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War is hell!
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I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh -
If you hurry you can catch up with the rest of the world. The next boat leaves soon.Originally posted by giblets View Post
I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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Sadly I don't think the US will catch up with the rest of the world on this issue
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We can only hope so no thanks to you.I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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The war on women continues
GOP Governors Won’t Stop Trying To Illegally Defund Planned Parenthood
Texas officials announced on Monday that the state will end Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics, citing the ongoing political controversy over allegations that the women’s health organization is profiting from the sale of “aborted baby parts.”
Planned Parenthood has been under fire for months thanks to the release of several inflammatory videos that portray its fetal tissue donation program in a negative light. Last week, the group’s president announced changes to the way clinics may handle fetal tissue samples, partly in an attempt to demonstrate that Planned Parenthood isn’t concerned about profits.
Although collecting and donating aborted fetal tissue has been legal for years, abortion opponents have construed the practice as inhumane. That framing clearly comes through in the letter that Texas is delivering to Planned Parenthood to inform the group of the change in Medicaid funding.
“The State has determined that you and your Planned Parenthood affiliates are no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner,” inspector general Stuart Bowen writes.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who ordered health officials to review Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid contracts in the aftermath of the video campaign, praised the move. “The gruesome harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood will not be allowed in Texas and the barbaric practice must be brought to an end,” Abbott said in a statement. “Ending the Medicaid participation of Planned Parenthood affiliates in the State of Texas is another step in providing greater access to safe health care for women while protecting our most vulnerable — the unborn.”
There’s just one problem: It’s not entirely legal to defund Planned Parenthood in this way.
The latest attacks on Planned Parenthood are just the latest in a long line of efforts to undermine the women’s health organizations. For years, conservative politicians have been attempting to cut off funding from the group, which receives the biggest chunk of its taxpayer dollars from providing basic health services — like birth control consultations, STD testing, and cancer screenings — to the low-income patients enrolled in Medicaid. But courts have typically stepped in to prevent that outcome, arguing that the Medicaid program cannot legally bar qualified health providers like Planned Parenthood from providing care to patients.
Back in August, when the national outrage over the Planned Parenthood videos started heating up, the Obama administration reminded states of this legal precedent. Federal officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — which is a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — told state lawmakers that they may not cut the group’s Medicaid funding simply because it provides abortions. CMS officials pointed to a 2011 memo that lays out the federal requirements in this area.
It’s unclear if Planned Parenthood will file suit in an attempt to block Texas from following through with its proposed Medicaid changes. But similar legal battles are playing out in other states.
Last week, a judge issued a restraining order preventing Utah from cutting off Planned Parenthood’s state funding. And just today, a judge ruled that Louisiana must continue providing Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood for at least the next two weeks while a lawsuit against the state proceeds. Republican leaders in both Utah and Louisiana also pointed to the recent videos to justify their decisions to move to end funding.
Texas has already taken great steps to defund the national women’s health organization. In order to get around federal regulations that prohibit discrimination against qualified health providers, state lawmakers created an entirely new family planning network in 2013 — called the Women’s Health Program — with the specific goal of keeping out Planned Parenthood.
The consequences have been disastrous. Clinics have been shuttered, women have been forced to find new doctors, and more than half of women say they’ve faced at least one barrier to getting the reproductive health services they need. Family planning experts now point to Texas as a model of what can happen when states dismantle their family planning safety net.
“What’s happening today in Texas should be a national scandal,” Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. “It is completely outrageous that Texas officials are using thoroughly discredited, fraudulent videos to cut women off from preventive health care, including cancer screenings, HIV testing, and birth control.”Comment
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So you don't think profiting of of fetuses is inhumane?I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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Absolutely not. You use the skin of a cow after you slaughter it for meat. Why waste valuable resources?Comment
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It's not inhumane to use dead human tissue for medical research to cure diseases. It's not inhumane to donate dead human tissue and be reimbursed for the cost of shipping the dead human tissue to the recipients who intend to use it for medical research.Originally posted by Kidicious View PostComment
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I wonder what the conservative replacement for Planned Parenthood will look like once they finally manage to kill Planned Parenthood.<p style="font-size:1024px">HTML is disabled in signatures
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Center Typifies New Face of Pregnancy Services
Nearly 180,000 Texas women and men are likely to lose access to birth control and preventative examinations next month because the Legislature recently slashed financing for family planning services by two-thirds.
But socially conservative lawmakers succeeded in their efforts to increase money for a small state program, Alternatives to Abortion Services, more ideologically aligned with their politics. Lawmakers added $300,000 to the program’s budget for each of the coming two fiscal years, bringing it to $8.3 million for 2012 and for 2013.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission allocates money from Alternatives to Abortion Services via the Texas Pregnancy Care Network, a nonprofit agency. Formed in 2006, the network oversees 47 providers, including 26 pregnancy centers (out of more than 100 in the state), social services, adoption agencies and maternity homes, and says that more than 1,500 women seek its services each month. One of those crisis pregnancy resource centers, Austin LifeCare, several miles north of the Capitol, has offered free services to pregnant women for 27 years, including counseling, diapers, clothing and classes like parenting and personal finance. Obstetricians and nurses donate their time to offer ultrasounds and pregnancy tests, the only medical services performed on the premises.
Austin LifeCare’s executive director, Pam Cobern, said it was supported by more than 40 churches and received about 3 percent of its budget, or $45,000, from the state.
Austin LifeCare is still learning to operate under the network’s guidelines, which say that “misleading a woman in crisis pregnancy about the scope of available services is neither compassionate or caring.” The state reviews phone protocols and advertisements. Graphic images are not allowed to be shown. Nonspiritual counseling must be offered. Ms. Cobern said women who come to Austin LifeCare were told that they had three options: parenting, adoption or abortion. However, she said, the center’s policy is to refer women to community health clinics that are not affiliated with Planned Parenthood or other abortion providers.
Asked about the huge cut in family planning money while anti-abortion organizations received an increase, Ms. Cobern said: “There’s certainly a need for family planning. I’m not sure that organizations that have political agendas should be providing them.”
State Representative Sid Miller, Republican of Stephenville, agrees. He voted with other lawmakers to cut financing for family planning for the next two years to $37.9 million from $111.5 million, calling it a “direct attack” on Planned Parenthood, which has been the second-largest recipient of such money. Planned Parenthood has legally separated its nonabortion health clinics so it can receive state aid. No taxpayer money is used to finance abortions.
“I think we’re trying to shut down abortions in Texas, and doing that through cutting off the purse strings,” Mr. Miller said.
The interim chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region, Sarah Wheat, noted that her agency’s offerings went well beyond abortion and included such medical services as prenatal care, access to birth control, Pap smears and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases, diabetes and cervical and breast cancer.
“This is basic women’s health care that has been funded for generations,” Ms. Wheat said, “and one of the reasons it’s been funded is because it works.”Comment
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It's almost as if all his overconfident, absolutist assertions were spoonfed to him by a trusted website or subreddit. Sheeple
RIP Tony Bogey & Baron OComment
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There's a difference between cows and human beings. I know that's hard for extremists to understand.Originally posted by ricketyclik View PostI drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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Is there a political aspect to those other human tissue harvesting industries like there is with planned parenthood?Originally posted by giblets View PostI drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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Obviously Christian fundies aren't making a fuss about the sale of medical cadavers since they are obsessed with controlling women.Originally posted by Kidicious View PostComment
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