NPR has a great story up that explains the social and historical context of funding—or de-funding, as the case may be—Planned Parenthood, which has relied on federal money to provide subsidized contraceptives, cancer screenings, STI tests, and family planning services to millions of low-income women and men for the last 40 years.
“This is not about the federal budget — the money involved is a pittance,” says Gene Burns, a Michigan State University professor and expert on the intersection of the politics of religion and sexuality.
In the 1970s, liberals and conservatives had different but overlapping reasons for supporting Title X, he says. Liberals saw the availability of contraception as helping families have control over their lives. And conservatives, while agreeing to a point, also saw the effort as crucial to helping keep poor people off welfare.
But the developing politics of unmarried parenthood and the maturation of the Christian right as an organized force have changed the conversation in many ways to one of values instead of economics, Burns says.
The entire thing is worth a read if you weren’t having sex in the 70’s (or, uh, weren’t even born yet). Conservatives have made de-funding Planned Parenthood one of their top legislative priorities, which means even if it doesn’t happen this year, this fight isn’t going away any time soon.
I’m not against abortion. I’m not even necessarily against planned parenthood, and certainly for cheap, safe contraception. But let’s not forget this organization’s roots stem directly form the fad pseudo-science of eugenics.
Planned Parenthood’s pre-WWII name was the American Birth Control League. It was founded by Margaret Sanger, who’s own ideology was arguably racist, and radical.
Here’s a short list of her bat-shit crazy quotes:http://www.gateway.org/content/pdf/quotes.pdf
Like…”More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief aim of birth control.”
or…”The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
ect.
@ Spindles: What’s your point? In other words, why shouldn’t we forget that – what relevance does the history you quote have to the present policy debate?
Sweet sweet irony. And the fact that PP ethical and moral fiber should not go totally unquestioned. The debate over PP has been twisted into such a partisan topic that it’s par for the course to be unilaterally against it as a repub, and completely for it as a dem. PP does some good things, but it also receives a lot of it’s money in grants from some very powerfull foundations and billionaires (Bill Gates, Ford foundation, Ted Turner foundation). These guys have time and time again expressed a very active interest in curbing global population, in a manor that sounds vaguely familiar to Sanger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5VnvcQbCZ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKIl34rV-3o
What’s wrong with wanting to curb global population?
There’s a certain Malthusian quality to having population controls that are highly centralized (China?). Not to say that we’re that far along here in the US, but it is interesting that the Obama administration has hired John P. Holdren as it’s science Czar. In the late 70’s Holdren wrote a book titled “Ecoscience”, which has some very telling quotes:
“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. “-Page 837
“One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should remain more difficult for single people than for married couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising children alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society. “-Page 786:
There’s quite a bit more that would be too long to put into this thread.
Here’s another little video that makes some interesting points: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq3WlRxfWC0
I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s worth watching. I do think there’s a critical problem with human population. It’s a complex issue, with no easy answers. I definitely don’t trust the benevolent motivation behind some of the worlds richest, and most connected people when they express such an interest in helping to curb population. Ted Turner has five children after all.
Still seems not relevant. Eugenics and population control laws force people to have fewer babies than they want. Planned Parenthood gives people the ability to choose on their own.
@ Freeman, +1
@ Spindles, you know that no one ever checks out the videos, right? If you can’t make a convincing point quickly, without a link, you’ve got a communication problem.
Why do you care about the motivations of these rich people, when it’s expressed as dollars for Planned Parenthood, and PP translates those dollars into access to reproductive services?