Why we should defund Planned Parenthood

I have to admit, I didn't know that the federal government (aka me, and other taxpayers) were providing funding for Planned Parenthood.  I don't really care about the videos supposedly showing how Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue, other than it drew my attention to yet another way my tax dollars are being spent on something that I don't approve of, and, to my recollection, I was never asked for my opinion about either.  I still haven't been asked for my opinion, but here it is anyway.

I am against public funding of Planned Parenthood.  Our congressmen should defund the organization, regardless of the legality of what Planned Parenthood does.  Regardless of how the federal funds are actually spent.  And regardless of how little of Planned Parenthood's activities are actually related to abortion.

These are the things that liberals seem to think are the important points in this discussion.  It's legal.  Abortion is such a small part of what Planned Parenthood does.  No federal money goes to fund abortion.  I don't care.

I don't care about whether federal money goes directly to abortion because money is fungible.  Does anyone really think that it matters whether that money goes into some magic separate account, never to be used to fund abortion?  I don't.  It's all the same.  Give me some money and tell me I can't use THAT money to, say, buy beer, and I'll just use that money to pay my rent, leaving me more of my other money to buy beer, if I'm so inclined.  It's a fallacy to say that federal funds aren't funding abortion.

I don't care if it's only a small part of what Planned Parenthood does, either.  To me. that's like saying out of the thousands of people I've met throughout my life, I only killed one.  Being such a small number, it shouldn't matter.  Somehow, I don't think this defense would work for me, and it shouldn't for Planned Parenthood either.

And, I don't care if it's legal, either.  As a taxpayer, I shouldn't have to fund everything simply because it's legal.

And there's more to it than just those things.  Under Obamacare, I have to have health insurance, and last I checked, so do women.  So, I don't really see that funding Planned Parenthood is any sort of attack on women's ability to get health care.  That's what insurance is for, and you're required, as am I, to have health insurance coverage.  And yes, there are insurance policies that cover elective abortion.  Of course, those may have limitations, such as only one elective abortion a year.  How many elective abortions do women need to maintain their health?  And, if I have one of those health insurance policies, then I'm already funding something that I don't agree with, so, just how often do people think I should be paying for things I don't even think should be happening?

Planned Parenthood also claims that they didn't profit from the sale of fetal tissue, another thing that is actually illegal.  First, I don't care if they did.  Second, though, I wonder whether that's actually true given that Planned Parenthood showed an "excess of revenue over expenses" (aka profit) of over $100 million last year (see page 22 for the relevant line).  The previous year showed a smaller, but still substantial, excess.

So, that leads me to these headlines:

Republicans double down on Planned Parenthood probe

It should be clear to people that I'm in complete agreement with the Republicans on the need to further investigate Planned Parenthood  Unfortunately, liberals will try to make the Republican effort into some sort of witch hunt because, possibly, those videos that brought this all up in the first place may be fraudulent.  But, this isn't really about the videos, at least it shouldn't be, unless someone is considering criminal charges.  I'm just talking here about how my tax dollars get spent.

Speaking about Planned Parenthood's announcement that the organization would stop accepting compensation for fetal tissue:

 Planned Parenthood officials said they aren’t expecting the policy change to silence its critics — only to force them to change the conversation, Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens said in an interview Tuesday.

Curious maneuver, if you ask me.  It would seem that Planned Parenthood wouldn't really want to change the conversation, unless, of course, there really is something to the idea that the organization was profiting from selling fetal tissue.  But, okay, in my book there's plenty more to talk about than that.

The question of the legality of what Planned Parenthood does is something for someone else to determine.  The question of how my tax money gets spent is something for me to determine, and, frankly, I have no interest in funding an organization that participates in, and even promotes, something that I see as immoral.  Liberal can, being that they are so concerned about the effects of defunding Planned Parenthood, go to the Planned Parenthood website, and click the "donate" button.  In this way, you'll get to deduct the donation from your taxes, which, indirectly means the rest of us will still be partially funding Planned Parenthood, but at this point, I'm really okay with that.  I don't actually think most liberals feel so strongly about it that they'll open up their own wallets to support Planned Parenthood.