By Isaac Yetiv, PhD
LA JOLLA, California–It was recently reported , and we saw the pictures on TV, that a Planned Parenthood employee had helped, and encouraged, a woman to have an abortion because of the gender of the fetus. The woman didn’t want to give birth to a girl.
My personal opinion about abortion is close to the decision of the Supreme Court : to allow it with certain restrictions. But I could never accept what is euphemistically called “partial birth abortion” (after watching the horrific killing of a fully formed baby very close to its natural day of birth) , and worse, the “post-birth abortion,” a contradiction in terms, where the baby is killed after it is out of the womb. (I have long ago banished the word “incredible” from my lexicon.)
According to some reports, then Illinois Senator Obama , and many others, voted for the former and did not oppose the latter. And now, as president, he is silent on abortion for reason of wrong gender, a practice very common in China because of the government policy of “no more than one child per couple” that is forced on the people.
The problem is that the gender of the fetus cannot be known before the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy, which makes its abortion very close to the “partial birth abortion” mentioned above. Not only it is morally reprehensible; but, if allowed, the result will be the destruction of the equilibrium between the sexes which Mother Nature has wrought and a huge excess of males over females (Demographers predict hundreds of millions of extra males in China in a few years.)
And then, the big question: What is Planned Parenthood? Who is paying for the “help” it is providing? I really thought it was an NGO (non-governmental organization) doing what it believes should be done, and whose funds come from membership fees and donations. If it were so, there would be nothing wrong with that as long as they stay within the confines of the Law as enshrined in the US Supreme Court decision , Roe vs Wade . It is even salutary, in a free Republic, to have more NGO’s to enhance the power of Society and reduce the power of the State. The abundance of NGO’s in the US is essential to, and strengthens, democracy. But it is not always so: I was shocked to discover that Planned Parenthood receives $487 million a year (almost half a billion) from the Federal government, my taxes, your taxes, and the taxes of those who abhor abortion in all its forms, out of a strong religious conviction.
The defenders of Planned Parenthood claim that it doesn’t only help women with abortions but also with detection of breast cancer and other valuable services. This is true, but we have huge government ministries to do that, and doctors, and hospitals, and insurance companies, and welfare systems etc… Why give taxpayers’ money we don’t have to an unnecessary middleman, and who knows how many huge salaries and travel expenses and conferences in Las Vegas, and waste, and abuse, and fraud? This should stop. The Congress, which has the power of the purse, should defund Planned Parenthood as it has defunded ACORN because of its fraudulent malfeasance. Let them reorganize as an NGO or a charity, funded by those who believe in their worldview.
“Solyndra” is a prototype of another undue interference of the Federal government and waste of taxpayers’ money. It is the government trying its hand at entrepreneurship (and getting bitten by the snakes in the sack) by “investing” in commercial enterprises, which it picks and chooses at will, and by sinking treasures borrowed from China. Solyndra is some business venture, purported to manufacture devices to capture solar energy, again a valuable endeavor in itself. But the Obama administration gave Solyndra $525 million (more than half a billion this time) and…a short time later, Solyndra went bankrupt. It was reported that the government knew about the danger of bankruptcy before it “invested.” Where is the money? Or what is left of it? Nobody knows. How many Solyndras are there, already bankrupt or close to it?
These two cases are only examples. There must be many like them. They, and their kind, should be investigated, and defunded. According to experts, we may save $1 trillion just by eliminating
this destructive interference of the Federal government in activities not assigned to it by the Constitution:The Tenth amendment reads: ” Powers not delegated to the U.S. [Fed.govt] by the Constitution, or not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people.”
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Yetiv is a freelance writer and lecturer. He may be contacted at isaac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com
We need to defund Planned Parenthood.
They have already started infiltrating the high schools in Los Angeles by installing an abortion clinic at Roosevelt High School.
In these tough economic times, we cannot afford to give “non-profits” half a billion dollars in government welfare.