Hint: Not that many abortions.
Now let's look at what the Republicans are really targeting in their effort to shut down the federal government unless we let them "defund Planned Parenthood." Here is what Planned Parenthood does with the Title X money the Republicans want to cut.
Title X funds services essential for the health of women and their families.This is what the Republicans are having a heart attack over. This is what the Republicans find so obscene. Pap smears. Pelvic exams. Breast exams. And remember, this isn't just ome blithe effort to reduce the deficit. The Republicans are, and have been, on a jihad for years to kill this money. And they're pretending it's all about abortion, when not a dime of it is about abortion.
The Title X program provides comprehensive family planning services that include a broad range of contraceptive methods and related counseling. The official program guidelines also require health care providers that receive this funding to offer a wide range of other preventive health care services that are critical to their clients’ sexual and reproductive health (Gold, 2001). These include:
• pelvic exams and pap tests (early warning about cervical cancer)
• breast exams and instruction on breast self-examinations
• testing for high blood pressure, anemia, and diabetes
• screening and appropriate treatment for sexually transmitted infections
• safer-sex counseling
• basic infertility screening
• referrals to specialized health care (Gold, 2001).
By law, no Title X funds have ever been spent on abortion (Sollom et al., 1996). The family planning regulations require that women who face unintended pregnancies be given nondirective counseling on all of their legal and medical options (Federal Register, 2000).
Title X Recipients
Title X serves more than four million people a yearwho might otherwise be unable to afford family planning.
What's particularly sick is that, yet again, we're seeing a case of the Republicans lying about the facts in order to further a large far-right agenda. In this case, defunding Planned Parenthood because the religious right doesn't like PPFA. To hell with the women Planned Parenthood helps around the country (and around the world).
Yet, oddly, our government is still funding religious right extremist groups with federal money, through the office of Faith Based Initiatives, no less. Why is that still happening, why is abstinence only education still being funded, when the GOP is going nuts over Planned Parenthood?
