Right off the bat, this is not an argument for or against abortion. It is an argument against withholding federal funds from Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. Consider the following analogy:
Imagine a successful chain of supermarkets, let’s call it Pleasant Pantry. Pleasant Pantry has stores throughout America and in many parts of rural America is the only real supermarket in town. Pleasant Pantry has name recognition to the point where it is basically a household word. As a major supermarket chain, Pleasant Pantry does sell alcohol to the capacity to which it is legal in each state in which it operates.
A group of activists belonging to religions that forbid the consumption of alcohol is pushing for prohibition. They believe that drinking alcohol is a sin against God, as is clearly written in their prescribed to religious texts, and correlate many of their perceived problems in America with rampant alcohol consumption. To push their case beyond their religious convictions, these prohibitionists have data to support their case as well. They will point out that nearly 88,000 Americans die each year from alcohol related causes such as drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and murder committed under the influence. They will tell you that alcohol is the fourth leading cause of preventable death in America. For these prohibitionists, it’s not simply a matter of obeying God’s commands (which are clear!), but it should also be obvious to every moral person that alcohol is bad and should be banned.
Unfortunately, for these prohibitionists, alcohol is perfectly legal in the united states. Having no clear path make alcohol unconstitutional, this group of prohibitionists has their sights set on Pleasant Pantry as a store everyone knows sells alcohol. Despite alcohol being perfectly legal in the United States, the prohibitionists want Pleasant Pantry to stop selling it. To do this, they launch a campaign against Pleasant Pantry in particular, making it a symbol and embodiment of the alcohol problem in America. To do this, they will need to play off people’s emotions and not be entirely honest with their attacks.
Pleasant Pantry, like any major American supermarket, accepts food stamps. A lot of Americans aren’t earning enough to get by and depend on food stamps to buy groceries each week to feed their families. The way food stamps work is that recipients can spend them like money for food, and only food, and the store that receives food stamps as payment can submit them to the federal government for a reimbursement. Food stamps can not, however, be used to purchase tobacco products or alcohol.
The prohibitionists decide to use the food stamp program as the foundation of their campaign against Pleasant Pantry for selling alcohol. Though food stamps are really the federal government giving money to poor people to buy food, the actual money technically goes from the federal government to the stores where food stamps are accepted. Thus, while it is quite misleading, you could claim that the federal government is giving money to, or “funding”, supermarkets that accept food stamps. And that is exactly what the prohibitionists claim, though they are careful not to mention food stamps as the “funding” they are referring to since food stamps can’t be used to buy alcohol in the first place. The prohibitionists want to paint the picture in people’s heads that the federal government is funding alcohol distribution, though it’s clearly not.
On top of generating anger against Pleasant Pantry for being a government funded alcohol outlet, they push fake news on social media. Videos start to get shares on Facebook claiming that Pleasant Pantry is collecting and selling the organs of people who suffer fatal head injuries in drunk driving accidents. An article of questionable journalism goes viral in prohibitionist circles containing what it claims to be the transcript of a phone call with the CEO of Pleasant Pantry talking about how he got rich taking advantage of America’s alcoholism. As outrage grows, some state governments and congress-people pick up on the political opportunity prohibition presents. “Defunding” Pleasant Pantry starts to become a popular position among politicians. Bills get written. Laws get passed. The prohibitionists get what they want. No more government funding to alcohol peddling Pleasant Pantry!
Of course what this actually means is that Pleasant Pantry is no longer allowed to accept food stamps, food stamps that couldn’t be used to buy alcohol in the first place. And so, of course, alcohol sales don’t drop. The people who were buying alcohol, with their own real money, continue to do so. What drops, of course, is poor people’s ability to get food. With Pleasant Pantry being the only major food distributor in many poorer, rural parts of America, families start finding it impossible to put enough food on the table. Depression and anxiety rise as more and more working Americans are unable to provide for their families. Some of these would-be providers turn to alcohol as an escape from the shame and heartbreak of being unable to feed their families. In the end, “defunding” Pleasant Pantry actually leads to more alcohol abuse, not less. The prohibitionists’ “victory” does not impact the problem they sought to prevent and ends up hurting the poor much more than it hurts Pleasant Pantry which continues to turn a profit selling groceries, including alcohol, to everyone who doesn’t receive food stamps.
Both pro-choice and pro-life advocates probably agree that alcohol is a poor analogy for abortions. But that is irrelevant in this analogy because the analogy of stopping people from being able to use food stamps to buy food at a store that also sells alcohol is a very accurate one for “defunding” Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood receives federal government money from two Programs: Medicaid and Title X. Medicaid is essentially healthcare welfare. It is a program that helps low income Americans get healthcare. Title X is a federally funded family planning program that also predominantly benefits low income Americans. Neither Medicaid nor Title X fund abortions. Just as you cannot buy alcohol with food stamps, you can not buy an abortion with Medicaid or Title X money. The federal government is neither buying people alcohol or abortions. That means that every abortion Planned Parenthood performs is paid for privately. Stopping public money from reaching Planned Parenthood stops none of the money going towards abortions. Just as cutting food stamps makes it more difficult for the poor to buy food (and not alcohol), cutting Medicaid and Title X to Planned Parenthood makes it more difficult for poor people to get birth control, prenatal care, cancer screenings, and other women’s health services that are not abortions.
Let’s be clear. “Defunding” Planned Parenthood means exactly that. People in favor of “defunding” Planned Parenthood either don’t know that it isn’t defunding abortions, or they are hoping that you won’t go look that fact up. And just as cutting food stamps to stop alcohol sales might actually result in more alcoholism, making it harder for people to get birth control or talk to family planning counselors will likely result in more unwanted pregnancies and possibly more abortions since “defunding” Planned Parenthood in no way defunds abortions or makes abortions any less legal.
Advocates of “defunding” Planned Parenthood who have actually done their research may try to justify it by pointing out that the Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Title X are Planned Parenthood’s primary sources of revenue. Planned Parenthood received over $500 million in 2015 from federal programs. That’s about 40% of their total revenue in 2015. Cutting Planned Parenthood’s revenue by 40% would probably force some branches to close leaving few or no options in those areas for women to get an abortion. But think about that cost for a minute. If we assume that cutting Planned Parenthood’s funding by 40% resulted in 40% of their locations closing (there’s no way to know if that would be the actual result), that means that half a billion dollars worth of women’s healthcare (that isn’t abortions) for America’s poorest women will be cut. On top of that, if, as is the case in many rural areas, a Planned Parenthood is the only women’s healthcare provider in the area, 100% of those non-abortion services will be cut for those women, including those who would pay for it themselves.
Pro-lifers who are screaming so loudly to “defund Planned Parenthood” are calling for the end of over half a billion dollars worth of women’s healthcare and family planning services for poor women for a “victory” that takes $0 away from abortions and in now way makes abortion any less legal. It is as heartless a solution to abortion as it is moronic.
There were over 660,000 abortions reported to the CDC in 2013. However, the number of abortions in America has been in steady decline since their peak in 1980 when there were over 1,330,000 abortions performed. Most people would agree that fewer unwanted pregnancies (and thus fewer abortions) is desirable. But if you compare countries and states with high and low abortion rates, it is clear that the dominant factor is reducing abortion is a combination of high accessibility to birth control and generous social programs to support mothers and their young children.
Don’t “defund” Planned Parenthood. Instead, consider what conditions are leading so many women feel that ending the life of their unborn child is the best option they have.
