Featured at a WaPo article titled: "In Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, GOP faces formidable fan of ‘kick-butt’ politics." Excerpt:
Unlike past presidents, Richards didn’t have a background in women’s health. She was an organizer and a strategist. Her goal, she told the New York Times in 2008, was to turn Planned Parenthood into “the largest kick-butt political organization.”
Richard’s political tactics were targeted by Republicans at the hearing, who suggested that the federal funding received by the organization in effect subsidized the group’s political action committee, which raises funds primarily for Democratic candidates. “It’s the co-mingling [of the funds] that bothers us,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the committee chairman.
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222 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 222 of 222chickelit said...
I Callahan said...Mark, you're just as loony as garage is.
Just imagine that they're the same person and go from there
OK. That made me laugh.
A good article which shows just how much respect the pro-abortion side gives to their political opponents.
So no, sunsong, I do not believe that you would engage in a respectful dialogue if it were offered.
Some excerpts from that article:
He cites striking instances of the campus efforts of groups such as JFA and CBR meeting with frequently vicious hostility, often led by faculty members. The truth is that such hostility reflects vehement opposition to civil deliberation and argument about abortion. Pro-life students eager to engage others in serious discussion find this very frustrating, but it is not entirely surprising. Shields writes: “Such frustration is fueled by NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood, whose leaders discourage their campus affiliates from debating or even talking to pro-life students. NARAL’s ‘Campus Kit for Pro-Choice Organizers,’ for example, gives this categorical instruction: ‘Don’t waste time talking to anti-choice people.’” The campus organizer for Planned Parenthood told Shields that she “discourages direct debate.”
And...
In San Francisco, the city and county board of supervisors unanimously declared January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade , “Stand Up for Choice Day” and officially declared San Francisco a pro-choice city. Supervisor Bevan Duffy declared that pro-lifers were “not welcome in San Francisco.” Supervisor Tom Ammiano complained about the audacity of pro-life activists who “think that they can come to our fair city and demonstrate.” The head of the Golden Gate chapter of Planned Parenthood was outraged that activists “have been so emboldened that they believe that their message will be tolerated here.” The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in the mid-1960s has come to this.
So I guess you can see why sunsong has to deflect blame for the atmosphere of shutting down free expression. It must be terribly embarrassing for the old 60s liberals to find themselves on the conservative side, trying to silence people on order to preserve the status quo.
So I haven't seen a full transcript, but if the reporting is accurate it seems that the House GOP made the focus the politicization of PP organization. While that's a legitimate issue, it was a serious miscalculation to take the focus off of the practices uncovered in the videos. PP should have to answer to the allegations like negotiating fees for body parts, shaky consent given for the donations (even on the already shaky premise that the mother can provide consent for the fetus), and altering the abortion procedure to maximize procurement of samples.
And anyone on the prochoice side with a shred of integrity should also want them to answer to those allegations. After Godnell though, I'm not confident that will happen.
C Stanley- I watched the hearing. They did ask those questions, but Richards pretty much just bulldozed through them. They don't make a "profit", she said, consent is given, and I think she glossed over whether they alter the abortion procedure. They always give the best care for their patients, she said. Also, there have never been any babies born alive during the abortion process.
It's a shame the. That they weren't effective in holding her feet to the fire although it might come in handy having her denials on the record. If the appropriate regulatory agencies will do their job. That seems to be a problem though- we saw in PA that the agencies had been completely co-opted and corrupted
Again. I think there's a moral imperative for prochoicers here. Even leaving aside the morality of late term abortions. There are early questions raised about whether these clinics serve the women well.
Sorry-IPhone typos.
BTW Maybee I think you were the one up thread who engined the canard that Prolifers are men who want women pregnant. I agree that is one of the most ridiculous lies that pro-abortionists use. The demographics of the Prolife movement disprove it easily, as does common sense and observation (we're certainly not a nation Duggar families and haven't been for a long long time.)
One reason that particular line bothers me is that it helps hide the fact that many men are prochoice for their own convenience. And that puts pressure on many women to "choose" abortion.
Rhythm and Balls said...
Why can't we abort Ritmo? He supports it.
Because unlike you, I don't still live in my mommy's tummy.
What's it like in there? Like a physical equivalent of being in the FOX News bubble?
9/30/15, 9:25 PM
Rhythm and Balls said...
I don't wish she did bring up the ensoulment at all. That's something we don't and can't know, and can only believe.
Well now you're getting somewhere. But you have to understand that this is a big part of the reason for why the anti-abortion extremists demand that anything post-conception must be jailed in the uterus. Hopefully, their position isn't yours, or even most abortion detractors', but they make it impossible to proceed to any common understandings.
I just don't know why you are going on and on about the anti-abortion people talking about ensoulment, when that isn't what happened.
Well, I guess that, not having followed the thread since it started this morning, I might not have kept all the comments together. But the point about post-conception extremists is important. Remember, even Michael K did abortions up to 20 weeks, which would include this latest video case of the 17-week old who was unfortunately miscarried before medically leaving the body and then giving Fiorina her latest dishonest cause for ruckus.
9/30/15, 9:30 PM
Am I reading you correctly then that "person-hood" is only available for those that make it out of "mommy" in one piece?
In that case, why is it OK to end the life of a "mis-carrage" baby that is still breathing?
Why is it the position or Hillary and Polosi that it doesn't count until it gets home? a 1996 discussion between Senator Santorum and Senator Boxer in which Boxer said “I think when you bring your baby home, when your baby is born … the baby belongs to your family and has all the rights.”
Where is your line?
My line (and I would prefer that abortions really were rare and safe) is, if it can be viable in a NICU then sorry, you waited too long UNLESS the mother's life is threatened, in which case, into the NICU the baby goes. You don't want it? Give it up. After 20 weeks you have given up your right to "choose" abortion. Sorry, life is not fair. You (well not YOU as YOU are not a woman) now have a responsibility to the life you carry.
So my line is (currently) 20 weeks due to medical science. Where exactly is yours?
I would love a Venn diagram of people who are just fine with this tiny human with a heartbeat being placed in a stainless steel pan and prodded with scissors, and the people who are vegan/vegetarian/won't wear fur/voted for California's humane chicken egg law.
For heaven's sake! People would be outraged if this were a kitten being treated like this. Why not stroke it? Put it in a tiny blanket? Something humane! even if it shouldn't be kept alive aren't we the kind of people who like to treat dying people gently?
And yes, C Stanley- we are indeed not a nation of Duggars, although that is apparently a convenient thing to imagine.
@Maybee- as a vet, I've aborted lots of kittens and puppies. While. Have no moral qualms (similar to euthanasia), for the later gestation cases I've administered euthanasia solution. They are anesthetized anyway so sometimes they expire quickly without signs of any distress but I try to err on the side of compassion as pursuant to the oath that I took.
Your point about viewing the discarded human fetus brings me to another point of missed opportunity IMO. CNN interviewed the CMP guy and brought up the two different fetal images use in the video that Carly referenced they tried to make something of the fact that one of the images was a "stillborn" baby named Walter. His response did attempt to show that it really didn't matter because these were all the same but I felt he should have added, "but only Walter was lucky enough to be held, comforted, and given a name. Somehow some people have come to believe that our right to life is only guaranteed under those circumstances."
Thanks, C Stanley. I don't understand people here who are basically defending treating a tiny born human worse than they would allow for other creatures.
There's a case to be made against Planned Parenthood, but it ain't "You make too much money for running a huge national organization and you apologized for something you later decided was unfairly biased against you." What is up with these questions?
So a heartbeat defines a living human being?
Ok. Check out this living human being.
Am I reading you correctly then that "person-hood" is only available for those that make it out of "mommy" in one piece?
Well, like everything in life, I suppose that depends. For instance, it's pretty hard to see how a fetus stillborn without a head has "personhood" in the sense that we'd hope and expect. But maybe you disagree. If so, you might want to be able to explain why.
In that case, why is it OK to end the life of a "mis-carrage" baby that is still breathing?
This is almost too ignorant to even address. I presume you read the medical sources I cite before responding to me. No pre-20 week old fetus even has lungs formed to a degree to take in air. Are you even aware of that? There was nothing that could open. No air came in, no air left. No inhaling or exhaling. And even for fetuses of a viable age (preemies) producing enough surfactant to allow the lungs to breathe is a major problem. Look into it.
Why is it the position or Hillary and Polosi that it doesn't count until it gets home? a 1996 discussion between Senator Santorum and Senator Boxer in which Boxer said “I think when you bring your baby home, when your baby is born … the baby belongs to your family and has all the rights.”
Can't speak for politicians.
Where is your line?
I think I'm honest in accepting that it's a murky one. I don't see any strict "line", and the reasons above should tell you why. A dead fetus stuck at 9 months in utero will kill the woman if not removed and has no chance to "come back to life" anyway.
But I think for reasonable purposes, the traditional cut-off of viability (~23 weeks) makes sense. Or if medical science evolves to a point of determining when sentient neurological activity occurs. At least you could make a rational case for preventing anything that could be construed as causing suffering or denying further development at that point.
But I still think that all these points are trumped by the fact that no one has any right to force a woman to continue making an incubator (whether for something living, dead or deathly ill) out of her body anyway.
My line (and I would prefer that abortions really were rare and safe) is, if it can be viable in a NICU then sorry, you waited too long UNLESS the mother's life is threatened, in which case, into the NICU the baby goes. You don't want it? Give it up. After 20 weeks you have given up your right to "choose" abortion. Sorry, life is not fair. You (well not YOU as YOU are not a woman) now have a responsibility to the life you carry.
That's what most Americans agree on and is infinitely more sensible and workable than the line of "any point post-conception" that is held to by enough zealots to derail the discussion.
So my line is (currently) 20 weeks due to medical science. Where exactly is yours?
As I said, I can't make a line that disallows for exceptions of rape, incest AND the life of the woman at any point. But if you said prior to 20 weeks for everything else, I respect that in theory.
In practice, however, people will abuse those restrictions and will kill women near-term with dead embryos at risk of dying themselves of septic abortion, as we saw in Ireland with Savita Halappanavar - which is an abomination I cannot countenance. So my preference would be the status quo. There is way too much room for abuse when people write in restrictions that are meant to make a vital service rare, and end up making them rare enough to kill more women than they anticipated.
One reason that particular line bothers me is that it helps hide the fact that many men are prochoice for their own convenience.
More women are pro-choice than men. And my take on that is that (unlike so many here) they actually take seriously the prospect of people making them do things with their own body. That's a natural, ("unabortable" ha) distinction of liberty. Do others have a right to make you (or prevent you) do things to your own body? Should they? Only if you answer that they should, can you then defend a right to force a woman to continue a pregnancy.
Further, even if you got a right to force women to continue pregnancies, they would still abort when they feel they need to. Always have, always will. The only difference is, you'll get women who will die as well at greater numbers, along with all the fetuses you'd hoped to save. Is that really a consequence you'd be happy living with?
MayBee said...
Thanks, C Stanley. I don't understand people here who are basically defending treating a tiny born human worse than they would allow for other creatures.
Because for among other reasons, that tiny human represent either the unplanned memorial of some studly dude's conquest or it represents a road bump in the self-actualization of some modern woman. Either way it must be destroyed -- vindictively.
MayBee said...
I would love a Venn diagram of people who are just fine with this tiny human with a heartbeat being placed in a stainless steel pan and prodded with scissors, and the people who are vegan/vegetarian/won't wear fur/voted for California's humane chicken egg law.
Every pregnancy is a Venn diagram of physically intersecting distinct human lives. Our laws only recognize the mother's existence in that intersection and pretends that hers encompasses all involved. For example, there is no legal existence of paternal DNA nor the child's unique DNA. It is all superseded by the mother's until after birth.
For example, there is no legal existence of paternal DNA nor the child's unique DNA.
And a great thing that is.
Could you imagine if DNA was given legal protection?
Chickelit could never ejaculate (even into his wife) again, without holding a collection receptacle in there with which to gather all the little DNA particles and send to BIG GOVERNMENT so that it can look after them and nurture them.
I was using DNA as proxy for parentage you pedantic twat.
@RH Hardin: Aren't you talking in your second point about selling your own organs?
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