A Note from Your Friendly Neighborhood Troglodyte
I’ve been seeing a link all over Facebook titled “10 Reasons We Should Defund Planned Parenthood Immediately” (for those of you fortunate enough to have not stumbled across it yet it is, in fact, not a list of actual reasons or ideas to debate, but rather a sophistry suggesting that pro-lifers are grossed out by menstruation and various other hilarious jokes about those stupid troglodytes). Tee hee! Aren’t those pro-lifers out-of-touch idiots who hate women? Oh, and because Donald Trump! Ha!
Okay, maybe that’s uncharitable. If so, I apologize. But it’s seriously exhausting being constantly characterized as a woman-hating neanderthal with the IQ of a slightly drunk amoeba because I don’t believe the same thing that the apparent social-media consensus does about the proper use of federal funds (that is: about how we as a nation can best spend our money to improve the lives of all of our citizens). It’s amazing how many people are out there congratulating themselves and each other on winning made-up arguments against scarecrow punching bag imitations of “conservatives” and “pro-birthers.”
I have enough respect for you, dear reader, to believe that you know that the jokes put forth in parodies like the one above are based on nothing but pure rhetoric from elites who don’t actually interact with those they’re mocking. Sure, it might be good for a quick laugh against political opponents, but only if you don’t have to look them in the eye while you do it. Please, look me in the eye, and let’s go over some (though certainly not all) of the actual discussion points.
Before we go any further, though, the elephant in the room (so to speak): the Republicans are plotting a government shutdown over defunding Planned Parenthood. Sorry, but no. The Republican Party is not, in fact, capable of shutting down the government on its own. For the government to actually be shut down, both sides have to be equally dedicated to their own side of the issue. Republicans have to be willing to shut it down to defund Planned Parenthood (and, frankly, I’m highly skeptical that they have the gumption to do this) and the Democrats have to be willing to shut down the government in order to maintain funding a private organization (and I have exactly zero doubt that they would do this, whilst claiming that they have no part in the debacle). Two parties, digging their heels in on either side of the line. Nothing less can possibly create a shut down.
What else?
Planned Parenthood provides mammograms to underprivileged women. NO THEY DON’T. STOP IT. Seriously. They don’t — they provide the same type of manual breast examination that women can give themselves at home (see below). They don’t perform mammograms. Honest. Call your local PP and try to schedule one.
PP provides important cancer screenings and access to other health care that would otherwise be unavailable, especially to underprivileged women. Sure, as mentioned above, they provide manual breast exams and referrals for mammograms (but, then, in my day job I provide referrals for all sorts of things, including dental care, and I would be justifiably defrocked if I claimed that I provide essential dental services). They even provide a few services — such as limited testing and treatment for STDs, some birth control, and pap smears — aside from abortions. But all of those services (except for abortion) plus the actual mammograms, treatment for HIV-positive individuals, and a whole host of others are available for free or very cheap at the local community clinic. And there is a community clinic available, especially in the urban areas where PP clusters their clinics. Seriously. The actual proposal up for a vote would reroute the funds that are currently funneled to PP to these clinics so that they can continue to improve access and standards of care to the exact same population.
Only 3% of the services provided by PP are abortions. Sure, if you let them do the math the way they want to. The way they report their data goes something like this: A woman comes in for a pregnancy test and an STD screening. She tests positive for both, so the affiliate provides her with STD treatment, some condoms, and an abortion. That’s five services, only one of which is an abortion. Add in those who come into PP for things like birth control regularly (a service that is available at many other places in the community and through insurance for free now), and it’s really easy to get to only 3% of services being abortions (see page 18 of the 2013–2014 PP Annual Report). If McDonald’s counted every fry they sold as an individual item, the percentage of their business that was burgers would be about 3%, too (okay, I made that McDonald’s statistic up, but you get the idea). It’s difficult to find actual numbers, but PP reports in a factsheet that they served 2.84 individuals in 2013. I assume that number includes some men who came in for condoms or STD testing, and from the context it could also easily include people who only participated in some sort of educational campaign or program. But even at that, if you compare the reported abortions for FY 2013–2014 to the total clients served in 2013, almost 12% of all individuals (men AND women) served in some way (however tangential) at PP receive an abortion. This is rough math and, yes, it overlooks the (highly likely) scenario in which a significant number of PP clients received multiple abortions in a single year. But 11% of clients is already more than three times the 3% of services numbers touted by PP. Statistics are tricky like that.
Well, whatever — federal money doesn’t fund abortions, anyway; it’s in the law. Um. Guys. That’s not how money works. At all. It’s fungible, which means that, if you give me money to spend one place, it frees up the funds that I can spend elsewhere. Despite spreadsheet magic, the money is really all one big pot. So, yeah, taxpayers are funding abortions. You might think that’s okay, but please don’t pretend that our money is somehow magically not functioning as, in fact, money.
But Donald Trump! Sorry, I can’t help with that. But I don’t really see how it matters because, despite what he seems to present as his own opinion regarding his importance to every issue every discussed by mankind, he really has nothing to do with this.
It consistently amazes me that people who, in all earnestness, crusade against big business and corporate money lobbying in politics (and with good reason, at that), have no problem with Planned Parenthood. Their own annual report for 2013–2014 states that they spent $33.6M on “public policy” — that is, lobbying and political donations (3% of their reported total expenses). That number doesn’t include line items such as “Renewing Our Brands” and other, rather ambiguous categories that likely include a good deal of advertising and political maneuvering. Gee. I wonder why the Democrats are willing to sign on for that government shutdown to avoid pulling funding from a private organization.
If you’ve been reading closely — or, really, if you’re in a tl;dr mood and just scanned the bolded bits — you might notice what I didn’t talk about. I didn’t talk about the morality of abortion. I didn’t even talk about whether we should or shouldn’t defund Planned Parenthood. And neither is anyone else. Everyone is just presenting PP talking points and jokes about those of us who don’t believe that sending federal funds to PP is a good use of taxpayer money rather than actually having the conversation. Maybe the actual conversation is too hard (or too hard to have in 160 characters or less), but it seems like we have to deal with the talking points before we can get down to actual discussions. So there you go.
Just a note from your friendly neighborhood troglodyte.
