ABORTION

[HairOfTheDog]

You're not making sense, rose petal.

Many lawmakers despise Planned Parenthood and want to take them down because those lawmakers oppose abortion on moral or religious grounds.

Anyway, Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization. It receives funding from the federal government for non-abortion services and through donations. Its budget is $1 billion per year and they service around 5 million people annually.

Here's a breakdown (as a not-for-profit organization, they're audited and records are public):
2009 records indicate that Planned Parenthood provided 4,009,549 contraceptive services (35% of total), 3,955,926 sexually transmitted disease services (35% of total), 1,830,811 cancer related services (16% of total), 1,178,369 pregnancy/prenatal/midlife services (10% of total), 332,278 abortion services (3% of total), and 76,977 other services (1% of total), for a total of 11,383,900 services. At the same time, 1 million screenings for cervical cancer and 830,000 breast exams were performed by PP doctors and nurses.

Like I said, I'll be surprised if stem cell commerce laws were actually broken and this turns out to be more than just another attempt by anti-abortionists to give conservative politicians a current platform upon which to rally against abortion (and put the country's largest women's services/birth control and abortion provider out of business).

The videos don't show any evidence of illegality, as far as I can see. Republican politicians were shown the videos a month before the edited ones were released to the public. And, no charges have been filed. BUT, House Republicans have used the videos as a catalyst to launch a bill to de-fund PP. I don't think it will pass Congress. But, if it does, Obama has said he'll veto it; there's nothing illegal on the videos.

Still, some Republicans are already vowing to try to use the annual spending deadline of Sept. 30 to force the issue. They say they'll let the government shut down again rather than authorize spending bills that include money for Planned Parenthood. If they do that, and I don't doubt they will, I think it will backfire on them (again) if they don't produce evidence to back their claims.