We are in an economic recession. While some monetary sacrifices for governmental agencies are inevitable, the latest push to deprive Planned Parenthood of all federal funding is not solely motivated by the desire for fiscal conservatism. Instead, the burgeoning campaign against funding for Planned Parenthood is overtly purported to be a means of rectifying an existing ethical dilemma: forcing Americans to finance abortion services through their tax contributions.
However, as The Nation columnist Katha Pollitt notes, not a single penny from federal spending originally allocated for Planned Parenthood could have gone toward abortion services since the 1976 passage of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of all federal money for abortions with some rare exceptions. What is even more preposterous about the recent claim that defunding Planned Parenthood is solely about targeting abortion services in this nation is the fact that abortions constitute a mere three percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood. In fact, the majority of Planned Parenthood’s activities consist of primary health services—treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, birth control and so forth. In this way, the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act, the title of the budget amendment sponsered by Mike Pence, is greatly misleading. This legislation is not merely intended to promote an anti-abortion agenda. Rather, it is part of a greater and more formidable movement to attack women’s health services nationwide…
Read full article originally published in Columbia Political Review
Tehreem Rehman, MD MPH 