If you are a low-income woman and ever have a UTI or an STI, pray you’re not in New Hampshire, where rogue lawmakers just ended their state’s contract with Planned Parenthood, effectively defunding Planned Parenthood clinics throughout the state and even preventing them from dispensing antibiotics to patients with urinary tract infections or STIs.
According to a post on Jezebel, Planned Parenthood clinics in New Hampshire have been turning away between “20 to 30 patients a day who are showing up to refill their prescriptions” in the wake of the decision. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England puts the number of women denied prescriptions at 150. And because Planned Parenthood fills prescriptions for low-income women at a very low cost or even for free, it is unlikely that many of these patients will be able to afford care elsewhere.
According to the Jezebel piece, and Laura Bassett at the Huffington Post, lawmakers in New Hampshire had actually rejected previous attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, but the state’s Executive Council is apparently so excited about blocking women from needed medicines (JESUS CHRIST, PEOPLE, MEDICINES! SERIOUSLY?!?!!!? I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE I AM TYPING THIS SHIT) that they took matters into their own hands and overturned the decisions of both the state legislature and the Department of Health and Human Services with a 3-2 vote against Planned Parenthood.
So basically, a few rogue lawmakers are defunding Planned Parenthood against the wishes of pretty much every other governing body in their state. Nice work, gentlemen. Morrissey would be proud.
What’s even worse—or, at this point, lamely predictable—is this:
The council is justifying its decision to deny women medicines with the fact that Planned Parenthood also provides abortion care. As ever, public funds do not cover abortions, but I guess it’s a lot easier to cry about saving the babies than to just come out and say you hate women.
And they’re not just getting their panties in a bunch over pregnancy termination. Councilor Raymond Wieczorek of Manchester proudly proclaimed his opposition towards funding for birth control and condoms to the Concord Monitor last week when he said, “If they want to have a good time, why not let them pay for it?“
Because lord knows, it’s impossible to have safe and fun sex, amirite ladies?! (And you know, what’s really galling here, if I need to spell it out for you, Councilor Raymond, is that what you’re actually trying to do is make sex less fun and more likely to result in people having to, as you say, “pay” for its consequences.)
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England may take legal action to overturn the decision, and is circulating a petition right now for New Hampshire residents to sign. But if this makes you angry, and it absolutely should, you can donate to Planned Parenthood here.
Yeah, America sure is a great country!
Can someone invade us and take us over? Canada? PLEASE invade us?!?!?!?
This is disgusting. I’m making a donation. And FYI, Planned Parenthood provides services to men also…this hurts New Hampshire low-income men too, not just women (the quotes in the original story talk about “patients”).
imo, these are the sorts of things that need to happen for the mythical ‘swing voters’ to realize that the republicans are a party of lunatics & that they can safely vote for the democrats & be confident that nothing overly progressive will occur.
New Hampshire lost its shit a while ago.
Live free or die. What more do you need to know. Don’t live there if you can’t handle it.
Tell us, O wise Intern … what is the Executive Council? And what do we have to do to knock the wheels off its trolley?
Yeesh, whatever replaces our current fraudulent “system” of gummit will be about a jillion times worse: A violent, psychopathic Teabag theocrazy that makes Auschwitz look like Toontown, with endless masses of braying, hate-crazed, sadistic white lunatics rolling around, bug-eyed, speaking in tongues and waving signs stating “No Tax’s” and “REPEEL SCHOOLALIZM” and “End the Hummuhsssekshal Simulus!”
The new theocracy. Bachmann’s America. Next up is prison camps for immigrants.
we live in a bellicose and punitive nation.
the GOP is finally having to deliver on 30 years of promising the christian right they’d ban abortion. they’re doing it the way that congress ended the vietnam war – defunding it.
Once again, since the left doesn’t seem to understand this-
If you want to have sex, simply saying that your state isn’t responsible for paying for the abortion or birth control or STI’s it may cause isn’t the same as denying your right to have sex. It just places the financial burden for one persons recreation where it belongs, on that person.
Nor does saying that we’ll no longer pay for your prescriptions through a non-governmental private group like PP deny your right to medication. Need that prescription? Better go out and buy it, or get a skill set that will land you a job with health insurance. Your bad life choices in no way obligate your fellow taxpayers to pay for your medical care.
Planned Parenthood is NOT, not, not a government agency. They have no god given right to taxpayer funding.
Really, how hard IS logic and reason for the left?
@7
Yeah….
Because not funding Planned Parenthood is EXACTLY like the Nazi death camps.
Idiot.
@1
You’re cordially invited to leave this country permanently anytime you like. You know, rather than wishing a military invasion on us like the America hating piece of trash you are.
What, still here? Well, I guess if you have no money or job skills emigrating can be a bit difficult. Poor little Cato!
@10
why is it so hard for the right to acknowledge that there is value in societal infrastructure?
And feel free to make the donation in honor of Raymond Wieczorek. His address:
1060 Ray Street
Manchester, NH 03104-1620
And if you want to give him a call:
Home Office: (603) 624-1655
Office: (603) 271-3632
Cell: (603) 345-0304
Or drop him an email (respectful, of course, unlike anything he’s said):
E-Mail: rwieczorek@nh.gov
@10 Okay, so public health be damned??
Scenario: 16 year old sexually-active, straight CHRISTIAN boy in high school contracts gonorrhea. He can’t tell anyone in his family or church. He knows he can go to PP and get treated without too many questions and for the kind of subsidized fee he can afford.
You close PP off to him. What does he do? Try to live with his infection until he gets sterile or seriously ill? Spread it around to YOUR DAUGHTER?
Things have consequences, indeed. And some of them are more stupidly unnecessary than others.
How about a law that says a woman can take an unwanted child to any church and drop them off. That church is then responsible for the cost related to raising that child until they are nineteen. Let’s see how much they love money more than children and what it costs when women can’t get adequate care.
@10, it costs YOU more of your precious gummit money if people are having children they can’t care for or not nipping STIs in the bud and instead are spreading them around or getting dangerously sick themselves. Heck, on the extra-kids-front, why do you want more of these people who aren’t a big-time shiny success like you (who can afford to have sex all over the place due to your specialness) procreating anyway? I don’t get how the numbers, even if you’re a self-centered jerk, still don’t favor providing these kinds of services.
(Regarding my previous comment, I do realize that women are hurt in general much more directly than men by Planned Parenthood being gutted. Just wanted to make the point that everyone is hurt to some degree, and that they do provide a smaller but still valuable range of services to men.)
If you want to support Planned Parenthood with your money, I respect that choice. If your passion is for clothing or sheltering the poor, donate to secular or religious charities according to your taste which do this.
It’s when you confuse government activity with private charitable activity that I cavil. This view protects you as well as I. You aren’t forced to support the religious charities with taxpayer money, for example, if you disagree with their religious base. I shouldn’t be forced to support charities whose mission or philosphies I disagree with as a taxpayer.
The tax exemption for charities doesn’t stress me. If they aren’t making a profit, I can’t see the point in taxing that non-existent profit. If they are, they should lose their tax exempt status. (As, if I recall, they can under IRS rules.) This kind of tax code gives us an incentive to be charitible, which is about the limit of charitible activity the government ought to be involved in.
If you feel so strongly that every young woman above 11 years old needs 4 abortions and unlimited birth control, by all means donate to PP. Just don’t ask your fellow taxpayers to do so as well.
Fuck this is depressing. My home state reduced to this. Fucking A. I was so proud when they were the second state to legalize Marriage Equality.
Come the fuck on New Hampshire. I expect more from you.
@15
“Public health?” Define please.
Your 15 year old has the same obligation my kids have. If they break the neighbors window, hit his car with a baseball overthrown, they know they can’t handle this on their own. They have to come to their parents and let us know what happened so that we can help them deal with it. It’s part of growing up. One of the key lessons any kid needs is that no problem gets better for avoiding or hiding it. At some point it must and will be faced, and we don’t do them any favors pretending otherwise.
So, your hypothetical 15 year old may not want to tell his parents he’s been sexually active. It may be difficult or embarrassing. They may be disappointed or upset or even angry. Tough. Negotiating these kinds of family situations is part of growing up.
But it’s my duty as a parent of a minor to monitor his or her medical care, reproductive or otherwise. How I’m supposed to do this if PP is keeping medical secrets about my minor children from me is a bit obscure.
@18 Than you’d be happy if we cut off “faith based” tax mnoney to fucking churches in this country? Because that horsezhit don’t fly. Why are taxpayers subsidizing churches that are paying out millions for the rape of children?
@18, fuck you and fuck your kids.
This doesn’t have FUCK-ALL to do with abortions. You don’t get urinary tract infections from abortions, and you don’t cure them by not getting abortions. You cure them with medicine that PP is now barred from dispensing. WHAT THE FUCK?
You think it’s awesome that poor women go untreated for UTIs. I think it’s awesome that you and your family get hit by cars. WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE. You motherfucking sack of shit.
Absolutely awful. 97% of the services that Planned Parenthood provides have nothing to do with abortion. They provide low-cost, high quality, respectful care to tens of thousands of New Hampshire women. This is about punishing women for having sex, plain and simple.
Ironically, if Planned Parenthood stays defunded, this will mean fewer women being able to afford birth control, more unplanned pregnancies, and in all likelihood MORE abortions.
These “conservatives” aren’t being conservative at all. The best, comprehensive way to prevent unplanned pregnancies and abortions is knowledge and birth control which Planned Parenthood provides.
I’ve posted this on my facebook and encouraged all the people I know in New Hampshire to sign the petition. But I want to do more. This is getting ridiculous. We can’t let them chip away at women’s (hell, people’s) rights any more.
@21
Governments at all levels are feeling the squeeze right now, so if cutting charitible activities help balance the books, I’m fine with that. If you cut off the charitible deductions for all charities, secular or religious, I’d think it poor policy. This has less to do with churches or secular charities as such, but tax incentive for citizens to donate to them as their conscience or belief dictates.
FYI, I don’t know of any Fucking Churches in this country. Still, that’d be one way to increase church attendance…
Nah.
@22
Clearly logic is beyond you, as is basic civility-
PP isn’t being barred from dispensing anything. They’re being told that doing so isn’t a taxpayer obligation. Or is that too difficult for you to understand?
I don’t care if PP dispenses the medications or not. That’s their outlook. All that I wrote, despite your willful misinterpretation of it, is that they aren’t a government agency entitled to governent funds. Nor is financial obligation to purchase a thing denying the right to that thing.
And I wish you and your family health and prosperity as well.
@23
Again, no-one is being denied medical care or abortions or anything else just because taxpayers decline to pay for it. They’re being told to pay for their own bills, just as any adult ought to do.
And again, if this is such a crying need, if the American people are vociferously demanding this, they have a way to do it. They can personally donate to PP, and the problem is solved.
What I just need to know is, What does poor old Morrissey have to do with any of this? I’m an amateur Moz Historian and, ostensible celibacy aside, I’m quite sure the man wouldn’t agree.
@25, fuck you and your civility. Your civility is glossed over murder. This is a civil war, and as far as I’m concerned you deserve to fucking die in the street. Piece of shit.
You are WRONG. They are PROHIBITED from dispensing the medicine. Even if I paid for it all with my own private donations, THEY CANNOT DISPENSE IT. They have to give scrip that can be taken to a pharmacist.
It also doesn’t fucking matter what you want. It doesn’t even matter what the NH legislature wants — they’re against this move. Everybody’s against this move except three motherfucking asswipes. And you.
You can die of a UTI. How I wish it would happen to your daughters.
Seattleblues,
They are being denied care because they can’t afford to pay for it elsewhere! Planned Parenthood offers sliding scale fees. I got my first pap smear from them a few years ago for free. Thank goodness everything was fine. But god forbid, had there been indications of cancer, at least I would have found out somewhat early. If there’d been no Planned Parenthood, I wouldn’t have been able to get that pap smear. The best health care is prevention which is what they provide.
You are so myopic, you’re in danger of becoming a fascist.
There is a need and we do donate to PP. But I still don’t have much money, like a lot of people right now, and I doubt my $5 is going to keep them afloat.
Don’t you see the irony in saying that the people who should fund Planned Parenthood are the very people choosing them because they can’t pay for health care elsewhere?
@18 – “unlimited birth control” is something you have an issue with? Care to go into detail about this exciting “limited birth control” concept and all of its various benefits?
What is your issue with family planning? STI prevention/treatment? What ever happened to the old-fashioned Republicans who were actually reasonable and pragmatic…Planned Parenthood began its federal funding under Nixon, with Republicans at the time recognizing that providing these services has positive (and yes, cost-effective) effects on society.
Fnarf, really, you gotta wish death-by-UTI on this person’s daughters? Are you assuming that they agree with this position, or do you feel like they’re acceptable casualties? I so love it when people on my side of an issue make people on my side of an issue look bad.
@29- “You are so myopic, you’re in danger of becoming a fascist.”
No, he is a fascist. A gleeful, fuck-everyone-unlike-me, fascist.
@28
Stellar argument! Superb! Your command of the language combined with your clear desire to eschew personalities and calmly discuss issues is a lesson to anyone wishing to study rhetoric.
It’s as though Cicero were reborn, with elements of Martin Luther and Churchill combining to make up one irrestible juggernaut of reasoned debate.
Sir, If I wore hats, I’d tip mine to you in sincerest admiration.
Oh, SB once again you not only show your utter and complete hatred for your fellow human beings, but your abject ignorance of how things actually work in the real world.
So, the 15 year-old kid in NH with a urinary tract infection and no insurance will no longer be able to get cheap medicine to cure his condition at a PP, because you and your penny-wise, pound-foolish cohorts believe it’s “his responsibility” to see to his own health needs. So, guess what the kid is gonna do, then? He’s going to NOT DO anything until until the pain becomes so excruciating that he collapses at school or whatever, and is rushed to the nearest ER via ambulance, where all-told he’ll end up being treated at, oh, about 100 times the cost of those cheap medications you and your vile ilk didn’t feel obligated to help pay for – and yet you’ll STILL end up paying THOSE costs instead through increased insurance premiums, through increased costs passed through by the hospital onto YOUR bill to help cover what the kid CAN’T pay, etc., etc.
But hey, you showed that lousy bum of a parasite who’s boss, didn’t you? So what if it ends up costing you even more in inflated health care costs for the satisfaction, right? You’d rather inflict the pain, even if it ends up taking even MORE money out of your pocket in the end, because, that’s really what it’s all about for people like you – paying for the right to watch other people suffer needlessly, instead of making a very modest contribution towards helping them NOT suffer in the first place.
And you wonder why normal people revile you so thoroughly (although I wouldn’t be in the least surprised to know you actually enjoy being reviled – after all, you must enjoy pain, since you’re so ready to inflict it on others for your own amusement).
Damn. I hate it when that happens. “To make up one irresistable, not irrestible, juggernaut.”
You folks simply can’t discuss an issue without devolving into personalities, can you? What is it about the average liberal that reasoned calm debate absent hyperbole and vituperation isn’t possible.
I’d no more dream of wishing harm on Fnarfs family than on mine, for instance. I don’t wish him, or anyone else, dead for the simple fact of disagreeing with me. I don’t wish them financial harm, or starvation or disease or any of the other things I’ve been wished here for merely expressing another viewpoint.
Nope. Disagreement isn’t just seeing the world through different eyes. It makes someone evil, fascist, worthy of death and so on.
Seriously, get a grip folks.
@30
I have no issue with family planning. In fact, I started my family a bit later than most because that’s when I could emotionally and financially handle the obligations of a husband and father. It’s called delayed gratification, but I understand this is a concept increasingly foreign to my fellow citizens.
I have some issues with Planned Parenthood, but a fair percentage of what they do is admirable. The whole infanticide thing kind of throws that out of the equation for me, but that’s another issue.
I don’t know how to make this any clearer. The liberal misperception is that Planned Parenthood has some innate right to federal or state funds. They do not. They aren’t a government agency, and have no claim on the purse of government at all.
Is THAT sufficiently clear?
Seattleblues,
Fnarf may be saying some hateful things I don’t agree with but he’s absolutely right on something that you haven’t responded to:
“You are WRONG. They are PROHIBITED from dispensing the medicine. Even if I paid for it all with my own private donations, THEY CANNOT DISPENSE IT. They have to give scrip that can be taken to a pharmacist.”
So, every time someone says something truthful that you don’t want to believe, you just ignore it? Seems like it. You’re ignoring all of the rational arguments put forth to you, all the humanitarian arguments.
@33
Easy. If the person has money but just doesn’t wish to pay their bills, hospitals should aggressively pursue delinquent medical bills. Here’s a hint- If you can afford a cell phone for every member of your family, cable tv, beer or wine or other luxuries, a fancy new car and so on, you can pay your medical bills. If you didn’t buy insurance, I can’t see where that’s my problem.
I pay for shoplifters, or embezzlers or fraud in consumer products. Doesn’t mean I excuse any of those activities or deny the retailer the right to prosecute them.
@37
I didn’t see his comment buried in his strangely out of control anger.
But so what? They can’t go to a pharmacy? There are 2 within a few miles of my house, and I’m deep in suburbia, for goodness sake.
As for the humanitarian arguments, they boil down to ‘we should help the unfortunate.’ Absolutely. And privately with our own money. To use taxpayer money to do so is out and out theft. It is taking one persons income against his or her will to support another citizen.
@38, you’re still lying.
PP is now barred from dispensing the antibiotics NO MATTER WHO pays for it. Even with zero state funding THEY CANNOT DISPENSE IT AT ALL. Even if I pay for it.
You know that, and you know that you are wrong, and yet you continue your baseless strawman arguments about welfare queens or shoplifters or WHATEVER THE FUCK. You are a lying piece of shit, and you don’t deserve courtesy or respect. Eat shit and die.
@38,
I have a cellphone on a family plan that my mom generously pays for. It ain’t a smart phone.
I don’t have cable or a car and I’m pretty damn frugal. My biggest expense by far is groceries.
Screw you to tell me I can’t buy wine or beer when I can afford it.
I work more than full time because I have my own business. I can’t afford health insurance and I can’t pay for a regular doctor without insurance. I make do without seeing the doctor or dentist very often (I went to a dental clinic once and a medical clinic once in the last 7 years) and by using Planned Parenthood once in the last 4 years.
I don’t have a credit card and therefore no credit card debt. I pay my student loans back every month and am up to date on all my bills. I have been on one 3 day vacation in 6 years.
Does it sound like I am a spendthrift?
I deserve health care. Just like you.
“And they’re not just getting their panties in a bunch over pregnancy termination. Councilor Raymond Wieczorek of Manchester proudly proclaimed his opposition towards funding for birth control and condoms to the Concord Monitor last week when he said, “If they want to have a good time, why not let them pay for it?””
finally someone has the guts to go on record and admit that you if you want to do anything fun, you’ve gotta pay for it.
@33 and I’d like to add that you don’t just get UTIs from sexual activity…you can increase your risk of getting them from all sorts of commonplace things like wearing tight clothing or using tampons or not getting enough fluids. In fact, many women get recurring urinary tract infections for no obvious reason.
I’m like that and I started getting UTIs as a young teen, years before I became sexually active (in fact, I’ve never gotten a UTI I could connect to recent sexual activity). I followed every piece of advice the doctors gave me to reduce my risk of getting UTIs, but I kept on getting them, so I guess I just have a shitty immune system. Thankfully I have insurance so I can go to a walk-in clinic for treatment but not everyone does. PP helping low-income patients get antibiotics for UTIs isn’t putting the cost of their “good times” onto the taxpayer–many of those patients didn’t have any fun sexytimes to get that UTI!
And, you know, paying for a pee test and some antibiotics is a lot cheaper for everyone than making the patient suffer through the UTI until it gets into their kidneys and they have to get rushed to the ER after they start vomiting and pass out from the pain, where they’ll have to be hooked up to IVs and have diagnostic tests run to see if their kidneys are permanently damaged. (happened to me when I was young and didn’t understand my symptoms, NOT FUN).
PS. fuck off SeattleBlues
@10 – sucks for girls getting raped there then. Happened to me, luckily what I contracted was something I could make go away WITH MEDICINE FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD.
@41
I know how that goes. I couldn’t afford health insurance for the first 3 years of my business. I couldn’t afford vacations or to replace my car or remodel my home for the first 7. I rarely worked under 60 hours a week for the first 7 or 8 either. And I visited a dentist once every couple of years, and physicians at need and hoped like hell nothing would go wrong when I wasn’t insured. The effort pays off in the end, if you’re working a good business model with the diligence you seem to be.
If I caused offense I do apologize. It certainly wasn’t intended.
Nor did I tell you what to buy or not. That isn’t my business. But IF a families two kids have cell phones, and IF they have a $150 a month cable and internet bill and IF they have 2 car payment out of their means, then they can afford to pay their medical bills by forgoing some of those things.
If the liberal argument were to remove insurance companies from the health care mix, that’s a talking point. But Obamacare does exactly the opposite, increasing the role of for profit insurance in our medical costs. Nor does single payer accomplish this, replacing for profit insurance with inefficient government. (And I could care less what the CBO or some interest group says, look at their record over the last 2 decades, and you’ll find they and meteorologists are about equal for accuracy.)
Yes, something needs done about medical care availability. Yes, a person should be able to go to the doctor without mortgaging the house. I just haven’t seen anyone propose a viable ‘something’ as yet.
Dear Seattleblues,
And don’t forget the fluoride that is impurifying our precious bodily fluids…
@45: “I have no issue with family planning. In fact, I started my family a bit later than most because it took years to save up enough money for my mail order bride.”
There. Fixed it for you.
is it me or did SB just give Brooklyngirl the “you’re one of the good ones” speech?
@45- “If the liberal argument were to remove insurance companies from the health care mix, that’s a talking point. But Obamacare does exactly the opposite, increasing the role of for profit insurance in our medical costs.”
Holy crap. I agree with you. It feels weird.
“Nor does single payer accomplish this, replacing for profit insurance with inefficient government. “
And back to disagreeing with you. Government may be inefficient compared to perfection, but when it comes to health care the private sector has proven itself the worst.
But hey, I agreed with two sentences you wrote. What an odd day. But Hitler liked dogs and I like dogs, so I guess it’s not that weird.
Donated.