In April, Ohio Republicans attempted to defund Planned Parenthood by adding an amendment to the mid-budget review bill. They were thwarted by Ohio Democrats who stripped that amendment from the bill. At the time, Democrats worried that the language would resurface as a stand-alone bill, and surprise! It has:
Legislators last month removed a plan to include the funding changes in a budget bill, but now the plan has returned in House Bill 298, which is pending before the House Health Committee.
The bill calls for setting up a ranking system that would put certain health care providers last in line for federal family planning money. The ranking would be as follows:
Local health departments;
Community health centers;
Private doctors who provide comprehensive care as well as family planning services.
Centers that only deliver family planning services.Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Ohio receives about $1.6 million a year in federal funds that are passed through the state Department of Health.
Federal law prohibits tax money from being used to provide abortions. Planned Parenthood uses the grant money to offer Pap smears, breast exams, contraceptives and other services. Abortions, which are performed at three of Planned Parenthood’s 32 centers in Ohio, are funded with non-tax money.
~snip~
Planned Parenthood officials say the funding change means low-income patients may be forced to pay higher fees for the health care services.
“Our patients are not coming to Planned Parenthood to make a political statement, they are coming to get health care from a trusted health care provider that has been an important part of Ohio’s health care network for more than 80 years,” said Beth Lonn, interim chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio.
For many women in Ohio, Planned Parenthood is the only health care option.
Join the Ohio Democratic Party in fighting back.
***Link to TeamU Wiki page for Ohio.
***Link to TeamU Wiki page for HB 298.
***What is TeamU? Glad you asked.
[h/t All Things Democrat]
Cacti
So when was it that the GOP decided that it was the political arm of the Vatican? Good thing the country isn’t 75% non-catholic…oh.
fasteddie9318
I have to say, this Planned Parenthood offensive has really slid right into the Republican Party’s sweet spot. They’ve played at being anti-choice to appeal to the rubes, sure, but when the rubber hits the road Remington and Buffy from the Club still want their 16 year old daughter Mitsy to be able to get a safe abortion after she gets knocked up by the colored boy who does the valet parking, so outright illegalization was never really on the cards. But taking out Planned Parenthood lets them make a big show of the fight, lets them effectively prohibit abortion for the Untouchable Caste, yet still allows them to keep it legal for the Right Sorts.
joel hanes
It’s not an ideological battle over abortion;
abortion is a tiny fraction of what Planned Parenthood does.
It’s a frontal attack on contraception and reproductive health services for women.
And if the Presidency, the House, and the Senate all go Republican after this election, I think you can count on seeing a successful attack on Griswold v Connecticut, on which many of the “right to privacy” precedents rest.
Jennifer
It occurs to me that this might make Ohio somewhat less of a battleground state. Particularly if the president makes an explicit appeal to the wimmins there.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Mitt Romney said today, he stands by whatever he said yesterday.
NobodySpecial
Fixed for accuracy.
David Koch
can’t women just hold an aspirn between their knees?
rikyrah
GOP WAR ON WOMEN CONTINUES
Frankensteinbeck
@joel hanes:
In a nitpicky way, I disagree. This is an ideological attack on abortion. That it does far more damage to contraception and reproductive health services to women is a bonus that they’ve only recently been willing to admit they like. It’s still motivated by the ‘attack each and every support structure of abortion’ code.
Jeremy
Hey, I’ve got a great idea. How about we withhold all health care money from organizations that obstructed justice by coddling child molesters?
joel hanes
@Frankensteinbeck:
While I understand your point, I must respectfuly disagree. In recent years I’ve come to understand that the abortion angle is only the wedge they use, and the mantra they chant to focus and justify their fear and hatred.
But really, it is and always has been about slut shaming, i.e. restricting women’s sexual choices.
Seventy years ago, Roman Catholicism offered but weak opposition to abortion, and it wasn’t on the Protestant agenda at all; but even then, they were in fervent agreement that a woman who enjoys sex outside the sanctioned limits imposed by society should suffer for her choices.
Frankensteinbeck
@joel hanes:
See, I think the slut shaming is also peripheral. This is an actual cultural war. They don’t give a fig about abortion in terms of the lives of babies. Only the particularly hateful ones get off on the slut shaming aspect. They care about enforcing their fundamentalist religious culture on the rest of society around them. They want there to be no alternative to their way. Gay marriage, prayer in schools, controlling school textbooks – this is all one fight, the fight to make small town fundamentalist society the only society.
Abortion is their #1 weapon and favorite battleground in this war, because they can describe it as killing babies. It lets them feel absolutely righteous about their selfish goals, removes all difficult thinking, and the moment they describe it that way they face hardly any social persecution. This is important, because about fifty years ago people started laughing at them for claiming no one should have premarital sex. But ‘we’re fighting baby killers’ is a battle cry that makes them feel TOTALLY stoked like they’re the good guys and justifies any assholery they feel like.
EDIT – It is DEEPLY ironic that they’ve lost so much ground on the war that the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptists think they need to unite against a common foe.
James E Powell
The Republicans are making a bet that their rabid base will outnumber the opposition. They know who their voters are and they want to make sure that every one of them votes. Planned Parenthood is the gay marriage of this election in this swing states.
Jax6655
@Frankensteinbeck:
@joel hanes:
In my opinion (*ahem* as a woman) this is not either/or. It has gone way past abortion to the point that even the use of birth control by women implies that they are morally bankrupt. This is totally about the control of women. Slut-shaming is just a tactic.
I was a teenager when Roe v. Wade passed and when you could get the pill from Planned Parenthood. The fact that women were freed from unplanned/unwanted pregnancies has had a major impact on society, the workplace, the institution of marriage, sexual activity, military service, college enrollment . . . it permanently shifted the balance of power between men and women.
These tactics represent the last grab for power and control by the white men of the GOP and the Catholic church. The president is Black, more babies of color born vs. white, more women enrolled in college compared to men, but most importantly, we can screw them and not bear their spawn. It unnerves some of them so much they even kill the doctors who give us this control.
This scene always explains the phenomenon to me. It’s their last gasp so to speak.
youtube.com/watch?v=j7GJcKuVGm8
“who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?”
Indeed.
Patricia Kayden
Hopefully the Dems can hold off the crazies in Ohio.
Seems like Repubs have decided that they will attack anything that allows women sexual freedom.
In Rightwing World, sex is for birthing children, unless you are a childless, obnoxious moron like Rush Limbaugh.
Tata
This is happening everywhere and so fast and life is eventful. I need one central location so I can keep up with what we’re mailing to which legislators, on what Facebook walls we’re discussing our icky girl parts and which states I’d rather chew off my foot than vacation in.
If only I were joking.