DickG. sends this, a Washington Post piece by Margo Kaplan, an associate professor at Rutgers University”s law school. Kaplan writes:
My husband and I used in vitro fertilization to conceive both our children. The process involved extracting my eggs, fertilizing them in a lab and implanting a healthy embryo inside me. Many patients — like my husband and me — produce more embryos (also called “pre-embryos” before they are implanted) than they can use. So clinics cryogenically freeze them until patients choose to use them in another IVF cycle, dispose of them, donate them to scientific research (which results in their destruction) or offer them to an infertile couple. After two years and careful thought, we chose to donate ours to research. We hope our choice will help doctors find cures for debilitating and fatal illnesses such as Huntington’s disease and ALS.
This is the very action that put Planned Parenthood in the spotlight recently. (Presidential hopeful Mike Hucklebee suggested the organization is selling baby body parts like the parts of a Buick.). Odd that you don’t hear people squawking over infertility clinics.
Dating Jesus 
Good point!
Does it relate to the fact that if legislating against abortions controls what a woman can do regarding her own body, but legislating against pretty much the same thing regarding infertility clinics does NOT control what a woman can do with her own body? Or, maybe, does it have to do with rich women being able to afford infertility help, whereas Planned Parenthood largely is the only choice for POOR women? Just a thought.
I’m sure the “Conservatives” and the “Christians” are acting according to consistent principles [/sarcasm].
While I appreciate Kaplan’s sentiment, and have no sympathies whatsoever for the campaign to defund Planned Parenthood, to state, “This is the very action that put Planned Parenthood in the spotlight recently,” is just not accurate. Some significant factors are missing from the IVF experience: abortion, taxpayer funding and GOP opposition.
Kaplan’s article is no different than most other articles I read on this subject. It concentrates almost exclusively on how bad the GOP is, (something we already know…right?), and ignores the havoc even a partial GOP victory on defunding could wreak upon low and moderate income households nationwide.
New Hampshire, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas and Utah have already taken the steps to initiate the formal cutoff of Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are up next. Ten other States are considering it. The last time this happened, 2011, Planned Parenthood won in court, (versus Indiana and Arizona). If a State wants to continue receiving Medicaid funding from the federal government, regulations currently demand Medicaid funds not be denied to qualified healthcare providers even if such providers offer abortion services, consistent with the federal prohibition on funding, as part of their scope of practice. So…States know this. CMS, which administers Medicaid, has stated publicly, just within the last week or so, withholding Medicaid funds might be a violation of federal law. And yet the attempts to defund continue and even expand.
Why?
Maybe it’s because right wing extremists understand that if Planned Parenthood wins in the courts again, (which is not guaranteed by a long shot), all opposition States have to do is continue to defy that regulation, forcing CMS to either cut off such States from all Medicaid funds, (the penalty for breach of contract), or capitulate to opposition demands. Given the importance of Medicaid funding to healthcare services not within the sphere of women’s reproductive healthcare, and the importance of Medicaid to Obamacare®, (so important, in fact, HHS has bent over backwards issuing §1115 waivers to States who reject the full Medicaid expansion so they can set up their own version), what do you think CMS will do? (Medicaid is the main source of government funds for Planned Parenthood…about 30% of all government funds. Other government resources, like State taxes, block grants, and Title X funding…about 11% of government funding…can be turned off by States as easy as flipping a switch.)
So…as Planned Parenthood reportedly continues to mull over what to do…a reasonable person might ask: What’s more important? Continue to recoup expenses for a service that might draw around 1% of its operating revenue, (expenses that could easily be absorbed), a service only tangentially connected to the bulk of the services offered, a practice that has put at risk up to 41% of annual operating revenue crucial to delivering healthcare and family planning services, including abortion, to tens of millions of low and moderate income households nationwide? Or stop it. Donate limited disposition services as the patient prescribes and let SCIENCE! handle the rest.
Is there really even a choice here?
There’s an error in there.
Medicaid funds amount to approximately 30% of Planned Parenthood funds. Other government resources listed amount to about 11% of Planned Parenthood revenues.
For some reason, I knew what you meant the first time. But thanks.
For those who believe life begins at conception, and like to call any such fertilized egg a baby, isn’t this the same? Whether the so called baby comes from PP or a fertility clinic, it should not matter to those fighting against ending this type of life. Where is the outrage?
Who cares? They’re hypocrites. It’s not even news anymore. The problem is: These people have set a trap and Planned Parenthood and the multitude of allegedly “progressive” pundits and commentators are falling right into it. (Remember what happened to ACORN?)
Meanwhile…back at the ranch…hundreds of thousands…possibly millions… of low and moderate income households are at risk of losing even more of what limited access to necessary healthcare services they have now. Shouldn’t we be concerned with that? Shouldn’t someone be outraged about that? You know…like Planned Parenthood?
I hear what you’re sawing, but I think the hypocrites should be called out. There is outrage over lost benefits, but ignorance seems to be winning. There is no sound logic in attempting to shut down Planned Parenthood. To cut off access to birth control and healthcare to low & moderate income populations in order to prevent abortions is absurd. As I understand it, there is no public funding of abortions at planned parenthood, and the recent accusations are not legitimate. However, since it’s being used to tarnish PP, then it should be pointed out, if you push things at PP, then there should be equal consequences where it happens elsewhere. I bet they really don’t want to shut down fertility clinics – which ARE funded by insurance coverage and, I think, Medicaid(?). That would look anti-family. There should be consequences for being hypocritical, no?. I’m not a lawyer, but it seems as though something could be done here.
Of course I can’t find it now that I want it, but earlier today I read an article that pointed out that one Republican candidate’s tap dancing around the issue boiled down to “it’s not abortion if you’re a Republican and a Christian.”
In other words, “I have a necessary procedure. You have a dubious procedure. She/They murder a human being.”
I was listening to “On Point” the other day and someone kept saying PP is the “largest provider of abortions in the country.” Really? That national organization provides more than little Summit women’s Center (or whatever the little place in Hartford is)? Solely on that argument I was yelling at the car radio. So how can you take the rest of the argument seriously?