Dan touched on this topic earlier but it bears repeating: While Republicans are fighting to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood under the guise of bridging the national deficit, one Republican-sponsored bill would earmark federal funds for primarily Christian-run “pregnancy centers” that do everything possible to convince women not to have abortions (including lying about the procedure’s effects).
If the bill passed, federal funds would be used to purchase sonogram machines for pregnancy centers—which, again, are not medical clinics. In fact, they’re typically run by volunteers (read: Christian moms) who aren’t required to have any sort of training to “interpret” a sonogram (read: “I see Jesus in your womb!“).
Via Mother Jones:
The preamble of Stearns’ bill makes it sound as though any nonprofit, tax-exempt organization could apply to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for grants to purchase ultrasound equipment. But the bill comes with stipulations. To be eligible for this grant, a facility would have to show every woman seeking services the ultrasound image and describe to them the “general anatomical and physiological description of the characteristics of the fetus.” The facility would be required to provide women with “alternatives to abortion such as childbirth and adoption and information concerning public and private agencies that will assist in those alternatives.” It also must offer its services free of charge. That last condition would disqualify abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, which charges on a sliding scale based on a woman’s income.
Republicans call funding Planned Parenthood a moral issue—even though the organization is prohibited from using federal funds for abortions. Conservatives obviously think that women who demand access to comprehensive health care are evil—just as those who provide that care are evil. And liberals have been letting them frame the argument this way.
But it has to stop. And the only way liberals are going to win this battle with conservatives is by ceding the moral ground. Who gives a shit if conservatives think we’re evil? What matters is that women have access to unbiased information and quality health care.
If this bill gains traction, women’s health care advocates have only one recourse: open up free pregnancy centers of their own, run by Satanists. Satanists are just as adept at spelling out all of women’s alternatives to abortion—adoption, human sacrifice, or raising the baby traditionally, in the House of Satan. Fun perk: Gays are welcome in the House of Satan! I would feel much more comfortable having an untrained Satanist read my sonogram than a conservative Christian. Another fun perk: These centers could serve liquor!
After carefully weighing their options, if women still chose to terminate their pregnancies, the Satanist-run pregnancy centers could refer their clients to Planned Parenthood or another abortion provider.
This is insane. Republicans think government health care is evil, but here they are mandating government-paid-for health care PROVIDED BY NON-DOCTORS. What the hell? “Stop going to these evil doctors; come see this nice Church Lady with her shiny new machine she has no freaking idea how to operate or interpret”.
Just wondering…
Are there currently any non-religious based ‘pregnancy’ centers that would qualify for this?
I know most of them are these so-called ‘crisis-pregnancy centers’ that are religious based… are they ALL religious based?
The new South Dakota law that requires – REQUIRES – women to go to a pregnancy center before she’s allowed to get an abortion… if there are NO non-religious centers available, can the law be rightfully struck down as unconstitutional (not that it’s going to stand anyway, but just wondering)?
@2, I haven’t come across one without a religious affiliation while researching the topic, which isn’t to say they don’t exist.
I think conservatives in SD would argue that the law doesn’t mandate that pregnancy centers be religious and they’re not preventing anyone from opening a non-religious pregnancy center.
Ahem. Isn’t, you know, Planned Parenthood a “non-religious pregnancy center”? Doesn’t that mean that the gummint is going to buy shiny new sonograms for Planned Parenthood, too? It’s NOT? Hmm, I wonder why that is.
I actually have crazy Jesus elderly relatives in Idaho who have started volunteering at one of these godawful centers. There’s no arguing with them; they regard any discussion of their qualifications to provide such a service as a deliberate attempt to murder them by giving them heart attacks (my family is very dramatic). I just wish….I just wish people had common sense, and could let real doctors do their jobs, and not bring their crazy bullshit Jesus damage into everything.
Funny thing about my Satanist collegues–their theology, in its own weird and wonderful way, represents a form of morality. They’d get on board with this, if just to get more participants for their orgies.
It’s funny to think of Satanic pregnancy centers getting federally-funded medical equipment, kind of.
But seriously: this hurts me physically. I’m so freaking angered by the no-longer-even-veiled attacks on women and our supposedly equal status under the law. I’m being told – by my stupid backwards Midwestern state AND by the federal government – that I’m not smart enough or have my own agency enough to make a decision. And the steaming, mind-fucking hypocrisy of it all: I’m seriously having panic attacks about this, and jokes about Satanic clinics don’t help. But what can I DO? I write my own thankfully Dem rep but he’s already on my side, I write to the state officials who don’t directly represent me under the hope that if they want to run for Senate they’ll know they have to answer to me in addition to their rural fuckwad christianist base, and I of course donate to PP, but what the hell else can I do?
What I WANT to do is punch these motherfucking women-hating jeebus freaks right in the gonads, but obviously I’m not acting – and won’t – on that particular impulse, but what other choice do we have than to curl up and cry?!
@6 “what other choice do we have than to curl up and cry?” Buck up, sister. Plenty of women (and intelligent men) before you have marched, shouted, and demanded equal rights for women, for issues as daunting as this one (the right to vote or own a business, to name two) and they’ve won. Men wouldn’t curl up and cry if their rights were infringed up so why should we? Turn those tears into activism! Don’t let anyone tell you that your voice doesn’t count.
@7, I think what’s frustrating is that “we’ve won”, and yet a year or a decade or a half-century later they’re right back again. It doesn’t feel like winning; it feels like Sisyphus and his rock.
I think this should be mentioned every time one of these horrible sonogram laws comes up: an early-pregnancy sonogram isn’t done by rubbing a wand on the belly, like in a romantic comedy. It’s done INTERNALLY. This law would send women off to be raped by those Christian moms.
Are there any so-called pregnancy centers that are not Christian? Jewish Pregnancy Centers? Muslim Pregnancy Centers? Buddhist Pregnancy Centers?
I didn’t think so. I am so sick of ignorant pretender-xtianists and their cowardly, proud to be ignorant republican spawn trying to take control of my body and my sisters’ bodies and my nieces’ bodies – lots of pissed off girls in my family. What is wrong with these people? Really? Why do they think they have a free-speech and legislative right to plunge women backwards a century or so?
What the fuck have we done to them? What a bunch of mal educado shits. When’s the march? I’m ready to throw things.
Fnarf @4,
The bill stipulates that the ‘pregnancy counseling services’ must be free, which is how they get around PP.
So I’m wondering… could anyone offer free pregnancy crisis services and get funding for a sonogram machine from the gov? Could I get one? All I need are some anti-choice pamphlets, right?
The South Dakota bill:
http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2011/B…
In section 7.1 states that a pregnancy help center is any entity which:
“has a medical director who is licensed to practice medicine in the state of South Dakota, or that it has a collaborative agreement with a physician licensed in South Dakota to practice medicine to whom women can be referred”
A “collaborative agreement” with an SD licensed physician? What does that mean?
@11: Possibly that some bible-thumping jackass with an MD is willing to stand up for a storefront full of middle-aged Christian jerks who want to shove ultrasound wands up those sluts’ hoo-has in order to further shame them and punish them with the precious babies.
What’s the financial model for these “pregnancy centers?”
Do they charge for their services?
‘Cause if not, I think maybe everyone who really cares about choice should go in and ask for some advice – pregnant or not.
Just gum up their works. Make an appointment, even if you have no intention of showing up. Get a sonogram and listen to them describe the heartbeat of your non-existent fetus. Take all the “literature” they’ll give you – and recycle it as soon as you can.
Even if only a handful of the people I knew did this only once a year, I imagine it would be a pretty good way to put a financial strain on them – and wouldn’t be nearly as dickish as the protests the lifers use against Planned Parenthood.
SuperSteve, that’s actually a pretty fun idea.
#7, as Fnarf says, I’ve *been* an activist in this arena since the first anti-choice culture wars in the 80s. I’ve marched, collected signatures, written letters, added my voice in every way short of actually volunteering at a clinic (time constraints – they need a longer term commitment than I’ve often felt I had, though I may revisit this issue now), and yet I still feel it’s a legal right that’s hanging by a thread, and moronic sex-shaming hypocrites are still waging to take it away.
The truth of the matter is it *barely* affects me anyway – I’m getting my tubes tied within the year probably, I don’t have daughters, and I’m financially able to fly to some other place if I ever need an abortion anyway. But this is one of the issues where principles matter, it’s just that I’m getting so, so tired of this fight and the leotarded depths to which the current rightwads are willing to take it. Tired activists like me need someone smart – like SuperSteve – to come up with a way to make our point once and for all, that abortion is here to stay, and the way to make it as infrequent as possible is to teach people sex education and empower them to make their own health decisions.
Here’s the heart of the issue: this isn’t republican. this is a takeover of our government by the christian taliban in this country. Republican’s have always touted “less government” and “government our of people’s personal loves”.
The extreme christian right has hijacked the republican party. Now religious idiots have taken over – PEOPLE NEED TO VOTE !
@13, I could go in and ask them if they think my prostate is going to be twins.
Cool. Does this mean anyone can form a nonprofit and then go get a free ultrasound machine? Look for a glut of almost-new ultrasound machines on eBay.
17, continued. Even better, look for my late-night infomercials selling you a “system” to make money getting free ultrasound machines from the guv’mint!