planned parenthood and making a choice about choice

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“You’ve got to do what’s right, or what you think is right.

And you’ve got to make tough decisions.

And you’ve got to be willing to take on your friends when you disagree with them.”

Antonio Villaraigosa

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“Government should make tough decisions in the larger national interests, even if it upsets the people.”

Sharad Pawar

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For years the debate around women’s reproductive rights has always seemed to be focused on Planned Parenthood. In my mind it was easier for the anti-abortion people to have a “specific murderer” for which they could point to in a slightly warped ‘pro-life’ stance. Year after year planned parenthood was demonized to talk about abortion. Year after year women’s reproductive rights were dumbed down to a variety of simplistic soundbites culminating in “murder.” Of course it is not right. The medical community does not kill people, even babies, because it would go against an oath they sign up for when they become doctors. Therein lies the ‘big lie’ in murder – viability, as accepted by the medical community, is usually somewhere between 21 and 24 weeks <viability means the life within the woman can exist outside the mother as a human being>. Anything before is not “murder”, in a physical sense, and the medical community knows this. Now. If a religious person seeks to suggest it may be ‘murdering a soul’, well, that is a religious stance – a viable stance depending on where you stand – but the Constitution clearly states a separation between church and state as well as freedom to worship what you want <which means what you worship should not dictate what i worship>. I don’t begrudge any person their faith and the beliefs that go along with that particular faith, what I balk at is when that faith infringes upon my life in some way. And I imagine women seeking reproductive rights feel that way also.

Anyway. I will admit.

I don’t really ‘get’ why there is so much animus toward Planned Parenthood other than the fact a minority-sized group of people have demonized them for one specific aspect of the services they provide.

Yeah.

I fully understand the anti-abortion viewpoint and I certainly respect it. But there seems to be a level of hate towards Planned Parenthood that almost stuns me on occasion.

But what really stuns me?

I also don’t really ‘get’ why men are dictating women’s health decisions.

Anyway.

I don’t want to get into a pro choice/anti abortion debate with anyone.

But I do not believe it is healthy for America to continuously, year after year, fight over this issue. Not only is it unhealthy from a divisive rhetoric standpoint … it is an expensive debate.

Expensive?

Despite the fact that abortion is/was legal every year every state seems to be fighting abortion.

Alabama $1.7 million in attorney fees and costs for anti abortion. One year.

Wisconsin $1.8 million in attorney fees and costs for anti-abortion. One year.

Texas $1 million … just in their own attorney fees defending anti-abortion restrictions. One year.

Indiana <when Pence was governor> over $1.4 million in attorney fees and costs for anti-abortion. One year.

North Carolina spent millions <too many over the years to count>.

In one year add in the dozens of $150,000 cases where states pay individual health clinic reparations.

There are no published numbers for how much money the people who actually defend what is already legal are spending, but let’s assume it is millions of dollars and with yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Court to dismantle a federal reproductive right standard we can assume any number I am suggesting now will balloon to astounding heights.

Well.

What a waste.

What a waste of money and time and energy.

It’s not like that money has no better purpose <education, infrastructure, community growth>.

It’s not like that time has no better purpose < education, infrastructure, community growth>.

This is just not a good thing. And while it is a particularly not good thing for women, its not good for the country.

So.

I have a proposal for America.

Let’s solve it.

Solve it once and for all.

Sure. The supreme court did but, well, for god’s sake that’s just 5 people. The people should be able to have their say … every single one <whether you are a registered voter or not>.

Let’s have a one time vote.

Set aside one week in … well … let’s say August <I don’t really care when I just chose that month>.

And America votes.

And once the vote is in … it is done.

And maybe to really make sure it is ‘a done discussion’, i.e., to make it truly a convincing decision, let’s make it 60.1% as the standard the vote needs to meet.

Yeah.

I sit down Planned Parenthood and all pro choice people on one side of the table and all the anti-abortion people on the other side and say “I respect your views but once the vote is in you just shut up and live with what the majority of people have decided.”

Sure.

Someone is gonna be pissed … and maybe you say to them … okay … if the vote ends up less than 2/3rds one way than we can have another vote in … well … lets say 2 years from now.

But until then you just shut up and let’s get on with getting on <and let’s make sure the vote offers some additional “rules & guidelines”, exception/viability weeks/etc, so we don’t go back into the whole “fringe arguments doom loop”>.

Oh.

About that “every single person “vote thing I mentioned.

What I really meant was ONLY women vote <I can hear gobs of self righteous white men yelling now>.

It is a woman’s body.

Let the women of America choose.

I am no politician but it seems to me given all the time & money & energy we have invested arguing over abortion rights and planned parenthood that investing in a one-time vote just for women and let them direct the final decision once and for all <and stop having old white men shouting out absurd thoughts with regard to a woman’s body & choice> seems reasonable.

Personally I feel I have no right to be involved in a woman’s choice unless I am personally involved and even then my involvement should be in dialogue and support of a women’s choice. I want a woman to be able to make a choice and if I have been involved in the creation of the potential human I wouldn’t mind participating in the decision — but — ultimately it is a woman’s body and a woman’s choice.

Personally I don’t really see how anyone can argue with that <but I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer>.

Personally I don’t see how having this discussion on an ongoing basis is good for America. I am a business person and about the only business learning I can offer in this very personal decision is that not making a clear decision and living with that murky decision is possibly one of the worst things an organization can do. I have seen how it bogs a good organization down.

The hard decisions & choices are … well … hard.

But in business, once decisions are made … they are made, in order to have progress you need to move on.

It is time to move on from this discussion as a society and not as a decision by 9 people or even some elected officials who I believe we can all agree more often than not do not have our collective best interests in mind.

We should end it now.

Let the women vote and let the women have what the women deserve – to make the choice.

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Just a note on everyone beating the crap out of Planned Parenthood.

Whatever we decide everyone should be aware of these facts:

According to a Guttmacher Institute survey in 2011, 69% of abortions are paid for entirely out of pocket. Another 15.6% report using Medicaid, while 7.3% used a non-Medicaid source of coverage (although this 2011 survey did not indicate the type of coverage–employer-sponsored or non-group, etc.). 8.6% reported not knowing whether they used third party coverage.

There is no easy way to cut Planned Parenthood out of the health-care ecosystem without causing a health crisis. Without this vital resource for reproductive health, all Americans who need safety-net medical services would suffer—patients who get care from Planned Parenthood, yes, but also those who rely on FQHCs, where quality of care would crumble under a wave of patients with nowhere else to go. 

Planned Parenthood clinics make up 6 percent of the 10,700 safety-net family planning providers in the U.S., but they serve 32 percent of all patients who rely on the free or low-cost birth control these providers offer. FQHCs, meanwhile, serve a disproportionately low slice of this patient population: just 30 percent, even though more than half of all safety-net family planning providers are FQHCs. According to the new Guttmacher analysis, each FQHC site that currently offers contraceptive services marks an average of 320 patients who use those services every year. The average Planned Parenthood takes on 2,950 contraceptive clients, more than nine times the FQHC load. 

There is no conceivable way that the patients who get their free or subsidized birth control from Planned Parenthood could continue getting the care they need if Planned Parenthood clinics were forced to close or cut back on their contraceptive services. In 27 states, FQHC sites would have to double the size of their current roster of contraceptive patients; in nine of those, the average FQHC would have to triple its contraceptive client load. Women living in the 13 percent of U.S. counties with at least one Planned Parenthood but no contraceptive-providing FQHCs at all would have to travel unnecessarily long distances just to get basic care, burdening other communities’ health centers with surges of new patients.

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