Life Links 10/4/11

Apparently, the slow economy has also struck The Atlantic's fact-checking department. In her Planned Parenthood promoting piece, Lindsay Miller apparently doesn't understand there are differences between resources/budget and "services."

Every time a new attack of this nature makes the news, I can't help but wonder: Do these people have any idea what Planned Parenthood does? Yes, they provide abortions or referrals to medical practices that offer abortions, but that accounts for about three percent of their resources, and none of their federal funds; abortions are paid for by the patient, or by donations from people like me, who believe that a woman who doesn't even have the disposable income to terminate a pregnancy should absolutely not be forced to carry one to term. The other 97 percent of Planned Parenthood's budget goes toward a variety of services having to do with reproductive health. They provide birth control, STD testing, Pap smears, breast exams, cancer screenings (for men as well as women), and much more. So why have they become such a boogeyman to the anti-abortion right?

Ummm....maybe because they're America's leading abortion provider (25% of America's abortions) and people who are anti-abortion are.....against abortion. But the better question is: So why should prolifers listen to someone who doesn't take the time to do basic research about an organization she's promoting?


In the Washington Post, Sarah Kliff writes about the Hyde Amendment and health care reform and how abortion proponents seem to be fighting an uphill battle.

"Unfortunately, this idea that there shouldn't be public insurance coverage for abortion got cemented in the public's mind," says Jessica Arons, director of the women's health and rights program at the Center for American Progress. "Politicians have gotten used to saying that."
......
"The persistence of the Hyde Amendment also created a series of disastrous roadblocks to inclusive reproductive health coverage in other legislation," Fried, a professor at Hampshire College who both studies and supports the abortion rights movement, wrote. "Compounding this specific policy loss was the profound ideological loss of normalizing the exclusion of abortion from health insurance."

Kansas' state medical board likely won't make a decision regarding former abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus status until next year. Nehaus rubber-stamped second opinions for George Tiller's late-term abortions.