GOPers have gleefully pounced on the next best thing—attacking and harassing women’s reproductive service providers:
A U.S. House of Representatives committee has asked the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) to turn over more than 10 years worth of records, ostensibly in an effort to ensure that no public funds have been spent to carry out abortions.
The investigation, ordered by the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee chairman, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), has largely been seen by PPFA advocates as the latest Republican line of attack against the agency, which provides more low-cost women’s health services than any organization in the country.
… “We are aware of no predicate that would justify this sweeping and invasive request to Planned Parenthood,” the group said in a prepared statement. “The HHS Inspector General and state Medicaid programs regularly audit Planned Parenthood and report publicly on their findings. These audits have not identified any pattern of misuse of federal funds, illegal activity, or other abuse that would justify a broad and invasive congressional investigation.”
Not to froth all over myself here (I wear lobster bibs to work to avoid that) but this continued GOP war on service providers is maddening for at least two reasons.
First, as the article above notes, PPFA already undergoes annual audits—which are published online and have turned up no malfeasance on PPFA’s part.
Second, national abortion rates have been falling for more than twenty years. In Washington state, abortion rates for women between the ages 15-44 have steadily dropped to an all-time low in 2008 (the most recent year that data was available) even as the number of live births has increased. Check out this table (courtesy of slog tipper TVDinner):
- OFM
The OFM report doesn’t speculate on why the abortion numbers have plummeted—it could be that women have better access to birth control (thanks to organizations like Planned Parenthood), it could be somehow tied to the tanking economy, or it could be that abstinence-only education in Washington State really works (HA HA HA FROTH HA)*! Regardless, when you look at the numbers, it makes this national attack against Planned Parenthood as the “LensCrafters of big abortion” look all the more petty and hateful.
*Thanks, again, to TVDinner for the joke and the tip.
At one point in my life, dead-tree editions of virtually every Congressional committee hearing passed across my desk (at a regional-depository library for the Government Printing Office). While they were boring as hell, substantive issues actually related to the functioning of the government were discussed and evaluated.
So, House Energy and Commerce Committee and R[O]FL Cliff Stearns, everything in the realms of Energy and Commerce are just humming right along, eh? No problems of any sort that might bear looking into, or revising policy on?
I also find myself wondering if those Freaknomics guys are right about abortion also lowering the crime rate. Apparently being the unwanted child of a stressed-out mother leads to all sorts of negative outcomes in life, one of which is often crime. Should we be prepared for an increase in violent crime in another two decades? If so, then will all these unwanted babies end up on death row?
Oh, but it’s ok to kill ’em then. That’s what Jesus would have done.
@3, I do not know! But if you’d like, I have an extra lobster bib in my drawer…
So they’re all finished creating jobs? We have all the jobs we need so they can now waste all their time and our money on this bullshit? Fucking neo-fascist assholes!
Increasing my monthly auto-donation amount.
I wonder at what point it just becomes easier and cheaper for Planned Parenthood to tell the feds to fuck off and forgo the (relatively speaking) limited federal funds they get?
@3 Watch this http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2…
Since when is this new? Nice that you’ve been paying attention all the past years when people have been doing this, glad you wanted to stop it then to …. at least one would hope so.