Domestic Terrorism

A bomb was planned at the Planned Parenthood of Grand Chute, WI. For those of you who don’t know, that’s about 5 minutes from where I live.

How can a person even respond to this kind of violence that would target poor and working class women who are trying to get their health needs met in a difficult economy? How do you explain to people who would bomb a health clinic that PP clinics don’t offer abortion services in the first place? How do you respond to a group that would plan bombs and kill innocent people – theoretically, even the fetuses they say they’re protecting – and who call themselves “pro life”?

How do you respond at all?

I am at the point now where anyone who apologizes for the inflaming and incendiary rhetoric aimed at Roe v. Wade & at a woman’s right to choose is not my friend, my family, or even someone I can talk to. I understand objections to abortion; I was raised Catholic after all, & am the youngest of 6. But this language around choice, the “army of God” mentality that’s been fed to people is so hurtful, so entirely wrong and beside the point.

When will those of you who vote Republican start telling your leadership that you will not vote for them until they stop with this rhetoric and these policies that target poor women especially?

This Planned Parenthood is so easily a place I might speak at or have a student intern at. The women who go there and work there could be friends.

I don’t understand violence as a response to what is sold as a moral objection. It just doesn’t make sense.

Komen News: Not So Fast

Yay, everyone’s happy Komen changed their decision. But I am a cynical, suspicious type, and I read their statement, which says:

“We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.”

That last bit, the “while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions” just left a back door, wide, wide open. By which I mean, Komen just figured out a way to say, the next time they don’t fund Planned Parenthood, that their FUNDERS choose not to. And if they tend toward finding funders that are more conservative – which this current Director of Komen seems likely to do, Komen will have found an official way not to fund Planned Parenthood and to Pass the buck.

WI Next to Defund Planned Parenthood

Good news Monday, bad news Tuesday night: Walker is planning on de-funding Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood, taking a note from Indiana’s governor.

First: this has nothing to do with money. The cost of additional pregnancies, cancer care, & the like, will absolutely cost more, and the governor of Indiana has already said that publicly.

Second: the government already doesn’t pay for abortions.

Tiresome, hateful, short-sighted, and arrogant bullshit.