Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Should hospitals have a choice?

La Shawn Barber has done a good job covering the events of the recently passed prolife provision in a recent bill passed in Congress here.

The bill will basically prevent any federal, state, or local agencies/governments from discriminating against hospitals who don't provide or refer abortions by saying they don't get funding if they discriminate.

Planned Parenthood tells us that this bill "tramples reproductive rights."

It seems, at least according to Planned Parenthood, that every prolife measure tramples/destroys/attacks/slashes "reproductive rights." Why then are "reproductive rights" (meaning abortion) still around if they've been trampled/destroyed/attacked/slashed so many times?

One thing I've noticed from reading Planned Parenthood's web site over the years is that they hardly, if ever, link to or provide the text of prolife legislation. It's almost like they don't want the people visiting their site to actually read the legislation they despise so much. It's much easier for PP to say the legislation does one thing without proof than to actual post the language of legislation and then prove how it "tramples" on "rights." National Right to Life has the full text of the legislation in question here

The New York Times is saying, "The provision could affect millions of American women, according to Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who warned Friday that she would use procedural tactics to slow Senate business to a crawl if the language was not altered."

That's interesting as a fairly small percentage of our nation's abortions are performed in hospitals. In Michigan, it's less than 1%. There are probably an even smaller percentage of abortions performed at hospitals that don't want to perform abortions. Boxer is clearly making things up as one of PP's most dutiful solidiers yet the Times takes the liberty to treat this statment almost as if it is a fact by not putting the statement in quotes and putting the statement before identifying the person making the statement. They could have easily done some research or asked National Right to Life's Legislative Director Douglas Johnson (who is also quoted) if the legislation will affect millions.

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