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Nurses Activism

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I see in the news that anti-choice organizations are planning demonstrations today at Planned Parenthood facilities around the US to support GOP plans to defund PP.

Of course, my first thought was to grab a sign (and my, ummm, "kittyhat"!) and head for my local facility to show my support for PP, but I also see in the news that PP offices are asking that supporters not show up at the facilities to counter-protest (because they don't want the crowds of protesters any larger or more chaotic than necessary as women are trying to get in and out for services).

Some communities are planning counter-demonstrations in other venues, but I haven't been able to find any information about any events planned in my city.

So, I've decided to set aside the time planned for the anti-choice demonstration in my city today to contact all my elected representatives, from the White House down to my state legislators, and Tom Price at DHHS, to remind them that I support PP and am strongly opposed to any efforts to restrict women's reproductive rights or Planned Parenthood's access to public healthcare dollars as a legitimate healthcare provider.

I hope PP supporters here will consider doing the same, and spread the word to people you know. I hope people all over the country will have the same thought. Wouldn't it be great if, while comparatively small groups of protesters are standing out in the cold and snow with their signs, huge numbers of Americans were flooding mail boxes and switchboards around the country with messages of support for PP, women's health, and reproductive rights?

MrNurse(x2) said:
Planned Parenthood is not a regulated facility. They are not held to the same standards as surgicenters. Every attempt to protect women has been met with staunch opposition from abortion advocates.

Many states have passed legislation requiring that they be regulated as outpatient surgical centers, although they aren't outpatient surgical centers and don't do the kind of procedures that surgical centers do, and the legislation is primarily intended by the anti-choice legislators who sponsor and pass it to attempt to drive them out of business (not any sincere desire to "protect women"). In the last few states in which I've lived, they were licensed and regulated under the same set of requirements as freestanding outpatient surgical centers. You're incorrect.

pmabraham said:

Corruption should not be supported.

Just as previous posters have said, can you support the claims in your meme with credible evidence?

Planned Parenthood - FactCheck.org

This pie chart shows the percentages of various services provided by Planned Parenthood. The statistics are from 2009 but as far as I know there hasn't been a significant change since then regarding the proportions/mix of services provided.

This is going to sound harsh, but in my opinion only a misogynist would want to deprive women of these healthcare services. Some people object to abortions but they are as I understand it not tax funded. The other 97% of the services that PP provides all support women's health. Is there anyone here who believes that promoting women's health isn't a worthy goal?

Specializes in Hospice.
MrNurse(x2) said:
They do not receive funding, they are faith based and not eligible for funding.

Ummm ... not hardly. The following quotes are from a random selection of citations obtained for "

crisis pregnancy center funding". I recommend you check the subject out yourself, so here's the actual search:

crisis pregnancy center funding at DuckDuckGo

States Fund Pregnancy Centers That Discourage Abortion : Shots - Health News : NPR

Quote
The Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights think-tank, cites seven states with line items in their budget for alternatives to abortion. Texas gives the most — more than $5 million over two fiscal years. Ohio budgeted $250,000 in 2013, and this year abortion opponents plan to boost their request to $1 million. Ohio and nearly two dozen other states also send smaller amounts to pregnancy centers through the sale of "Choose Life" license plates.

...In addition to funding pregnancy centers, some states are trying to push more women to go to them. A South Dakota law mandates that women undergo consultation at one before having an abortion; courts have blocked the measure while it's being challenged.

Fake Abortion Clinics Exposed

Quote
There are 38 crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) that receive state funding through the Texas Pregnancy Care Network (TPCN), the sole contractor of the Texas Alternatives to Abortion Program. The Texas Legislature has increased the funding to the Texas Alternatives to Abortion Program over the years, and has most recently budgeted for $5,150,000 in 2014. The TPCN receives almost 100% of Texas Alternatives to Abortion Program's money which they disperse to CPCs, adoption agencies and maternity homes. As of 2014, there are 60 organizations that are funded through TPCN, 62 percent of which are CPCs. While the public can easily view recipients of taxpayer funds, the Alternatives to Abortion Program's funds are funneled through the TPCN. TPCN does not publicly release information about the funding they give to each organization, making it impossible to know how much taxpayer money is going to individual CPC or to CPCs as a whole. State funds to TPCN have steadily increased since the organization's inception; they received over two million dollars in 2009 and now receive over five million dollars per year (as of September 2014). Over 23.5 million dollars of taxpayers' money has gone to TPCN in the past five years.

Bill targets state crisis pregnancy centers' funding and misinformation | Local | columbiamissourian.com

Quote
A majority of studies are by partisan organizations, but a 2006 report by the Special Investigations Division of the House Committee on Government Reform analyzed 25 centers that received federal funding. Investigators posed as 17-year-olds deciding whether to get an abortion. Of the 25 centers, 23 were successfully contacted, and 20 of those provided false or misleading information.

Eight centers told investigators that an abortion would increase the patient's risk of breast cancer, despite a medical consensus that it is not true. Seven centers told investigators that abortions cause an increased risk of infertility. Thirteen centers said having an abortion causes severe psychological effects.

... Of more than 60 crisis pregnancy centers in Missouri, none provide abortions. Crisis pregnancy centers that receive government funding or participate in a government tax credit program where donors are incentivized by receiving tax credits are not allowed to provide abortions or refer women to an abortion clinic. The only abortion provider in Missouri is the Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri in St. Louis.

And from the congressional report linked above:

Quote
Prior to the Bush Administration, only a few pregnancy resource centers received federal funding. Beginning in 2001, however, federal funding of pregnancy resource centers increased sharply. In total, over $30 million in federal funds went to more than 50 pregnancy resource centers between 2001 through 2005.

One major source of federal funds tapped by pregnancy resource centers is funding for

abstinence-only education. Centers teach abstinence-until-marriage either on site or at other locations in the community, including public schools.

At least 29 pregnancy resource centers received a total of over $24 million in

Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) funds from 2001 through 2005.

Other pregnancy resource centers have received a total of at least $6 million in abstinence funding provided to the states under section 510 of Title V. The actual total may be higher because centralized information on these grants is not available. For many pregnancy resource centers receiving federal abstinence funding, the grants represented major increase in their annual budget, in some cases expanding their budgets by sevenfold.

... In other cases, pregnancy resource centers have received funding through specific congressional earmarks, including for counseling and pregnancy support services. Pregnancy resource centers have also received approximately $1 million through the Compassion Capital Fund, a component of the Bush Administration's faith-based initiative.

You believe whatever you believe about abortion ... you have that right and no one gets to dictate your moral choices.

But don't piss on my foot and tell me it's raining. The junk science and scare tactics - aka lies - promoted by CPCs are publicly funded and are in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Specializes in Hospice.
BCgradnurse said:
Can you support your allegations with more than a meme? And please use legitimate sources.
macawake said:
Just as previous posters have said, can you support the claims in your meme with credible evidence?

Planned Parenthood - FactCheck.org

This pie chart shows the percentages of various services provided by Planned Parenthood. The statistics are from 2009 but as far as I know there hasn't been a significant change since then regarding the proportions/mix of services provided.

This is going to sound harsh, but in my opinion only a misogynist would want to deprive women of these healthcare services. Some people object to abortions but they are as I understand it not tax funded. The other 97% of the services that PP provides all support women's health. Is there anyone here who believes that promoting women's health isn't a worthy goal?.

The animosity of the forced pregnancy movement against Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortion, really. It predates Roe v. Wade by almost a hundred years ... abortion is just a convenient excuse. It has to do with who gets to dictate the choices women make about having sex and bearing children. Any meme will do, as long as it pushes the right buttons ... doesn't even have to be true, aeb the previous nonsense about CPCs not receiving public funding.

heron said:
The animosity of the forced pregnancy movement against Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortion, really. It predates Roe v. Wade by almost a hundred years ... abortion is just a convenient excuse. It has to do with who gets to dictate the choices women make about having sex and bearing children.

Hmm.. I've got a sneaking suspicion that you think I'm being naive ;) The reason I asked the question I did was because I want to hear those posters most hostile to Planned Parenthood come out and say that they support denying women whose only financially viable option to get for example regular pap smears is through PP, access to that service. I want them to accept ownership of the consequences of their desire to defund PP.

I admire and appreciate posters like OrganizedChaos who despite her personal feelings regarding abortions, has the intellectual insight and compassion to realize what defunding PP would mean for women and their health and also to the children that a woman might be forced to give birth to against her wishes.

All the statistics I've managed to find show that the incidence of abortion is similar in countries with restrictive abortion laws and those where abortions are legal and relatively easily accessible. The only thing that seems to happen when you make abortions illegal is that the percentage of unsafe abortions increase.

Unsafe abortions are a women's health issue.

WHO | Preventing unsafe abortion

Quote
21.6 million women experience an unsafe abortion worldwide each year; 18.5 million of these occur in developing countries.

47 000 women die from complications of unsafe abortion each year.

Deaths due to unsafe abortion remain close to 13% of all maternal deaths.

Making abortions illegal will likely not result in fewer abortions, it will only result in more women dying from unsafe abortions. Not very pro-life in my opinion. In my opinion education and access for all to birth control is the best method to keep abortion rates as low as possible.

Of course I agree that there's a huge element of desire to control women's sexuality driving the desire to deny women access to safe abortions and reproductive healthcare in general. I don't think that it's the prime motivator for every single person who opposes free choice, but it's definitely a factor.

Quote
Any meme will do, as long as it pushes the right buttons ... doesn't even have to be true

Trust me, I'm aware. I mean, who can forget the "Hillary Clinton with the syphilitic tongue lesion"-one that some of her opponents posted right here on this forum before the 2016 election :sarcastic: :facepalm: :sarcastic: :facepalm:The intellectual dishonesty and moral bankcruptcy of those inane memes is formidable. I see the use of memes as a sign that a person can't make a factual, cogent argument in support of his/her position and instead resorts to the use of brain-rotting idiotic ridiculousness. I just can't respect that style of "argumentation".

Specializes in Hospice.

No, macawake, I'm not thinking you're naive at all. It's just that there's more than one way to frame a conflict and I'm not willing to let the forced pregnancy movement call those shots. Having worked a long time in the reproductive rights movement, I tend to express myself a lot more bluntly than most.

Like you, I believe that there are many truly pro-life believers who do not personally support abortion but who are unwilling to usurp others' freedom of conscience. My point was that CPCs and those who push the extremist anti-woman agenda of the forced pregnancy movement are not pro-life.

heron said:
Like you, I believe that there are many truly pro-life believers who do not personally support abortion but who are unwilling to usurp others' freedom of conscience.

And I would be one of them, Heron which is why I really hate the pejorative "anti-choice" moniker applied with a very broad brush. Thank you for being willing to see that not all of us are nut-jobs willing to let women die.

Wuzzie said:
And I would be one of them, Heron which is why I really hate the pejorative "anti-choice" moniker applied with a very broad brush. Thank you for being willing to see that not all of us are nut-jobs willing to let women die.

I think this demonstrates why attaching labels to groups of people is seldom a good thing. Most of the time, regardless of it's about people's views on abortion or on some other topic, members of a group seldom share a 100% "homogeneous" view on said topic. I honestly think it's difficult to find a term that accurately encompasses the entire spectrum of opinions, values and motivations felt/expressed by different people.

While I do believe that the term pro-life can be used to describe a person who makes a personal decision against abortions but still allows and supports other people's autonomy to make decisions for themselves, I don't think it's an appropriate descriptor for persons at the extreme end of the spectrum who think they have the right to decide when someone else should become a parent and is of the opinion that the sanctity of life starts at conception, ends at birth and starts again at brain death.

The label pro-life however isn't entirely uncontroversial. Because what does it imply about the group that disagrees with the "pro-life" group? That they're anti-life? (I'm not even going to dignify the pro-death "quip" from the first page of this thread with a response). The thing is, the very reason that I personally advocate for women's right to control their own bodies and lives, is that I'm very much pro-life. Nobody is pro-abortion. I think that we must strive to make as few abortions as possible necessary, but never at the cost of women's autonomy.

Specializes in Hospice.
Wuzzie said:
And I would be one of them, Heron which is why I really hate the pejorative "anti-choice" moniker applied with a very broad brush. Thank you for being willing to see that not all of us are nut-jobs willing to let women die.

It's an important distinction, which is why I differentiate "pro-life" from "forced pregnancy". I find these discussions about Planned Parenthood really problematic because of the deep hypocrisy over funding. Specifically public funding.

Planned parenthood saved my life... Caught my dysplasia and gave me free medical care when I had nothing....

Shame on any nurse who would get rid of PP. Reading thru this post really disturbed me.

Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care.

operations, so you believe there are no alternatives to Planned Parenthood whose main business model is killing unborn children?

I'm sorry, but maybe if you had precancerous conditions, you would learn to be thankful and understanding. I guess I'm at fault because I didn't make finding being selective/ picky about my service a number one priority when I have dysplasia and going through another disability which affected my employment. You ever learn to see the grey and appreciate the positive aspects of things? Or just make black and white judgements?

Are you really blaming me for someone else "killing" a theoretical human? Probably should actually go to a planned parenthood and see what they do. They offer the same exact services any other OBgyn offers, and do them at the same rate, meaning a lot of prevention, screening, treatments, a few abortions. That is the standard of care of any OBgyn. Wanna put them out of buisness too? That sounds so much better for society. Very few choose not to do abortions, it's not the recommended practice and they have to disclose it. Also, you only get to chose your doctor if you have the privilege too. And poor people don't.

You speak of a toxic and painfully juvenile concept of morality. I never mind prolife people (in fact, i respect a well thought out opinion on abortion of any kind) as long as they can see both sides. As long as they can see that extreme views do more harm than good.

You pay your taxes so that the healthcare providers can make a decision on care, based on their objective knowledge and expertise. You do not make that decision on who gets what care. A doctor does. Therefore, it doesn't concern you. If you are unhappy medicine chooses to deem abortions as ethical, then you need to take the conversation to the people in charge of standards of medical practice.

You do not have the right to limit a person's care based on your beliefs. They get equal care, and that is beyond the decision of planned parenthood. That is medicine.

But really, you would really let people die of cancer to make a point? That isn't prolife, that's proreligion.

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