Defunding Planned Parenthood An Assault on Black Women?

Really?  I mean...really?  The chutzpah...

I've posted before on the odd relationship between abortion and the black community.  Peter Kreeft recommends Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood as a great overview of that organization's odd background.  Now...well, read for yourself.  Excerpts follow:

..."In attacking Planned Parenthood, the House Republican leadership has launched an outrageous assault on the millions of Americans who rely on Planned Parenthood for primary and preventative health care, including life-saving breast and cervical cancer screenings, annual exams, family planning visits, birth control, HIV testing, and more," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a prepared statement.

"To be clear, the amendment to prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding does nothing to reduce the deficit and it does nothing to improve the economy," she continued. "In fact, health professionals will actually lose their jobs as a result, and, most egregiously, it takes health care away from American women who cannot afford to pay for it on their own."

Planned Parenthood says it serves three million patients a year, and about 48 percent receive Medicaid and/or Title X funding. Many of those patients rely on Planned Parenthood for services other than abortions, the group stresses...

The vote comes as no surprise. Abortion foes and conservatives across the country have led a robust grassroots campaign in recent months, with a special appeal to the black community. Activists emblazoned billboards with the alarming message that the womb is the most dangerous place for black children because of the high abortion rate among black women. Many of the attacks were centered on Planned Parenthood, which its critics accused of overpopulating black neighborhoods with abortion clinics. And for the most part, the 95-year-old organization has stood silent during this period, saying its history speaks for itself...

TR: Specifically, how will the vote affect black women?

WP: African-American women tend to have more chronic illness and disease. So in terms of having just basic health maintenance and well-woman care, when women get a general health assessment and exam, many things get discovered like undiagnosed hypertension and diabetes and all of those basic primary health care needs. Usually, Planned Parenthood helps get that patient to someone who manages chronic illness. So, 15 percent of our patients are African-American women. Many are often uninsured, and programs like Medicaid and Title X allow those women to have access to basic health screenings. If they didn't have Planned Parenthood, where they could come to be seen on a sliding scale, or where we might be the only agency in their region that takes Medicaid, or where many African-American women have their medical home, you are destabilizing the safety net that many people of color rely on. A hit on Planned Parenthood really becomes a hit for African-American women.

Um. Really? Cause, you know, there'd be a lot more African-American women if Planned Parenthood hadn't been around. And I think that'd be a better situation for everyone concerned.

For those who've had abortions: Women, others have gone through the same thing and lived to regret it. There is forgiveness, there is healing, there are people willing to walk with you through your grief. There are people who will pray with you, and cry with you, and know your pain.  See Resources for Help After Abortion or Hope After Abortion for some place to start finding the help you need.

As Dr. Alveda King has said, How Can the Dream Survive If We Murder the Children?: ABORTION IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHT!  Where could those women go for health care if Planned Parenthood went away?  Mebbe those crisis pregnancy centers or other "limited service pregnancy centers" that Planned Parenthood keeps trying to drive out of business?  Text of the bill here.