No Money For Anything
by digby
I guess women with unwanted pregnancies and cervical cancer are expected to leave the state because otherwise these “savings” aren’t going to materialize. Children and cancer are expensive:
While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) continues to wait out the state’s Senate Democrats on his budget bill that would strip collective bargaining rights from public employee unions, a growing number of Wisconsin’s abortion-rights advocates worry that they have become his next target. In 2009, Wisconsin passed a “contraceptive equity” law that requires health insurance plans in the state that cover prescription drugs to include contraceptives. Proponents argued that the measure was necessary to ensure that commercial health providers — who cover approximately one-third of the state’s residents — don’t discriminate against women. “Contraceptive Equity is about fairness, preventing gender discrimination, and access to basic health care,” reads a statement on the website for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. Walker’s budget released this week would repeal the 2009 law. His budget summary called it an “unacceptable government mandate on employers with moral objections to these services,” adding that it “increases the cost of health insurance for all payers.” The governor is also proposing the elimination of the Title V Maternal and Child Health program, which receives a mix of federal, state and local funds to provide family planning services. Uninsured men and women can currently receive this care, which includes cervical and prostate cancer screenings, access to birth control and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Walker’s budget estimates that Wisconsin would save $1.9 million annually by eliminating the Title V program, whose money goes to family planning centers such as Planned Parenthood. But Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin spokeswoman Amanda Harrington argued that more than 50 health centers in the state would be deprived of a total of $4 million once the federal and local funds are included. (Planned Parenthood receives roughly one-quarter of that money.) In many cases, Harrington said, these health centers are the only providers in the area and deliver critical care. Planned Parenthood is not a new target for Walker. While campaigning for governor in April, he told the Wisconsin Right to Life convention that during his time as a state legislator, he was proud of “trying to defund Planned Parenthood and make sure they didn’t have any money, not just for abortion, but any money for anything.”
That’s quite a statement. Meanwhile down in Texas they’re trying to save the silly little girls from themselves:
Women seeking an abortion would have to first get an ultrasound under a measure approved on Thursday by the Texas House of Representatives.
The proposal, the first significant bill considered by the House this year, was designated by Republican Governor Rick Perry as an emergency priority. A similar measure has already been approved by the state Senate.
Women would have to get an ultrasound between 24 and 72 hours before an abortion, the bill says. They would view the sonogram, hear an explanation of the image and listen to the heartbeat, if it is audible.
“We want to make sure that they’re fully informed, that they understand the medical consequences, the psychological consequences and everything involved in the procedure,” said the bill’s author, Republican state Rep. Sid Miller.
Opponents said that the requirement would traumatize women already in a difficult situation. During debate on the House floor, bill opponent Rep. Carol Alvarado held up a trans-vaginal probe used for sonograms early in pregnancy to illustrate what she called a “very intrusive process.”
“This is not the jelly on the belly that most of you think,” said Alvarado, a Houston Democrat. “This is government intrusion at its best.”
I’d say so. Shoving a probe into a woman’s vagina for the sole purpose of making her change her mind doesn’t sound like a “medical procedure” to me. It sounds like a form of coercive torture. I guess we should be happy they haven’t required them to be tasered while they’re in there just to make the point. Of course, that might harm the fetus and fetuses are sacred until they’re outside the female vessel. (Then it’s no holds barred.)
I think it’s adorable that so many of our Village scribes continue to insist that the “new conservatives” are just a bunch of fiscal hawks trying to cut the fat, but it’s wishful thinking. they are the same old same old, and as I wrote in the previous post, the reason they are fiscal hawks is the same reason they are social conservatives: to stop people they don’t like (in this case pregnant women who want to exercise their constitutional right to abortion) from doing things they don’t like.
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