It's Not Really About Spending | NYTimes Editorial →
If the federal government shuts down at midnight on Friday — which seems likely unless negotiations take a sudden turn toward rationality — it will not be because of disagreements over spending. It will be because Republicans are refusing to budge on these ideological demands:
• No federal financing for Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions. Instead, state administration of federal family planning funds, which means that Republican governors and legislatures will not spend them.
• No local financing for abortion services in the District of Columbia.
• No foreign aid to countries that might use the money for abortion or family planning. And no aid to the United Nations Population Fund, which supports family-planning services.
• No regulation of greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency.
• No funds for health care reform or the new consumer protection bureau established in the wake of the financial collapse.
Abortion. Environmental protection. Health care. Nothing to do with jobs or the economy; instead, all the hoary greatest hits of the Republican Party, only this time it has the power to wreak national havoc: furloughing 800,000 federal workers, suspending paychecks for soldiers and punishing millions of Americans who will have to wait for tax refunds, Social Security applications, small-business loans, and even most city services in Washington. The damage to a brittle economy will be substantial.
One of Planned Parenthood’s biggest priorities is education and distribution of contraception in order to prevent unplanned pregnancies to begin with. They are a pro-choice women’s health organization and they offer gynecological exams, STD testing, and even men’s health services such as cancer screenings. But yeah, it’s probably better to defund the whole thing. The most frustrating part of this argument is that the Tea Party calls for an end to “big government” and the freedom to govern oneself, but could anything be more invasive than the government telling women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies and forcing them to carry out unwanted pregnancies? #BOOM
