Indiana cuts off Planned ParenthoodFollow

Moe and I are not wrong. The meaning of the word Moe originally used, never changed. Aili miss used it in the discussion at hand. It would be similar to me saying something along the lines of "to bear gifts" and someone thinking I was talking about gifts for bears.

Edited, May 13th 2011 8:22pm by Uglysasquatch

I think both sides are "fooling" themselves. While we all might have legitimate arguments for/against PP, I think the core issue in general is abortion. I don't have a problem with the government paying for abortions IFF (If and only if), it is either a rape case or a life or death situation where the woman can't afford it. I do have a problem with the government paying for abortions for people who just got pregnant.

Admittedly, part of that is due to my personal opinion, but is heavily overshadowed by my argument of wasting money on something that is completely preventable, especially with the deficit issue and other areas where money is necessary.

Secondly, proponents argue that PP will reduce pregnancies, etc., but that simply isn't true. For the exceptions of rape, sex is a decision. People decided to have unprotected sex and if they are using contraceptives, then they know the potential results. So, throwing out more contraceptives isn't going to solve the problem, because they are already available and no one is forcing you to have sex. The problem is deeper than that.

Who's fooled? I've said throughout this entire thread that this had nothing to do with some fear of misused tax dollars or the deficit and everything to do with an ideological battle against abortion.


The government isn't paying for abortions. There are policies in place to check on that. If an individual location is breaking the policy, they should be penalized just like if I misspent a roadway construction grant on an awesome new fish tank or education grant on a nose job or even spent medical funds on a pony. As long as abortion is a legal medical procedure in this country, there's no reason to start screaming and waving our arms around as though this potential misuse of funds differs from any other potential misuse of funds.

Edited, May 14th 2011 9:43am by Jophiel

Correct. It is a violation of the law for PP to perform abortions with tax funding. PP is required to keep separate records and perform abortions in a separate part of the building, clearly marked. They also keep separate pay records, accounting, etc.

PP's other services are partially paid with tax money either via Medicaid reimbursements or federal grants.

From what I understand, the problem is that the opponents want every single last penny accounted for. For even if one tax payer penny is being used to light a hallway that leads to a room where an interview takes place that could lead to an abortion, then it isn't legal in their eyes. Which maybe it isn't to the absolute letter of the law, but dear god is it something stupid to fight over.

And there are quite a few conservatives that really believe that PP is fixing their books and using tax money to pay for abortions.

Except that a light bulb in the lobby or whatever is completely within the law and the things that are outside the law are audited to ensure compliance. Light bulbs in the hallway are covered by the restrictions that abortions have to be taking place is a separate section of the building which is covered by separate books. On occasions where it's shown that they violated the law, they should be penalized on a per-location basis in the same manner as any other misused grant spending, not some politically driven witch hunt under the guise of fiscal concern.

Edited, May 14th 2011 12:56pm by Jophiel

It's not biased, you twit. It's the spirit and letter of the law. You want to force extra expenditures out of Planned Parenthood because you're so paranoid about the idea that you might be paying for an abortion somewhere.

No, I mean the view point that PP is being totally innocent where they aren't using ANY sort of money to benefit abortion, contraceptives, etc. That's the exact opposite of the opponents claiming that money IS spent on money to benefit abortion, contraceptives, etc. You aren't acting any better than they are.

The most reasonable way to approach this is to look exactly how the money is spent, not just assume that it is or it isn't just because you think so.



The fact that it's legal has absolutely no bearing in this. It does not matter. If they replaced abortions with "breast implants" or "botax", do you think people will not care? I'm not sure if they already do those operations or not, but I wouldn't want any tax payer's money going to those legal procedures and I certainly don't care if an adult decides to get botax or breast implants. I know military servicemen are authorized to get breast implants under Uncle Sam and I don't agree with that either. You just refuse to accept the reality that even though there is a personal agenda, that there are legitimate arguments against it and you are no different than your opposition.

If you're willing to risk your entire organization for a practice that you rarely even do, that tells me your concern isn't with the overall health of women but for that particular practice.

Having two separate buildings makes a HUGE difference. Every organization should have some sort of a treasury report with banking trails. It's much easier to determine if that separate building is having additional illegal funds as opposed to determining if that "electricity" is legally being paid for.

I agree with your complaint about the opposition over exaggerating, but if PP isn't going out of their way to prove their innocence on something that they claim they hardly ever do, you can't deny the smell of something fishy occurring.

As Joph has already pointed out, they are audited, and there has been no proof of a mis-allocation of funds.

I mean, unless you ascribe to the "guilty until proven innocent" creed, I'm not sure I see how it's biased to believe they are doing anything wrong.

Cute's not the word I'd use.

Contraceptives aren't the issues here. And, again, they get audited to ensure that they're not spending money on abortions. I have no problem with them being audited.


So if PP didn't offer abortion services but did offer breast implants, you're under the impression that you'd be seeing the same response from the GOP? Heh.


Yeah, I'm not sure when, or in what world, "You have to jump through every ridiculous hurdle I set up despite you already following the rules and we'll keep singling you out for special ever-increasingly restrictive treatment and if you object it means you weren't serious anyway" has become a valid debating point.


Unless you're Niobia's imaginary internet lawyer, they shouldn't have to.