Friday, May 4, 2012

Arizona passed a law banning funding to Planed Parent hood.

So a law was just signed into law banning any funds from going to places preform abortion including Planed Parent hood.

Sometimes I am so disappointed in my state, all they have done is cut funding that helps many poor women get health care.

I particularly like the part where Jan Brewer says:
By signing this measure into law I stand with the majority of Americans who oppose the use of taxpayer funds for abortion.
This is a complete misrepresentation since there are already laws in place that prevent public funds from paying for abortions, the money given to planed parent hood by the state went to other services, but way to go supporting your narrow interpretation of your religion over the needs of the people in the state you serve.

17 comments:

  1. Yes, it is shameful that more state dollars will no longer help subsidize the elimination of the poorest members of our population.

    It is equally sad that the uninsured unborn will no longer be able to receive the wonderful health care plan that PP offers them.

    How unenlightened could Arizona be?

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  2. Wow, sarcasm and insults, how human of you.

    Did you actually read what I wrote? I wonder since you start out with the false claim that this bill ended federal subsidies of abortion when the money we were providing PP was earmarked for things like mammograms, birth control and other things that are not abortion. Only 3% of PP services are abortions so your misrepresentations are just not factual.

    Next:
    "Yes, it is shameful that more state dollars will no longer help subsidize the elimination of the poorest members of our population."
    Would you find insulting if I suggested that the reason you are pro life is because think women have no rights except to be a factory for babies? If you want to have a reasonable discussion (as you claim) don't use insulting tropes like this one, implying I am pro choice because I want to kill poor people is not a good way to start a "reasonable discussion"

    Lastly, even if you consider a fetus to be a person, (another argument all together) no person has the kind of rights you want to afford that fetus. If I, as a full grown human being, was required to be attached to another human being in order to continue living and they refused there is no law (nor should there be) that would compel them to allow it.

    But if you want to tell women that are simply nothing more than baby incubator with no human rights for the nine months they are pregnant you go right ahead, I can't in good conscience do that.

    Let me ask you a question, because I happen to think it is very relevant to this discussion. What do you think of abstinence only education? If you are curious about my view on it look around my blog and you will undoubtedly find my opinion on it.

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  3. Yes, I read what you wrote. That's why I commented on it. Also your statistic about 3% is most certainly wrong and I would encourage you to check other sources besides Planned Parenthood itself here's one such example:
    http://www.weeklystandard.com/do-abortions-account-3-percent-planned-parenthoods-activities-does-it-matter_620927.html

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  4. If you read it, then why defend the bill by claiming it does something it didn't do? Since you know that I know better why even bring it up?

    Sorry the link doesn't work, though I doubt it would have proven your case very well. I'm relatively well read on the topic and that 3% number is based upon PP openly posted figures. You know, the figures that every non-profit organization is required to post.

    Here are the actual figures, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-planned-parenthood-actually-does/2011/04/06/AFhBPa2C_blog.html

    Where are these other people getting their figures from? how did they collect the data? Are they suggesting that PP is faking their books? What evidence do that have that the books are fake? Why haven't they taken this evidence to the courts as such information would cause PP to loose their 501c3 status?

    Sorry, but this argument reeks of conspiracy theory, I've already read claims made along the lines you are making and was less than impressed with them, thought by all means you may present your evidence.

    Thought I would appreciate it if you bothered to answer by very direct and polite question, I won't be surprised when you don't.

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  5. "Do abortions account for 3% or 38% of Planned Parenthood's activities? Does it matter?" Just google that as a beginning link to what I was talking about my previous post please. For some reason I was having trouble entering the link but that is the title of it.

    to say that tax payer funding going to planned parenthood is earmarked for things other than abortion seems naïve and irrelevant. Here is why: the money they get from taxes they are able to spend on other expenditures they have such as abortions and the like.. So this means tax payer money is being used to help free up capital for them to spend on other things. In this manner, citizens who find abortion morally objectionable are in a roundabout way being forced to subsidize abortions.

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  6. Your view of how expenditures work in non-profit organizations is overly simplistic. but at least you are making an argument now instead of just making flat statements with out backing them up.

    I also don't find the morally objectionably argument to be always convincing, all of us, including me are forced to pay taxes for things we may find morally objectionable. If I don't get to opt out of things I find morally objectionable why should you?

    Also, by your logic tax breaks for churches are unconstitutional since they are functionally equal to the government giving money to church's for evangelism, thus violating church state separation.

    I think this is a road that we should all avoid traveling.

    You still haven't answer my question.

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  7. The article you posted...

    "Planned Parenthood’s critics have estimated, plausibly, that between 30 and 40 percent of its health center revenue is from abortion."

    If you don't see why this statement is suspect to me I don't know what to tell you.

    This is linked on the site to another article from the same site which has a lot of figures and not a single foot note or reference to back any of them up....

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  8. Did some digging into the weekly standard's other articles and found quite a bit of anti-skeptic, anti-science articles there.

    While that is not enough on it's own to discount that particular article on Planned Parenthood, coupled with the complete lack of useful references in the article it makes me highly skeptical that this article is giving an accurate view of the facts.

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    Replies
    1. Dylan -

      I'm sure you're aware that you've fallen right into the pit of genetic fallacy with your above two comments. But if you want to think that way, then you'd need to be equally suspect of PP's data because it comes from a party w/a vested interest. Since it works both ways, we've gotta simply look at the numbers. And here is one piece where you can see that PP uses unorthodox accounting methods to skew the final percentages:
      http://liveaction.org/blog/38-4-of-pp-health-center-income-is-from-abortions

      Further, a more telling question is what happens to PP to pregnant women? Because you can't get an abortion if you aren't with child, so it's not an option - here's something on that: http://liveaction.org/blog/new-planned-parenthood-annual-report-confirms-abortion-makes-up-91-of-pregnancy-related-services

      But we've also gotta look at this: there a number of services directly related to the abortion that PP must provide that are not an actual abortion - these aren't counted but this fact must be realized when looking at any of these numbers. And regardless of what percentage of PP's work is abortion-related, the truth is that it is still its #1 money maker! It is simple: PP profits off of abortion - and greatly so - http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/223livny.asp

      And I'm no expert on non-profit accounting but then again I do work part-time for one as well as donate to several non-profits. So it is not as if I have *no* idea at all.

      As far as your question about sex ed ... I'm not entirely sure any of that is the government's business in the first place!

      vocab

      PS - The portion of the Weekly Standard piece you quoted was actually referencing a piece that appeared in the NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-medias-blinders-on-abortion.html?_r=1

      Delete
  9. correction:

    "what happens *at* PP to pregnant women"

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  10. First I would say your accusation of a genetic fallacy is incorrect since I did not claim their arguments were false, merely that I was skeptical of them baring further data. I don't care what college you went to, quoting an article from ones own web site which itself contains no references is shoddy journalism. Given the number of figures in the linked article it should have had 40 or 50 foot notes easy, but it had none. Since my problem was shoddy data, a lack of journalistic integrity and poor scientific literacy and not their supposed vested interest your criticism falls flat. Nice try though.

    Moving on to your main points.

    The fact that most pregnancy related services means absolutely nothing to me, I could care less. I don't have a problem with elective abortions in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy (when elective abortions are allowed). It is not like PP is forcing these women to have abortions, they are making a choice on their own. I suggest you do some reading on "self selection bias" to understand why this is not the problem you make it out to be.

    Your second criticism actually made me laugh because it was so absurd. Let me explain what happened here. Republicans made a law which prevents tax money to go to abortions, PP because of these charges money for a lot of their abortions, they charge very little for everything else, STD testing/treatment and Contraceptives, where most of their time is spent are mostly free or below cost. So is it really surprising that the only thing they charge for is the thing they make most of their money on?

    Realize that this is a separate argument than suggesting the PP workers are coercing people into abortions. I would be against that if it were occurring, but no evidence suggests that this is being done in PP.
    You made my last point for me quite nicely.
    When I bring up sex ed you are suddenly pro small government, but when it comes to abortion you are quite cool with our government acting as the huge right hand of your god. Very consistent. That way the teenage girl who just got pregnant because no one taught her safe sex practices will be forced to have the child and then she and her baby can starve to death on the streets because she has no education and Republicans got rid of all or most of the welfare system so they would have that money to fight more wars we really needed to fight.... Yes clearly you are the one who is "pro life" here.

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  11. Dylan, do you support laws which declare homicide to be illegal and lay out punishment for violating said laws?

    Why are these good? Because the state has an interest in protecting its citizens from murder.

    So how is it inconsistent w/a small government to have laws like this on the books - it's not, unless I were an anarchist - which I'm not.

    That's why laws which protect our unborn citizens are good as well ... this seems obvious!

    vm

    PS - did you even look at the links about PP's numbers and how they arrive at them?

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  12. I've already explained why I think your view is wrong so you can go back and read my previous posts. You are giving a right to that fetus that we don't give a full grown adult.

    Many religions, including Judaism, do not think life starts until birth, that is probably a little late in my book, but conception is way too early, only about a third of eggs that are inseminated make it to a full term pregnancy under normal circumstances and I ask again if a women does not want to be pregnant what right do you have to tell her that she has too be?

    Then there is the fact that making abortion illegal doesn't really decrease the # of abortions significantly, just the health risks associated with them since there is no regulation. In this sense it is the same reason I favor legalizing prostitution, not because I am necessarily in favor of it but because making it illegal doesn't fix anything and causes a lot of new problems.

    If you think it's tantamount to murder what kind of prison sentence would you give women who get abortions? Life? Execution?

    I've read a lot of PP numbers which ones are you referring to specifically? The ones in your previous post? I already stipulated that those may be correct, and explained why it is totally unimportant.

    My question, since you think that teaching sex ed is not something the state should be doing is who do you think should be doing it? Parents? Then explain why the more conservative/religious a parent the less likely they are to teach their children anything about sex?

    Since abstinence only education delays sexual activity in teens by less than 3 months on average but causes them to be significantly less likely to use birth control abstinence only edu has been shown to increase cases of teen pregnancy by significant amounts. Since the CDC has started collecting numbers the year with the highest teen pregnancy rate was 1957. In 2010 the # was about 1/3 of the 1957#.

    I bring this up, since it would be logical (if your main goal is to get rid of abortion) to teach teens about sex early. Abortion rates in the U.S. have been falling since 1981 in this country but are still much higher per capita than in very secular counties like Sweden so clearly the religious right is not having the effect on society they want to have.

    Since we are suggesting reading material I would suggest reading
    Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality, by Darrel Ray
    http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

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  13. This discussion has run a wide variety of topics here but I finally got a good idea what you are arguing here. You seems to have made two separate points here, the problem is that the two points you are making completely contradict each other.

    The first point you made was to defend the bill by saying that giving money to PP was indirectly funding abortion because that meant they could take other money from that program to fund abortion. Now, this would be cooking the books and would be incredibly illegal for a non-profit to do, a point I made but you ignored. But lets ignore this and move on the the seconded point.

    PP is making a shit load of money from abortions. Now you may be asking how this point contradicts the first one. I'll explain, you are claiming that PP needs more money so badly for abortions that they are, through an illegal process, laundering money through their other programs to foot the bill for these very costly abortions.

    Now, this is rank conspiracy theory since no one to date has proven that PP is engaging in this sort of behavior, but even more interesting to me is your appeal two arguments that so obviously contradict each other. If PP is making so much profit from abortion why would they need to launder donated money into their funds for abortions. Why would they do something illegal for no purpose?

    So which is it? Is abortion making tons of money and I was correct to criticize the law for claiming to end public funding for abortion when it did not such thing? Or is PP loosing so much money on abortion that they have to engage in illegal practices to stay in business, but the conspiracy theory about PP trying to coerce women into abortions to make money bites the dust?

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    Replies
    1. Dylan -

      I made neither of those arguments! The second one is a *tad* closer to what I was saying but the first one you said I made was completely incorrect. I never said PP was taking funds from tax dollars which were earmarked for non-abortive services and using them for abortions. Please re-read my posts and the provided links! I simply said the tax money provided to PP frees up their resources so they *can* do abortions and other things easier. It is simple: their organization's budget is beefed up by tax money and this helps them do what they do - and a big part of what they do is abortion related.

      I am going to pull a few quotes from a page I have not linked yet that I think helps further explain some of what my initial points were:

      "While Planned Parenthood officials claim that abortions constitute only 3% percent of their services, this figure is misleading. Out of the 10.5 million individual services they provided in 2006, 289,750 were abortions—roughly 3%. But this figure fails to account for the fact that a woman visiting Planned Parenthood for an abortion will receive several services—from a pregnancy test to some manner of counseling to the abortion itself—each of which is counted separately.

      A closer look at Planned Parenthood’s client and income numbers shows that the abortion figure is actually three times what they claim. Of 3.1 million Planned Parenthood clients in 2006, 9% got abortions. Moreover, abortion accounts for at least a third of Planned Parenthood’s total income from clinic services.

      Source: Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood Federation of America 2006-2007 Annual Report.http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/AR_2007_vFinal.pdf."

      And here is another one (both from http://www.whyprolife.com/planned-parenthood):

      "The annual budget of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates for fiscal year 2006-2007 was $1,017,900,000—over one billion dollars. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates received $336,7000,000 in taxpayer dollars during the 2006-2007 fiscal year, the most recent year for which data is available.

      Public funds thus constitute nearly a third of Planned Parenthoods annual budget.

      Planned Parenthood reported an income of $100 million for surgical abortions in 2006.

      Their total income for medical abortions is unknown.

      Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood Federation of America 2006-2007 Annual Report. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/AR_2007_vFinal.pdf"

      Now these are on slightly different topics than what you were talking about in your last post but both are relevant to other parts of our convo.

      I am not sure how long I should continue on this particular discussion because it seems rather obvious to me that you are not actually interested in hearing what I am saying. I apologize if I have been that unclear!

      The other thing is you have engaged in some over the top rhetoric which indicates to me you are a fundamentalist of sorts on the issue of abortion. Here is an example that sounds an awful lot like demagoguery to me:

      DYLAN WROTE:
      "When I bring up sex ed you are suddenly pro small government, but when it comes to abortion you are quite cool with our government acting as the huge right hand of your god. Very consistent. That way the teenage girl who just got pregnant because no one taught her safe sex practices will be forced to have the child and then she and her baby can starve to death on the streets because she has no education and Republicans got rid of all or most of the welfare system so they would have that money to fight more wars we really needed to fight.... Yes clearly you are the one who is "pro life" here."

      Seriously? Come on, man ...

      Delete
  14. Yes, serious come on.

    You can't just restate your argument and call it something else.

    Again, I will point out that if they are making stupid amounts of money from abortion then taking away government funds will not affect the number of abortions they perform at all, so your argument in favor of this particular bill is invalid.

    (remember this discussion was about whether my criticism of the bill was valid not the general morality of abortion)

    Vocab Posts:
    "While Planned Parenthood officials claim that abortions constitute only 3% percent of their services, this figure is misleading. Out of the 10.5 million individual services they provided in 2006, 289,750 were abortions—roughly 3%. But this figure fails to account for the fact that a woman visiting Planned Parenthood for an abortion will receive several services—from a pregnancy test to some manner of counseling to the abortion itself—each of which is counted separately."

    Sure, I know all the numbers, don't speak to me like I'm an idiot. It is completely reasonable that they don't count a pregnancy test as an abortion. It seems silly to suggest that PP is somehow fudging the numbers by not counting it as the same thing even more so since you can get all of the #'s you just quoted from PP's own information. They are hiding nothing.

    Vocab Post:
    "The other thing is you have engaged in some over the top rhetoric which indicates to me you are a fundamentalist of sorts on the issue of abortion. Here is an example that sounds an awful lot like demagoguery to me:"

    So now it comes down to name calling? Seriously?

    For someone who says they want to have a civil conversation you stoop to petty insults rather quickly.

    I stand by my quote, the scenario I envisioned is, I am sure, not your actual goal, but it is the one we would be left with, indeed it happens all the time even now.

    Vocab Posts:
    "I am not sure how long I should continue on this particular discussion because it seems rather obvious to me that you are not actually interested in hearing what I am saying."

    Look, I am quite willing to listen to reasonable argument, perhaps rather than just accusing me of bias you might consider the possibility that your arguments are simply poorly informed and illogical.

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  15. Here is my main point in this discussion.

    The point I am trying to get through to you, is that if you think abortion is wrong then you should be doing the thing which will get rid of the most abortions right?

    If fundamentalists got their way and made abortion illegal would abortion go away? No it would not, in fact studies show that making it illegal has no effect on the number of abortions performed generally, this is an inconvenient fact that people on your side regularly ignore.

    So if that doesn't work, then what can you do? There is one thing that will drop the number of elective abortions noticeably, that would be better access to birth control, Better sex education and even better birth control. OK, that is actually 3 things, but follow me, because these things are 3 of the goals of PP. If you don't like their inclusion of abortion as part of their program then why not do it yourself?

    If Fundamentalist churches want to end abortion why not work to end the need for them rather than just trying to control people's behavior? Why don't you and yours put money into contraception research, improving sex ed is schools, and improving access to birth control for low income women? Elective abortions would be minimized because the women wouldn't get pregnant in the first place.

    This would be far more effective than just trying to make it illegal, we make pot illegal and how is that working out?

    So when I say your argument makes no sense I am being honest, because what I see is Fundamentalists doing the opposite of these things, against sex ed, against wider birth control access, and I haven't seen any fundamentalist groups funding birth control research, even though this position will inevitably increase the number of abortions whether they are legal or not.

    I have to conclude that you and yours are simply woefully ignorant of the facts here, or your goals have something more important in mind than abortion, namely trying to control the sexuality of others, and force them to behave in a way that matches your narrow view of sexuality as based upon the bible.

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