http://www.neontommy.com/news/2012/02/planned-parenthood-defunding-just-latest-controversy-komen-foundation
In the short run, we can all send money to Planned Parenthood to make up for what has been removed. Planned Parenthood helps millions of women each year, most of them poor. It's an undeniably worthy cause.
Here is the breakdown of Planned Parenthood services, from Bloom's article:
In the longer run, this controversy highlights a deeper problem, namely our unspoken acceptance of privatized health care, especially for poor people. By refusing to provide basic health services to women, our governments make the Komen kind of problem inevitable. If we provided adequate health care for people who live here, as a core function of government like education or defense, you wouldn't see blowing political winds depriving women of their health and their lives, and you wouldn't have to endure public begging to help people survive.
The US does a good job of permitting the public expression of many (not all) points of view. So progressives can buy the Nation or Mother Jones anywhere. But let's not forget, we live in a center-right country, dominated by a corporate-serving government that won't provide some basic services for citizens that have long been available elsewhere to everyone. Because some of us come from relatively comfortable circumstances, we sometimes forget that poor people suffer disproportionately from the enduring effects of a greed-based, cold-hearted social system.
I'd like to see contributions to Planned Parenthood today - and effective government-supplied healthcare for all tomorrow.
