LA Times Editorial--Orange County and Planned Parenthood...

[bliss_eternal]

Editorial

Orange County and Planned Parenthood

The supervisors' plan to suspend a contract with Planned Parenthood to provide health education is hypocritical and irresponsible.

March 14, 2009

This nation tried abstinence-only sex education. It didn’t work **.

And yet the Orange County Board of Supervisors took a serious step backward this week by suspending a contract with Planned Parenthood to provide health education for girls and young women. The grounds: Planned Parenthood provides abortions -- though not under this contract, which is for teaching about anatomy, sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and birth control options.

Orange County divides millions of dollars a year in tobacco settlement money among healthcare providers. Some of that money is for hospitals, and about $7.5 million goes to a coalition of community clinics that then subcontracts to its members, depending on how many poor people they serve. Of that, Planned Parenthood receives close to $300,000 for health education. No one raised any objections to the contract in the eight years before this.

"We just don't think government money should be used to talk to teens and preteens about birth control and abortion," Mario Mainero, chief of staff to Supervisor John Moorlach, told the Orange County Register. That is extraordinarily out of step in a state where 89% of parents say*** they want comprehensive sex education for their children, according to a 2007 poll, and where the majority of abortions are publicly funded. Moorlach's own reasoning was slightly different but perhaps even less acceptable: No matter how valuable the education that Planned Parenthood provides for the county, he doesn't like the organization because women can go to its clinics for abortions. Two other supervisors made a point of mentioning their Roman Catholic beliefs before voting. Never mind that Planned Parenthood of Orange County performs far more breast examinations than abortions.

---------------snip-----------------

excerpted from:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-parenthood14-2009mar14,0,3396500.story

**link #1, w/in editorial:
(stats on abstince education)
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/abstinencereport.asp

***link #2, w/in editorial:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=45186

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op comment:

I'd organize a group to complain or protest to these dudes, but I doubt they could hear us all the way back in the 1950's--where they are obviously stuck.

:eyes:

[ismnotwasm]

1. Weirdos

I get so sick of the attacks and misinformation spread around about PP. It's really just disgusting. Planned Parenthood is well organized and successful in it's goals, and could do even more good if these assholes would mind their own business.
Can't have successful family planning or accessible reproductive care regardless of income, now can we? Women must suffer because of the uterus. Nature of "the fall" evidently.


:puke: