The GOP’s war on women leads to a government shutdown

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It appears that the Christian Taliban wing of the Tea-Publican Party is ready to walk the plank and to shut down the federal government over its ideological extremist demand that any budget compromise entirely defund Planned Parenthood. The GOP's war on women has reached a new level of insanity.

John Aravosis at Americablog.com has an excellent post which explains just how extreme and outrageous this Tea-Publican demand is. What Planned Parenthood actually does:

Hint: Not that many abortions.

Now let's look at what the Republicans are really targeting in their effort to shut down the federal government unless we let them "defund Planned Parenthood." Here is what Planned Parenthood does with the Title X money the Republicans want to cut.

Title X funds services essential for the health of women and their families.

The Title X program provides comprehensive family planning services that include a broad range of contraceptive methods and related counseling. The official program guidelines also require health care providers that receive this funding to offer a wide range of other preventive health care services that are critical to their clients’ sexual and reproductive health (Gold, 2001). These include:

• pelvic exams and pap tests (early warning about cervical cancer)
• breast exams and instruction on breast self-examinations
• testing for high blood pressure, anemia, and diabetes
• screening and appropriate treatment for sexually transmitted infections
• safer-sex counseling
• basic infertility screening
• referrals to specialized health care (Gold, 2001).

By law, no Title X funds have ever been spent on abortion (Sollom et al., 1996). The family planning regulations require that women who face unintended pregnancies be given nondirective counseling on all of their legal and medical options (Federal Register, 2000).

Title X Recipients

Title X serves more than four million people a yearwho might otherwise be unable to afford family planning.

This is what the Republicans are having a heart attack over. This is what the Republicans find so obscene. Pap smears. Pelvic exams. Breast exams. And remember, this isn't just ome blithe effort to reduce the deficit. The Republicans are, and have been, on a jihad for years to kill this money. And they're pretending it's all about abortion, when not a dime of it is about abortion.

What's particularly sick is that, yet again, we're seeing a case of the Republicans lying about the facts in order to further a large far-right agenda.  In this case, defunding Planned Parenthood because the religious right doesn't like PPFA.  To hell with the women Planned Parenthood helps around the country (and around the world).

It's time for women to get angry and to take to the streets in protest. We have one political party that is at war with more than half the population of this country. It's time to hold them accountable and to make them pay.

Note: As the senators make clear, the Republicans aren't just defunding Planned Parenthood, they're taking federal funding away from all reproductive health services — including family planning — for all women's clinics. And none of that funding — none — pays for abortion. (Only about a quarter of federal funds for family planning and women's healthcare goes to Planned Parenthood).