CALLING IT LIKE IT IS: S.E. Cupp, “Democrats: The Party of Abortion, Not the Party of Women.”
If you didn’t know any better, you might be under the impression that Planned Parenthood clinics are the only place a woman can go for any variety of health services, including abortions, mammograms, contraceptive services and screenings.
That’s because Planned Parenthood actively fosters this impression to bolster its own necessity, aided by Republicans determined to end federal funding of abortions who have unwittingly helped elevate the organization’s image out of scale with its actual importance.
In reality, however, the 700 Planned Parenthood clinics throughout the country — predominately in urban areas — are dwarfed by the nearly 9,000 community health centers or CHCs around the country, with one in almost every Congressional district. . . .
Though Planned Parenthood routinely insists women need it for mammograms, the clinics don’t actually perform any (they are legally not allowed to). The CHCs, however, do. . . .
Congressional House Republicans passed a measure this month that wouldn’t just defund Planned Parenthood, but redirect its funding to CHCs. Republicans are making the argument for more access to more women’s services, while Democrats are actively trying to limit them.
The Planned Parenthood battle isn’t over, but it has proven one thing: Democrats are not the party of women. They are the party of abortion. There’s a big difference.
Well, yes. But Democrats’ are much better at getting their “spin” accepted by the mainstream media; hence the oft-used “War on Women” label, the battles of which oddly focus exclusively on providing an unfettered access to abortion, as if abortion were the only issue of salience to women’s lives. How paternalistic of the Democrats.
Moreover, never mind that Republicans are spearheading the effort to make birth control pills more widely available by classifying them as over-the-counter–something the Democrats and Planned Parenthood vehemently oppose. And never mind that Republicans wish to expand access to all kinds of women’s medical care–not just abortion and contraception–by expanding funding for community health centers. None of that fits with the Democrats’ “war on women” label, so it can’t be too widely discussed.
If the Republicans in Congress were smart (a big if, I know), they would start talking about the Democrats’ “war on birth control” and “war on women’s health.”