this discussion.
Silphium was an abortificant. (Probably. We’re not entirely sure what plant it was) And any way, it’s extinct so - no, it hasn’t been around for centuries.
And that’s ignoring that herbal abortificants are dangerous drugs that frequently cause death from blood loss. Herbal abortificants are not safe to use as routine birth control.
On top of that, abortion was illegal in most historic post-roman societies. People who practiced herbal medicine were often attacked as witches.
There is nothing about the history of abortion that matches the safe and effective method of birth control pills.
The IUD is safe today; it wasn’t safe at the time that the BC pill was reaching mass popularity.
There can be no doubt about the social impact of birth control pills in enabling women to freely and privately plan their family development. Likewise, there can be no doubt as to the existence of pushback from conservatives who want to prevent women from leaving their historical social role as the second sex.
But is that a useful and honest description of the situation, or is it maybe rather egregiously misleading in the style to which we’ve become accustomed to hearing from the social conservative fringe? What would happen if a woman would benefit from a mammogram and/or other breast cancer screening and went to Planned Parenthood for assistance?
Well, let’s see, they do breast cancer screening via breast exams and (in their words) “Planned Parenthood doctors and nurses teach patients about breast care, connect patients to resources to help them get vital biopsies, ultrasounds, and mammograms, and follow up to make sure patients are cared for with the attention they need and deserve”. Their referral services to mammogram clinics are the same as those provided by the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the American Cancer Society, and they also help low-income patients get coverage for mammograms and other screening and diagnostic services.
Why, yes, in fact, on the truthiness scale of fantasy the “don’t provide mammograms” statement is right up their with the Plannned Parenthood illustrated catalog of baby parts with free shipping.