Your uterus is not safe from the long-speculum of the GOP law
The New Hampshire GOP is all up in your lady business and they aren’t even going to give you a courtesy cuddle.
You see, in order to operate in New Hampshire, Planned Parenthood must have a state contract. And Republicans in New Hampshire have ensured that Planned Parenthood cannot get that contract, thus stripping Planned Parenthood of 1.8 million dollars in state and federal funds over the next two years.
One member of the Council who voted against awarding the contract stated that the contract should be awarded to an organization that doesn’t perform abortions. (All of the abortions performed at New Hampshire Planned Parenthood locations are funded by private donation.) Fantastic, eh?
The culture war continues on the front lines of women’s hoo-has, and a significant casualty of this war on women is that Planned Parenthood Centers in New Hampshire no longer distribute contraceptives:
Planned Parenthood had operated under a limited retail pharmacy license that was contingent on having a state contract, said Steve Trombley, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Two weeks ago, the all-Republican Executive Council voted 3-2 against a new contract that would have provided the organization $1.8 million in state and federal money for the two years starting this month.
Executive Councilor Dan St. Hilaire of Concord, who cast one of the three votes in opposition, said the contract should go to an organization that does not perform abortions. The councilors approved 10 other contracts for family planning services.
The Planned Parenthood contract, which accounts for about 20 percent of its annual New Hampshire budget, would have paid for education, distributing contraception, and the testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. The organization’s abortion practice is paid for by private donations, Trombley said, with audits ensuring no public money is used.
Last year, Planned Parenthood provided contraception for 13,242 patients in New Hampshire, Trombley said. The organization also provided 6,112 breast exams, 5,548 screenings for cervical cancer and 18,858 tests for sexually transmitted infections. If the contract is not renewed, Planned Parenthood will drastically reduce its services, Trombley said. The organization employs 80 people in New Hampshire.
Planned Parenthood treats 52 percent of patients whose care is subsidized by the New Hampshire state family planning program, Trombley said. It provides its services on a sliding scale based on income, with 70 percent of patients paying nothing or near nothing for birth control pills because they earn less than 150 percent of the federal poverty line. The federal poverty guidelines vary with the number of people in a household, with a single person qualifying at $10,890 per year and a family of four qualifying at $22,350 a year.
At the Planned Parenthood center in West Lebanon yesterday, Laura Caravella arrived to pick up her patient file to bring it to a physician. Caravella, a 25-year-old paraprofessional at an elementary school in Vermont, had tried to refill her birth control prescription last Friday and learned she could not.
She said she was concerned about the cost of her prescription without the sliding scale offered by Planned Parenthood.
“Financially it’s really stressful,” Caravella said. “I’m already living almost paycheck to paycheck as it is.”
Stephanie Hiltunen, a 26-year-old who lives in Hanover, said she picked up a monthlong supply of birth control last Thursday, the day before the center stopped dispensing it. But future refills will require an inconvenient trip to Enfield, she said. Hiltunen said she would like to have a child but cannot afford it, and she worries there will be a public cost if contraception is inaccessible to low-income women.
“If they can’t afford to have a baby, then we’ll be paying for them in the long run,” she said.
The center has turned away 20 to 30 patients a day who have arrived to refill their birth control prescriptions, said site manager Amanda Mehegan. She said some women have said they will stop taking birth control because they cannot afford the higher prices charged by pharmacies. Seventy percent of the center’s patients lack private health insurance, she said.
Mehegan said she also worries the denied contract will lead to women with breast and cervical cancer going longer without a diagnosis, both because of direct cuts in funding for examinations and because many women are drawn to the center to pick up their birth control and then receive checkups.
So there you have it. If you live in New Hampshire and you or your lady-partner rely on Planned Parenthood to obtain contraceptives, whether to prevent oopsiebabies or for health reasons (yes! there are women who take contraceptives for health reasons, to regulate hormones and whatnot), you’re SOL my friend.
Shameful.
You know, I was watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall for, like, the umpteenth time, and cracking up at Russell Brand as I often do, and I found myself thinking, “You know, the GOP really does want to be inside me. I don’t know what they are hoping to find in my cave of hope and change, but there aren’t any jobs in there (that I’m aware of) so they need to get to steppin’ out of my lady parts.”
Are you having fun yet?
[via Little Green Footballs]
[cross-posted at Balloon Juice]
cave of hope and change
F.T.M.F.W.
Fuck this country.
And also, “oopsiebabies.”
I have lurked here often but I think this may be the first time I have posted. I have laughed here a lot and sometimes cried too but this has to be the best: “I don’t know what they are hoping to find in my cave of hope and change but there aren’t any jobs in there that (I am aware of)so they need to get steppin’out of my lady parts”
I’m laughing and crying! These assholes talk about “taking back their country” I would like to tell them that I want to: “take back my body” you butt sniffing, figgers!
LOL
Hi Aquagranny! I feel like I’m at a party and a friend I know just arrived. Nice to “see” ya!
I love seeing y’all over here. :-D
But it’s all Obama’s fault because he didn’t use the bully pulpit–
Oh, sorry. Knee-jerk reaction (or rather, a normal FDLer response).
In truth, this is a shock…but honestly, no one should be surprised. These Republicans–at least the TB types–are against the right to choose, and have made it damned clear that they want to put Roe v. Wade into the dustbin of history.
Ya know, when people were convincing others not to vote at mid-terms at a certain website, I tried to tell them. I tried to freakin’ tell them. “Vote, dammit. I live in a red state, there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. You have no idea how big of a difference until you’ve lived in a red state. Vote, dammit. Do you seriously think PBO and all Dems are no different than Repubs? Trust me, big freakin’ difference”.
Morons.
I live in a red state as well. I wish I had the luxury of being repped by a liberal progressive Democrat and be able to go around demanding all Democrats be pure or be primaried. But I don’t and I’ll take ANY Democrat over Republican. I don’t know how anyone can look at the ridiculous legislation put out by the Get Obama Party and honestly say the two parties are the same. I just don’t see it.
that’s an excellentpoint. along with being white and privileged, i bet you all the “primary him! i’m not voting! whargarbble” folks live in solidly blue states.
fuckers.
Unfortunately, even here in pretty blue MN, Dems stayed home and we lost both sides of the legislature. Hence our mindlessly stupid, destructive shutdown.
And redistricting is going to have consequences, too, for the next decade.
What was that about the triumph of evil and good folks doing nothing again?
Oh well, at least we’re not Wisconsin.
They (the R’s) have always had a 50-state strategy. They just didn’t really call it that. Howard Dean, for as abysmally bad a campaigner* for President as he was in 2004, made a spectacular DNC chair, and while it’s too soon to opine on Rep. Wasserman-Schultz, I wish Dean was still there.
* Anyone hiring Joe Trippi after Dean’s 2004 debacle has to be insane.
As another person who lives in a red state you get a major co-sign from me. I wish I have the privilege to not vote because I live in a solidly blue state. But I don’t. Every Democrat that can win a seat, any seat in Georgia is fucking miracle nowadays.
Bwahaha! Don’t you just love our new governor, Jade?! Made the list of top 15 most corrupt in Congress and is now under ethics investigation.
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/ethics-official-says-cutbacks-979232.html
Aaaand now some crazy lady is freaking out at ABL on twitter about abortion.
There was a time in this country where it was illegal to have contraceptives. Not surprising to many I guess, but what gets me, what’s truly telling to me is that you couldn’t purchase contraceptives back then EVEN WHEN YOU ARE MARRIED.
That’s a big red flag to me. It was all the proof I need to know that this reproductive war was not about biology. It’s not about “preserving life.” It was antisex. Of more specifically, anti any sex that isn’t married, heterosexual, baby making, and in which the man is on top for about 15 minutes and the woman is expected to just lie there and not enjoy any minute of it.
I’m not sure why exactly they are so anti sex. Maybe some of them truly believe the shit they spew. Maybe their own sex lives are shitty and are just jealous. Or maybe some of them don’t believe any of it and they’re just pandering to their hardcore right wing base.
Either way they need to get the fuck out of women’s vaginas. Or maybe that’s what they mean by “Small Government.” Make it so small it can fit into a woman’s vagina! Assholes.
“Or maybe some of them don’t believe any of it and they’re just pandering to their hardcore right wing base.”
This, in so many words. So few of the Republican leadership actually believe what they say it amazes me.
So many people being dim enough to buy into it appalls me.
I say that we should sponsor regulation that outlaws male masturbation to stop men from spilling their seed on the ground! If you are going to be all over my ladybits, then I should be able to regulate your nutsack!