Playing Politics With Cancer Screening For Women

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MrsSpringsteen

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Sunday, Mar. 25, 2007
Playing Politics With Cancer Screening
By Nancy Gibbs

Planned Parenthood made its name by helping people plan parenthood, promoting access to contraception and providing general reproductive health care. Fewer than one in ten clients comes for abortions, and less than 30% of 860 Planned Parenthood clinics in the U.S. actually provide abortions. In fact Planned Parenthood argues that it prevents nearly 300,000 abortions a year by helping prevent unintended pregnancies. But the fireworks of the culture wars have meant that the organization has become the face of abortion in America, and that brings a literal as well as political cost.

For fifteen years, Planned Parenthood of Southwest Missouri clinics in Joplin and Springfield have offered free breast and cervical cancer screenings as part of the state's "Show Me Healthy Women" program. Now Governor Matt Blunt has announced that he will cut off all program funding to Planned Parenthood and redirect it to other health clinics. "Patients should not have to go to an abortion clinic to access life-saving tests," Blunt declared. Refusing to fund cancer screening at the clinics, he said, "ensures women may access important preventative care without contributing to abortion providers' goal of facilitating the destruction of innocent life."

Here's the twist: The clinics in question do not provide abortion services, though they will discuss the procedure and make referrals. "He was being dishonest," says Kellie Rohrbaugh, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Southwest Missouri, who says her office received a fax alerting them to the funding cuts 45 minutes before the governor's press conference. "We asked the administrator of the program if women had complained about going to Planned Parenthood, and she said we'd been a very good partner. We could get people in quickly, have them seen, refer them to treatment quickly if they needed it."

This is about injecting politics into women's health, Rohrbaugh argues. But here's another twist. Blunt, the youngest governor in the country at 36 and the son of House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, is a decorated former navy officer who has long opposed most abortion. But he also supported the "Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative," which was designed to promote "ethical stem cell research" but which critics denounced as allowing human cloning. That stance inspired Missouri Right to Life to declare that they no longer consider the governor an ally, and charge that he had "broken faith with the tens of thousands of pro-life volunteers around the state who helped elect him."

This is how it goes now. Planned Parenthood clinics lose money to help fight cancer because their parent organization has an image problem: Every time they have to step in to defend abortion rights, it reinforces the impression that that is their main mission. This makes them an easier political target, since overwhelming majorities of Americans favor access to contraception: a Wall Street Journal poll last summer found that 81% of Catholics and 75% of born-again Christians favored providing access to birth control as a way to reduce the need for abortion.

Meanwhile the Governor who cuts the funds himself is slapped for compromising on stem cell research — even though some staunch abortion opponents have more textured feelings about where to put up the guardrails around research. One ABC news poll found that only half of all opponents of legal abortion oppose stem cell research. Blunt may want to think twice about playing the politics of guilt by association.
 
It's interesting to me that a Republican can do something like this, possibly causing so many women to walk around with cancer and not even know it and not receive treatment-but many people are all over John Edwards and even accusing him of using his wife's cancer for political purposes and of putting politics above his wife's health :hmm:

Who is really playing politics with womens lives and not caring about their health?
 
I have no words for this idiot. I understand the political game but this is screwing with women's lives...jackass.
 
^ It's not surprising I don't think...it's pathetic.
 
Have the Republicans actually been right on a single issue in the last 5 years?

To be so wrong about so many things so often....you really have to put some effort into it.
 
indra said:
I hate politicians.

CTU2fan said:
I have no words for this idiot. I understand the political game but this is screwing with women's lives...jackass.

anitram said:
Have the Republicans actually been right on a single issue in the last 5 years?

To be so wrong about so many things so often....you really have to put some effort into it.

martha said:


Last 15 years?


:angry:

Nothing will ever get accomplished in this country as long as it is politicized. The whole system makes me sick :mad:
 
This governor's thought process is just ridiculous :| Honestly, did he ever think, "Hmm, maybe these women need to go to a clinic that offers free services because they can't afford decent health care in this country" No, all that is thought about is "saving" the values of America.

Apparently, keeping people alive isn't one of them :sigh:
 
onebloodonelife said:
Apparently, keeping people alive isn't one of them :sigh:

Think of it this way: Women with cancer aren't going to be effective vessels for carrying the holy seed of creation anyway, so why support them? We only should provide health care for women who can effectively carry babies to term.

Because that's what women are. Vessels for more babies.
 
martha said:


Think of it this way: Women with cancer aren't going to be effective vessels for carrying the holy seed of creation anyway, so why support them? We only should provide health care for women who can effectively carry babies to term.

Because that's what women are. Vessels for more babies.

Obviously, why didn't I think of that one :rolleyes: Damn, that's sick :(
 
Playing politics with women's health care, again. Not to mention, as Speaker Pelosi said, it reduces abortions. What the hell?

The Gavel � Blog Archive � Bush Administration Tries to Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Bush Administration Tries to Redefine Contraception as Abortion

July 16th, 2008 by Karina

The New York Times reports that the Bush Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services is drafting a rule that would place new restrictions on domestic family planning programs. While current law allows health care providers and professionals to refuse to provide abortions based on their religious beliefs, this provision would threaten the funding of organizations and health facilities if they do not hire people who would refuse to provide birth control and defines abortion so broadly that it would include many types of birth control, including oral contraception.

Speaker Pelosi released the following statement on the Administration’s draft proposal:

If the Administration goes through with this draft proposal, it will launch a dangerous assault on women’s health.

The majority of Americans oppose this out of touch position that redefines contraception as abortion and represents a sustained pattern of the Bush Administration to reject medical and sound science in favor of a misguided ideology that has no place in our government.

I urge the President to reject this policy and join with Democrats to focus on preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion through increasing access to family planning services and access to affordable birth control.

From Congresswoman Lois Capps, Chair of the Democratic Women’s Working Group:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today Congresswoman Lois Capps called on the Bush Administration to stop its misguided effort to restrict access to basic family planning services. According to press reports, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is drafting new rules that would severely restrict women’s health care options while undermining the ability of health care providers to secure funding and provide essential services. It would require all recipients of federal health care funding to sign a written certification that they will not “discriminate” against health care entities who refuse to provide patients with abortions or even birth control.

“Once again, the Bush Administration is carelessly playing partisan politics with women’s health care,” said Capps, a nurse and Vice-Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health. “Time and again this Administration has jeopardized women’s access to essential family planning services for purely ideological reasons. Sound science and responsible public health practices should never be trumped by political ideology. This proposal is unnecessary and would be harmful to women’s health.”

Federal law already protects individuals who prefer to not participate in abortion services and many states have refusal clauses for either individuals or institutions that object to providing or participating in abortions. The Bush Administration proposal goes far beyond those measures and attempts to define abortion services so broadly that it would include many types of birth control, including oral contraception and emergency contraception. Capps and several of her House colleagues will be sending a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services objecting to the draft rule and urging the Administration to reconsider its position.

Capps has worked in the past to stop other efforts by the Bush Administration to restrict access to family planning services and contraception. She was part of the successful efforts to allow over-the-counter sales of Plan B emergency contraception and also to prevent attempts to restrict funding from certain health providers who provide comprehensive family planning services.
 
The NY Times article

July 15, 2008
Abortion Proposal Sets Condition on Aid
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign “written certifications” as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Such certification would also be required of state and local governments, forbidden to discriminate, in areas like grant-making, against hospitals and other institutions that have policies against providing abortion.

The proposal, which circulated in the department on Monday, says the new requirement is needed to ensure that federal money does not “support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law.” The administration said Congress had passed a number of laws to ensure that doctors, hospitals and health plans would not be forced to perform abortions.

In the proposal, obtained by The New York Times, the administration says it could cut off federal aid to individuals or entities that discriminate against people who object to abortion on the basis of “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents providers, said, “The proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.”

“We worry that under the proposal, contraceptive services would become less available to low-income and uninsured women,” Ms. Gallagher said.

Indeed, among other things the proposal expresses concern about state laws that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims who request it.

Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said, “Why on earth is the Bush administration trying to discourage doctors and clinics from providing contraception to women who need it?”

Christina Pearson, a spokeswoman for the department, declined to discuss the draft. “We don’t normally comment on whether we are considering changes in regulations,” she said.
 
I can't believe what i'm reading. The first article reminds me of how the government here in the UK is playing with womens lives. Different story but similar results. The age here for cervical screening used to be 21, they raised it to 25. A few stories came out recently of women who are about my age ( 24 ) and for various reasons, requested a cervical screening. They were refused as the new law had been brought in just after they turned 21. I remember 2 particular stories where the women in question are now terminally ill. :( Its so sad if they had had the exam when requested they wouldn't be in this posistion. Early detection is so important.

Politicians. :madwife:

Regarding the 2nd and third articles. If someone who worked in womens health refused referrals for an abortion or didn't want to provide a woman with contraception i think they're in the wrong job. Someone who works in that field of work should surely be able to discuss, impartially inform and provide help to someone who needs that advice/help.
 
Playing politics with women's health care, again. Not to mention, as Speaker Pelosi said, it reduces abortions. What the hell?




i am shocked. SHOCKED!

and here i was thinking that the pro-life movement was a sincere effort to reduce the incidence of abortions so that babies aren't killed. this makes it look like their heartfelt, tearful convictions about the metaphysical status of the fetus are really just a justification for their wildly reactionary attitudes about women's sexuality and gender roles.
 
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

So this administration wants to encourage the practice of bad medicine?

Nurses, pharmacists, etc shouldn't have objections to birth control, it's not their job.
 
by Hillary Clinton

The Bush administration is up to its old tricks again, quietly putting ideology before science and women's health. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is poised to put in place new barriers to accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them "abortion." These proposed regulations set to be released next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it. We can't let them get away with this underhanded move to undermine women's health and that's why I am sounding the alarm.

These rules pose a serious threat to providers and uninsured and low-income Americans seeking care. They could prevent providers of federally-funded family planning services, like Medicaid and Title X, from guaranteeing their patients access to the full range of comprehensive family planning services. They'll also build significant barriers to counseling, education, contraception and preventive health services for those who need it most: low-income and uninsured women and men.

The regulations could even invalidate state laws that currently ensure access to contraception for many Americans. In fact, they describe New York and California's laws requiring prescription drug insurance plans to provide coverage for contraceptives as part of "the problem." These rules would even interfere with New York State law that ensures survivors of sexual assault and rape receive emergency contraception in hospital emergency rooms.

We've seen this kind of ideologically driven move from the Bush administration before. Senator Patty Murray and I went toe to toe with the Bush administration to demand a decision on Plan B by the FDA. We won that fight and we need to win this one too.

When I learned about these proposed rules, I immediately joined with Senator Murray to call on the Bush administration to stop these dangerous plans. I am joining with New York family planning and healthcare advocates to spread the word. Now is the time to raise our voices. I will continue to press HHS and I hope you will join me. I have posted information on how to get involved here.

HillPac
 
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