The C is for Crank
"I Just Want to Tell You a Little About What's It's Like to Not Have a Planned Parenthood."
Shortly before House Republicans voted to kill federal funding for Planned Parenthood last week, Milwaukee US Rep. Gwen Moore told her colleagues a little about what "unplanned parenthood" actually looks like. One in five American women has used Planned Parenthood, which provides cancer screenings, STD tests, contraceptives, annual exams, and mammograms to women who can't get health care elsewhere.
Republicans can't make an honest fiscal argument for eliminating this funding: According to the Guttmacher Institute, for every dollar the government spends on family planning services, it saves four dollars in costs associated with unplanned pregnancy down the road. They can't make an anti-abortion argument, either: Not only does federal law already prohibit spending federal dollars on abortions, eliminating federal funding for family planning would nearly double the abortion rate among poor women---the same poor women for whom Republicans claim to feel such concern.
Here's Moore:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5GOCfpE4RQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Partial transcript:
Moore: I am really touched by the passion of the opposit[ion] to want to save black babies. I can tell you, I know a lot about having black babies. I've had three of them. I had my first one ... at the ripe old age of 18, an unplanned pregnancy. I went into labor, unfortunately, on New Year's Eve. I had not even one dime ... to go to the phone booth to call an ambulance---an ambulance which is a waste of money, using Medicaid dollars, but I didn't have a car and I didn't have cab fare.
I just want to tell you a little bit about what it's like to not have a planned parenthood. You have to add water to the formula. You have to give your kids ramen noodles at the end of the month to fill up their little bellies so that they won't cry. You have to give them mayonnaise sandwiches. They get very few fresh fruits and vegetables because they're expensive.
It subjects children to low educational attainment because of the ravages of poverty. ... And yes, I heard many of you talk about sexual predators. It subjects them to sexual predators [because] when you try to go out and do a little work, you have to leave your kids with just anybody because you don't have 800 to 1,200 dollars a month for child care. And let me tell you, the public policy has treated poor children and women who have not had the benefit of planned parenthood with utter contempt.
Republicans can't make an honest fiscal argument for eliminating this funding: According to the Guttmacher Institute, for every dollar the government spends on family planning services, it saves four dollars in costs associated with unplanned pregnancy down the road. They can't make an anti-abortion argument, either: Not only does federal law already prohibit spending federal dollars on abortions, eliminating federal funding for family planning would nearly double the abortion rate among poor women---the same poor women for whom Republicans claim to feel such concern.
Here's Moore:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5GOCfpE4RQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Partial transcript:
Moore: I am really touched by the passion of the opposit[ion] to want to save black babies. I can tell you, I know a lot about having black babies. I've had three of them. I had my first one ... at the ripe old age of 18, an unplanned pregnancy. I went into labor, unfortunately, on New Year's Eve. I had not even one dime ... to go to the phone booth to call an ambulance---an ambulance which is a waste of money, using Medicaid dollars, but I didn't have a car and I didn't have cab fare.
I just want to tell you a little bit about what it's like to not have a planned parenthood. You have to add water to the formula. You have to give your kids ramen noodles at the end of the month to fill up their little bellies so that they won't cry. You have to give them mayonnaise sandwiches. They get very few fresh fruits and vegetables because they're expensive.
It subjects children to low educational attainment because of the ravages of poverty. ... And yes, I heard many of you talk about sexual predators. It subjects them to sexual predators [because] when you try to go out and do a little work, you have to leave your kids with just anybody because you don't have 800 to 1,200 dollars a month for child care. And let me tell you, the public policy has treated poor children and women who have not had the benefit of planned parenthood with utter contempt.
