Pence Makes Deciding Vote Allowing States to Defund Planned Parenthood
Second time Pence has cast the deciding vote in the Senate. Last VP to do so was Cheney in 2008.
VP Pence has made it no secret he is opposed to allowing women the right to decide on having an abortions. While in Congress, Pence sponsored the first bill to defund Planned Parenthood in 2007 and when it did not pass then he continued the effort until it did pass in the House in 2011.
More recently a Federal Court blocked a bill signed by then Indiana Governor Pence forcing women to have a funeral for the aborted fetus which would then go through a burial or cremation. The cost of the burial or cremation would have increased the cost of the abortion dramatically in Indiana. The court ruled Pence’s law would have blocked a woman’s right to choose.
If you remember VP Pence had used his tie breaker vote to approve Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. Today, VP Pence was again called upon to break a Senate tie involving the right of states to defund Planned Parenthood.
The Department of Health and Human Services under President Obama ruled organizations providing family planning and preventive health care services could not be barred by states from receiving Title X grant dollars for any reason other than those related to their “ability to deliver services to program beneficiaries in an effective manner.” It required states and local governments to distribute federal Title X funding for services related to contraception, fertility, pregnancy care and cervical cancer screenings to health providers without regard for whether those facilities also performed abortions outside of Title X. Title X funding covers services such as contraception, STD screenings, treatments and can not be used to pay for abortion services.
Weighing in after the tie-breaking vote to overrule President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services, Senate Majority Leader McConnell had this to say:
“It was the Obama administration’s move that hurt ‘local communities’ by substituting Washington’s judgment for the needs of real people. This regulation is an unnecessary restriction on states that know their residents a lot better than the federal government.”
Not sure what needs McConnell’s real-people would have to block a woman’s decision to have an abortion which is not taken lightly by a woman and using it as an excuse to defund Planned Parenthood. It appears McConnell, Pence, and the Republicans are practicing a tyranny of a majority to disregard the rights of an individual in favor of their own views.
But go ahead, Democrats, keep behaving as if you think impeaching and removing Trump is a good idea. Bad as he may be, President Pence would be infinitely worse.
Karl:
I agree, Pence is a closet bigot who has a brain. It is far better to obstruct Trump and make him a one term President then have Pence replace him.
Assuming, of course that the completely insane one doesn’t completely explode the place in an early morning tantrum. If it was just policy Trump would be a better opponent because he’s especially ill-suited for actual political work. But being thwarted, what might he do, especially internationally.
KK,
Yeah, a rock and a hard place.
Meanwhile, Trump has to sign the bill.
So if it happens they are both responsible.
Simply disgusting.
I just cannot imagine these cretins think they are going to stop abortions with this. They are not. Any fetuses they save will be more than offset by the deaths of desperate women. Those that are pregnant and desperate, and those just looking for healthcare.
These people are monsters.
“Any fetuses they save will be more than offset by the deaths of desperate women.”
Not numerically possible.
Warren:
Stop, no hijacking the thread.
I guess I should have put that comment in the discussion of innumeracy.
No,
You should have put that into the Right Wing Dogma Whore discussion.
Do you have any idea that abortions were done on a regular basis for centuries before Roe v .Wade?
“Do you have any idea that abortions were done on a regular basis for centuries before Roe v .Wade?”
Sure, but I also know that if the mother dies is a botched abortion, the baby dies too. Therefore, it is numerically impossible for more women to die in botched abortions than there would be babies saved by making abortion illegal.
Umm, no you don’t. You think you do. But of course you also forget that the vast majority of PP’s work is done in keeping women healthy, not abortion. Add those who will now lack critical and important care.
Planned Parenthood can still do all that. If they want taxpayer money, then they can just stop killing babies.
And there are many other clinics available that do not kill babies.
Not worth talking to you. You make things up and clearly lack the knowledge to talk about Planned Parenthood.
In the early 2000s, my daughter, son-in-law and I marched in DC for reproductive rights. One of the ‘pro-life’ counter-protesters, with his sign with a bloody baby waving madly, got in my face. I asked him how many of those ‘saved’ babies he had adopted? “I don’t have to answer that”, he snapped. I said, “Oh, hell yes, you do.”
They are not pro-LIFE, they are pro-fetus, because once that umbilical cord is cut, that kid can starve to death and these zealots wouldn’t care. This is about controlling women through their wombs. If they are so anti-abortion, why are they also anti-birth control? Because being able to control your choice of when or if to have a child gives a woman POWER over her own life. Power these men had for centuries.
Unless she was raped, she CHOSE to engage in the act that got her pregnant. Perhaps she should have availed herself of that power before another life was involved.
Perhaps if the government did not make adoptions so expensive and intrusive, there would be more volunteers.
“she CHOSE to engage in the act that got her pregnant.”
And so what? Why is that anyone else’s business?
“Planned Parenthood can still do all that. If they want taxpayer money, then they can just stop killing babies.”
Planned Parenthood doesn’t kill babies. Killing babies is illegal.
Warren’s true colors like many of the pro lifers come out when he comments on women engaging in activities that cause conception. Men who want to control women do not want them to have sex unless it is to procreate. Generally these are men who never get to have sex with women for reasons other than procreation unless they pay for it. I know of no other reason for so called pro lifers to vote for Republicans when in 2016 there were fewer abortions in the US than in any year before Roe v Wade due IMHO to women being guaranteed birth control by the ACA. Further, as someone who knew women who wanted abortions before Roe v Wade, if Roe v Wade were overturned it would only prevent poor women from obtaining legal abortions because wealthier women would travel to states where abortion remained legal just as they did before Roe v Wade. In other words the pro lifers basically want to punish women for having sex or punish poor women for being poor.
“In other words the *anti-choicers* basically want to punish women for having sex *and* punish poor women for being poor.”
FIFY
How inconsistent and rude for people like Pense to care about a life that is inconvenient to a woman when US spends scores of billions a year to be able to destroy human civilization, liberals with a peace prize blithely drone strike away and would tilt with WW III over the right of half a million people to run Russians in Estonia.
ilsm:
Yes, it is rude to defund Planned Parenthood and use those funds to build a much bigger Department of War (some call it Defense) to kill more of the infidels who will not kiss our butts. Yes you are right, we have cut back on one of the few ways we can teach people about how to prevent becoming pregnant and avoid abortions which is mostly and 98% of the time is what Planned parenthood does.
– Planned Parenthood health centers focus on prevention: 80 percent of our patients receive services to prevent unintended pregnancy.
– Planned Parenthood services help prevent approximately 579,000 unintended pregnancies in a single year.
– Planned Parenthood provides more than 270,000 Pap tests and more than 360,000 breast exams in a single year, critical services in detecting cancer.
– Planned Parenthood provides more than 4.2 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including more than 650,000 HIV tests.
– Planned Parenthood affiliates provide educational programs and outreach to 1.5 million young people and adults in a single year.
Planned Parenthood
Do you think any one in the senate voting to allow states to unfund PP was thinking: “more F-35 jobs in my pentagon trough”?
Suppose the money went to meals on wheels?
How does the use of reprogrammed cash affect the need for the object?
Nice statistics, but teaching responsibility is cheaper and no STDs.
ilsm:
Actually Trump will cut funds to domestic programs in order to fund more Department of War projects. That is precisely Trump’s plan. And you are correct; teaching responsibility is important. To bad the funding will disappear there also.
I am convinced that the reason the “pro life” group could not let go of Terry Shriavo is because to do so they would have to admit that there is more to the concept of “life” and being alive than simply a heart beating.
To do so, would totally undermine their anti abortion “killing babies” presentation.
“To do so, would totally undermine their anti abortion “killing babies” presentation.”
Meh. The “killing babies” lie is self-undermining. It is illegal to kill babies in America. Full stop.
Joel, true. But, we are talking one’s ideology or philosophy. Law comes from that.
Maybe there is opportunity here. If indeed most people don’t want the state to criminalize abortion, they might get together and vote against the people they just put into office.
I have some objections to the quality of argument above, but can think of a way to say it without being accused of one crime or the other.
I suspect that most people who want to criminalize abortion do think of the “fetus” as a baby, and they do think of abortion as murder. It doesn’t help to fantasize a whole conspiracy against the rights of women to control their own bodies.
Now, let us suppose that one million women want to have an abortion but are prevented from doing so. first result one million babies saved.
now suppose that one thousand of those women have an illegal abortion. result one thousand babies not saved. now suppose that 100 of those women having illegal abortions die. result 100 women die. the 100 babies who die along with their mothers were part of the thousand who were going to die by being aborted anyway.
result, net 900,000 babies saved, 100 women die.
i have no confidence in this model, so anyone who wants to correct my error, have at it.
and for the record, i am one who believes that I, and the state, have no business telling a woman what she can or cannot do with her own body. but neither can i say that those who think it is murder are wrong. i realize that is too “logically inconsistent” for most people to accept.
“can’t think” not “can think.”
i forgot to discuss the arguments of McConnel et al. but the are always bogus so easy to dismiss.
whatever the “people of the state” think, there is the issue of “civil rights” which may mean, and ought to mean, human rights beyond which the state is prohibeted from going, whatever the majority may want.
of course, in the end the majority will not be denied. and even the concept of “civil” rights has never really been about “human rights.” the state always assumes the right to do whatever it wants, however cruel. a “state right” only limited by the power of a “bigger state” i.e. the national government.
me, i favor human rights… inalienable… but that is a fight not yet won.
how is planned parenthood funded?
and would it be an answer if the people who are in favor of abortion just funded pp as a private charity?
Perhaps more effort and education needs to be put into preventing unwanted pregnancy in the first place. No pregnancy, then abortion is not even an issue.
Warren
here is why EMichaels claim that
“any fetuses they save will be more than offset by the deaths of desperate women.”
is not “not mathematically possible.”
say that 1 million women want an abortion. the law prohibits it. So 990 thousand women get illegal abortions. result ten thousand babies saved. suppose that 10,001 of those women getting illegal abortions die. result more women die than babies are saved.
Jerry
you can’t just wish human behavior away. women are going to get pregnant when they don’t want to however well “educated” you make them. and a very large number of them are going to get abortions.. safe, legal ones if possible. unsafe, illegal ones if that’s their only option.
and just like you, they will tell themselves any story that makes them feel better about it.
jerry
i should have added: the state (us) has only to decide if it has any interest in trying to do something about it. I don’t think it does. That is not a moral decision, just a “political” one.
Jesus, surprisingly, did not address the issue. He did however talk a lot about “the beam in your own eye” . I like to think…. if there is a god… he makes provision for the babies… but prefers us to work on our own sins and not someone else’s.
You can’t eliminate unwanted pregnancy or abortion, but both can be significantly reduced with such things as education and readily available contraception.
To do nothing is a very poor option right along with sticking your head in the sand.
Jerry,
Planned Parenthood spends ten times a much money on contraception as it does on abortion.
EM:
Very true and McConnell knows this as well as those who oppose Planned Parenthood. All of Title IX goes to other services. Not one cent of it can be used for abortions. Kind of makes McConnell a liar when he spouts about giving states the right to withhold that funding due to abortions. 97% of all of PPH operations is for other activities.
EM,
What’s your point?
Jerry
EM’s point is that your call for more education about contraception is being met by Planned Parenthood. It is the R’s who want to kill PP who are advocating ignorance and doing nothing.
it is very frustrating when you (we) answer your question and get a “what’s your point” response. It makes us feel like you are a computer and not a human.
I am no computer and if that’s his point, then it makes no sense. PP is not the only source of education and contraception in the US. Expansion can certainly occur outside of PP.
Jerry,
no. it was MY point that you sounded like a computer…from about 1970 programmed to give human sounding answers to statements. It was pretty much a joke about “client centered” therapists, who sounded like computers in their responses to their clients. I imagine computers, and therapists, have gotten better in the past fifty years.
EMichaels point was that PP provided the education about contraception that you called for.
Now you wish to point out that “other” sources can provide that education. So I guess I have to ask “what’s your point?”
You want to get rid of PP so someone else can do what they do?
or are you saying that because PP also gives advice about abortions they are damned and should no longer be allowed to give advice about contraception?
Maybe, but women are still going to seek advice about abortion. And it is your side (assumption) that is trying to keep them ignorant and society “doing nothing.”
Frankly, I doubt that even you know what you mean.
Sorry, I guess I am not being clear. PP alone cannot provide all the education needed about sex, contraception, abortion, etc. When I talk about increasing education, I mean not only for PP, but many other organizations too, including our public and private schools.
Thank you.
Jerry
yes, thank you, that makes things much clearer.