Defund Planned Parenthood</

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

Now, I'm sure it's a very worthy aim. I'm sure that the US tax dollar would be better spent on education or healthcare. However, I have to wonder about this article.

Firstly, it's overly reactive. It's playing to an audience, sure, but it's also invoking Godwin's law, which seems a stupid thing to do if you've right on your side. It's unconvicning, whereas I'm sure it could be convincing.

Secondly, do Planned Parenthood really hand out bad condoms deliberately, or do they just give out mediocre ones because they're cheaper? I know that Family Planning CLinic condoms break a lot, but noone claims they do it deliberately. I'm sure that this is a case of incompetence rather than maliciousness.

Thirdly, surely the problem with Planned Parenthood is exactly the problem with other similar organisations - they don't give out enough information? I don't really know, I just know that it's something people froth at the mouth over, but that's the impression I got. They don't say 'this has this percentage failure rate and this has these, and here are the pros and cons'. Is that not the case?

(I'm writing this here so as to get a balanced view, so please don't jump down my throat saying 'PP aren't evil! Look, they do these good works'. I'm becoming aware of that. I genuinely want to know.)

Comments

[lnr]

The gist of the article seems to be that US tax money should not be spent on abortions, sex education in schools, or free condoms. I think the latter two are things which should be encouraged at all costs, and I think your third point is something the author of the article would disagree with, since it doesn't seem to think such information should be available to school-age children. I really can't imagine they are deliberately handing out bad condoms, and for this article to describe them as such does indeed seem unconvincing.

I do think it's odd that they're making a profit though!

[atreic.livejournal.com]

How many million is a billion? I assume they're using American billions, but I can never remember which is which.

[pling.livejournal.com]

US billion = 1000 million, ie 1,000,000,000
UK billion = 1 million million, ie 1,000,000,000,000

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

This is old information. The UK adopted the short scale billion (1,000,000,000) in 1974, to be used in all official statistics. The rest of Europe uses the long scale billion (1,000,000,000,000), though France and Italy used the short scale in science since the 1600s, converted mostly over to the short scale for most purposes in the 1800s, before officially moving back to the long scale (in the 1960s for France, and the 1990s for Italy).

ones / thousands / millions / billions / trillions

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

It's not American domination that has caused a billion, pretty much globally, to be a thousand million rather than a million million, but that it's a much more useful number.
Population of the earth: approximately six billion...much more convenient than six thousand million
Assets of the C------ Building Society: approximately four billion pounds...much more convenient than four thousand million
And if some number is so large that you do need to use the other one, then you can use the "American" trillion.

Re: ones / thousands / millions / billions / trillions

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

The genesis of the "American" billion comes from Renaissance scholars in France and Italy. It is not, however, true to say that it is a matter of convenience, since the long scale contains a number equivalent to the "American" billion, the milliard.You will hear a billion refered to as a yard in money markets, as a slang term that is derived from "milliard."


Even more entertainingly a thousand long-scale billions are called a billiard.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

There is a budget on page 24 of their annual report here

They have a turn over of about 800 million pounds. Making 40 million pounds surplus on that doesn't seem too mad.

I don't know anything about PP, but Campus Children's Holidays has a huge problem getting any more funding because we have enough reserves in the bank to run the project for a year if we don't manage to do any fundraising. This is sensible - we're mainly student run, our committee has a high turn over, our funding sources are often one off and unpredictable - but there will still always be kids we need to take away on holiday. But lots of UK grants will only give you money if you don't have any - if we tried to live hand to mouth with nothing in the bank we'd be able to apply for far more money.

This is daft! Charities should be able to do good work in a reliable, sensible way - you shouldn't have to proove that you're doing bad business to be a respected charity.

So if PP have a 5% profit margin built in to their projects, this strikes me as sensible. No-one knows what the future holds (after all, the American government might suddenly take their funding away), and a lot of people are dependant on PP for their wages; mortgages still have to be paid etc etc. OK, if the 5% is going to line fat cats pockets, then thats a bad thing, but if the surplus is sitting in PPs banks to fund new projects / cope with emergancies, why is that bad?

I mean, it's hard to tell, but all that surplus means is that they got more money in than they spent. It doesn't mean they were making a profit from the people they were trying to help (by charging over the odds for abortion or whatever.) Now they might be. That would probably be evil. But ending the year with more money than you started with* is a sensible thing

*and the numbers we're looking at arn't even money, they're assets. Maybe they bought 50000 minibuses, or something

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes I knew there was something else I wanted to say, and that was it.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Policy daft? Surely not!
http://mk.ucant.org/archives/000099.html#000099
"the proposal suggests that operating multiple bank accounts may be a sign of terrorist activity, but that the practice also constitutes a requirement of ... grants from the European Commission."

[lnr]

Thanks. That aspect had occurred to me, and would have been obvious if I'd thought to check their turnover.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

The author seems to be mere millimeters away on the US political spectrum from the people who want "EVOLUTION IS ONLY A THEORY", so I think you're very right about him wanting less information about sex to be given to children.

[stonedsamurai.livejournal.com]

Hi, I just saw this post via the Rocksoc friends site. I think this article is unbelievable (and I am speaking here as a pregnant woman) - abortion doctors do not 'kill babies for a living', sex education does not sexualize children, and the idea that anyone hands out bad condoms to enhance their abortion business is laughable. I got a box of condoms from a (British) sex education project and one burst. I have never had this happen with brand name condoms, but poorly-funded sex ed projects can't afford to hand out Durex or Mates. I agree with the article in that I think far too many abortions are carried out each year, although I do not think this is a problem in any moral/religious sense, rather I think we underestimate the possible medical and psychological consquences for the women and girls who have these abortions. However, surely then governments should be funding MORE sex education for children, and MORE provision of free (better quality) contraception so that we hopefully end up with FEWER abortions. Grrr. Rant over.

[stonedsamurai.livejournal.com]

Sorry, rant not quite over ... if they are making profits of $35 million a year, then some of that should be spent on giving out better condoms.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

They'd hardly be the only group attempting to manipulate the American legislature!

The write of that article has so obviously decided long in advance that PP are evil that any reader should assume that all the claims in it are at best inaccurate until they can find a less unbalanced source that also states them. For instance, do they hand out poor-quality condoms at all? Can this be quantified?

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

It's all about abortion. The author admits as much in the first line - "This is not a column about abortion, per se". PP inform people, including those under 18, about abortion. That is why he wants them to be defunded. The aim of the article is to get the usual bomb-throwing anti-abortion squad to write to their representatives demanding that PP be defunded. Given that, the content is irrelevant; it may well be lies.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Their website doesn't seem very forthcoming with information other than 'everyone does it, so can you'. In fact, I find it very difficult to see some statements, such as 'a foetus doesn't feel pain' or 'counselling is unnecessary' as anything other than deliberate lies, although I suppose it's probably really incompetence.

[naath.livejournal.com]

a foetus doesn't feel pain

Medical experiments currently inconclusive.

counselling is unnecessary

Depends rather on who you are (the person who wants the abortion). Me, I wouldn't need (or want, interfering busybodies) counselling. Many women are more conflicted, less sure of what they want, less informed about all possible options and all possible complications... counselling ought be *offered* but not mandated.
PP *do* offer counselling, including referals to non-PP counsellors.

PP are also not simply in the abortion buisness (they do all sorts of contraceptive and other gynocological things). They are however, in many areas of the US the *sole* providers of abortion services, and for some women the *sole* providers of effective, affordable contraception or even affordable gynocogical services such as smear testing.

They offer what allmost no-one else in the US offers - a sliding scale of payment such that the poorest women can afford the services she wants/needs. In the UK this is a non-issue; I can get all these services and more for nothing on the NHS. In the US it is a huge issue, medicare doesn't reliably cover any of it, insurance companies don't adequately cover it...

This knowledge all comes from reading women's health comms on LJ, not any official source.

[fellcat.livejournal.com]

Logic says to me that, if one believes the free PP condoms to be inadequate, one should set up one's own charity to distribute free or subsidised Durex (and you can give out Avanti whilst you're at it − some of us are allergic to latex).

they don't give out enough information?
Noone does, whether at PP or at a CPC, because of political bias. The abortion war is so entrenched in the States that any acknowledgement by PP that: having the abortion necessary (because we still live in a world in which motherhood is a handicap far more than fatherhood is − a problem that abortion does not solve) to effectively continue one's education or career could possibly ever result in regret, heartache, and another story posted on Rachel's Vineyard; is seen as a concession to the enemy.

There's something wrong with our world that women are put in the position of having to make such decisions in the first place; after all, men don't have to.