In Support of Planned Parenthood
As a minister who has long followed the work of Planned Parenthood, I am dismayed at the latest attempt to curtail funding for the outstanding work it performs in communities across America in hundreds of clinics. Eliminating family planning programs would result in millions of women across the country losing access to such basic healthcare as cancer screenings, contraception, HIV testing and counseling, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and annual exams.
Over the years I have been impressed that Planned Parenthood “walks the talk” by being on the frontline of promoting reproductive and sexual health. Millions of women have at one time or another depended on this organization to help them avoid unintended pregnancies and obtain quality medical care and information. When families want to have children, Planned Parenthood is there to be supportive and guide mothers-to-be along every step.
Clergy from all faiths have long supported a woman’s right to make key decisions about when or whether to bring a child into the world. Planned Parenthood has long championed the rights allowed by the law of the land. This is consistent with the principle at the heart of many faiths that “God alone is Lord of the conscience.” Anti-birth control elements in Congress want to severely curtail funding to Planned Parenthood as part of their assault on a woman’s freedom to make choices consistent with her conscience. It is part of a tidal wave of restrictions that seem to be occurring all over the globe by regimes that think they can make points by closing women’s clinics and sending their clients back to practices of birth control associated with the 19th century, if not the16th century.
In the United States right now, it is estimated that half of the pregnancies that occur are unplanned. There is also the fact that forty nations have a lower risk of maternal death than the United States. How ironic that short-sighted political interests would now put forth legislation to hamstring the work of Planned Parenthood at a moment when the most vulnerable in society, women and children, could be severely harmed. Planned Parenthood is the only medical provider that many women are able to see in the course of a year. Their doors are open regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. In their zeal to restrict abortion services, state and federal politicians don’t seem to realize (or care) that defunding Planned Parenthood would likely have the opposite effects than they desire. Unintended pregnancies would skyrocket due to lack of reproductive services available to poorer women. Their first contact with medical care, most likely delayed, would come by an increase of emergency room visits, whose costs would ultimately be laid at the door of state and federal agencies. Or, many women would simply not seek the care that insures a healthy pregnancy.
I hope that the American people will see the blind ideology parading as careful policy planning for what it is: expedient opportunism by enemies of family planning to make an attack on Planned Parenthood and women’s health. They do so under the umbrella of bringing social service costs down and trying to control deficit spending. But make no mistake. This legislation to eliminate funding for the largest provider of reproductive health care in the United States is nothing less than an attack on the fundamental right of women to control their fertility. It is a right that is longed for in dozens of other countries ruled by oppressive regimes. Let us not march backward into a time when women’s health was taken lightly. Please join people of faith and other dedicated citizens in speaking out against the current rush of legislation attempting to move the clock back a hundred years.
(The Rev.) Stephen J. Mather
Coronado
Reyes running for County Supervisor
Hi my name is Rudy Reyes. I ran for county supervisor in 2008 and plan on running again this next election year. I understand that California; as a state, will be redistricting. My concern is with the county board of supervisors being allowed to redistrict their own areas. Realizings that each supervisor is going to be allowed to nominate one person to redraw their area. This seems to be defeating the point of eliminating our state of political lines, if the politicians are the ones really redrawing their own districts. Understanding that this isn’t the case in the other seats at larger level politics. Although at a county level it seems we are “putting the fox in charge of the chicken house” by having county supervisors redraw their own political geographic domains.
Rudy Reyes