Common Sense generally steers clear of the abortion issue. Arguably, for “common sense” reasons.
I’ve always been pro-life, but I’ve also been skeptical of government’s ability to improve the situation, to save unborn lives via the criminal justice system.
No law forces women to have abortions; it’s voluntary. I’ve long hoped that ultrasounds and other technological advances will change hearts and minds, nudging couples to choose to abort less often, making abortion even more rare than when it was illegal. I gladly note that the number of abortions has fallen 12 percent since 2010.
Certainly, I’ve prioritized my political action in a different direction: affecting greater representation, better government, via citizen-initiated checks on power.
Yet, the recent videos showing doctors and other Planned Parenthood personnel chatting about the sale of fetal body parts implicates a lot more than just abortion. For starters, the footage triggered my gag reflex, and then my sense of justice for the unborn, and sense of decency in the treatment of their remains.
And what about justice and compassion for people deeply offended (myself among them) at being forced to fork over $528.4 million tax dollars each year to an organization performing the most abortions?
Let’s be pro-choice and abort the taxpayer subsidy to Planned Parenthood.
Those who continue to approve of Planned Parenthood’s work would remain free to support it. Personally. Voluntarily. Likewise, if you revile the organization, you should also be free to not fund it.
Isn’t such respect for each others’ heartfelt beliefs also just common sense?
I think so. I’m Paul Jacob.
11 replies on “Abort the Subsidy”
The best answer. Second best is Walter Block’s solution of transplanting the unwanted fetus to a willing womb or artificial womb. I first thought of this solution because of the early use with livestock not knowing Block had probably already thought of it. Definitely no one who opposes Planned Parenthood should be forced to support it. .
Nice analysis, Paul. I’m pro choice and ‘conditionally pro abortion as a high moral choice’ depending on the circumstances. In any case, it’s not my body and I don’t want the state in black robes or guns or badges to tell a woman what to do with her body.
But you’re right on with the strict position regarding Planned Parenthood funding, which if it’s a valuable service – and I believe in many contexts it certainly is – it only subverts that value by being on the dole. People who benefit from other people’s money coercively extracted tend to become disdainful of humans… like a majority of public employees.
I often hear men offer a “noble” answer that they don’t have a right to tell a woman what to do with their body, as if the man/father has nothing to do with this child that just suddenly appears in her womb. Nice way of getting out of your responsibility.
Planned Parenthood’s roots are deeply entrenched in genocide, especially the demise of black Americans. This was PP’s founder’s goal. She was a racist and very anti-family woman whose influence should have never happened.
It was the acceptance of pornography in the 1950’s followed by the sexual revolution of the 1960’s that brought about a demand for the killing of unplanned babies. We have had fifty years of this brutal sacrifice of children for the convenience and supposed prosperity of their parents. We have become no different than the Aztecs whose culture and empire was destroyed because of their evil. The fact that people in the abortion “industry” (an obvious misnomer) are comfortable selling the body parts of their victims (and are never prosecuted for it, while the whistleblowers are) says everything.
Planned Parenthood is an organization that does the bidding of the federal government and vice versa. There is all kinds of dirty money changing hands back and forth. It drips with corruption.
There is NO GOOD in abortion. None whatsoever.
It is something that our nation needs to repent of and mourn.
Between 1967 and 1990, in the United States, a total of 151 abortions have been carried out specifically to save the mother’s life.
That’s all.
Seems like that could have been taken care of for a LOT less than the half a billion tax dollars that went to Planned Parenthood.
Gee whiz, that’s an amazing statistic. Can you share a citation with us?
As any conscious, caring adult should, I watched with horror & disgust at those Planned Parenthood “doctors” dispassionately discussing the sale of fetal body parts. I felt like I was watching a scene out of a sci-fi movie of a horrible time in the future. Or that I was seeing some interpretation of the experiments that the Nazi doctors performed in WWII.
I took to Twitter & FB & became 1 of the thousands of voices that were screaming to defund this organization. I sent targeted messages to the Speaker of the House & many of the individual Senators whose Twitter accounts I could find. And still our cowardly Congress could not find the courage to do what was right.
Should just increase my charitable donations further so my deductions are higher & less can be siphoned off to despicable programs like Planned Parenthood. They don’t knew the dollars anyway.….
NEED not knew the dollars… Some times auto-correct is too “smart”.
Good thinking. And I know some great non-profits. 😉
Thanks for the clear article. The real problem is the government subsidy. To force everyone to pay for this is monstrous. I agree with your turn of phrase: abort all subsidies.
I could not agree with you more!
Planned Parenthood mostly provides women’s health services and family planning information and supplies. Abortion is a small part of their services, are legal, and no government money is allowed to be used for abortion.
It bothers me greatly that the most vociferous abortion critics are men. We cannot get pregnant, so cannot possibly understand what it means to be pregnant, especially as a result of rape or incest. I think we would feel much differently if we could become pregnant. Sex for a man is a matter of a few minutes. For a woman who becomes pregnant, it is a sentence of twenty years to life to take care of that child. I think it is ignorant and arrogant for a man to tell a woman what she has to do with her body.