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Got an e-mail from Planned Parenthood today:

Next week, your representative in Congress will decide whether to end Title X family planning funding for local Planned Parenthood health centers.

Title X is America's family planning program.  Planned Parenthood gives out birth control (and I help prevent abortions by contributing to Planned Parenthood on a monthly basis and you could too) but more than that, it provides cancer screening, testing for high blood pressure, referals for specialized health care, and testing for HIV and other STDs.  It is literally the only medical care that some poor women get.

If you care, there should still be time to send an actual paper letter to your representative, which is what I will be doing.  Paper letters get the most attention, then phone calls, then e-mails.  You can get the address of your Representative here at Vote Smart.  If you're not sure your letter will arrive in time, send a letter *and* call.  If it's down to the wire, sign the petition here, but be sure to fill in your address so it goes to the right rep (it may come up with mine since the e-mail came to me.)

There are an awful lot of people telling ugly lies about Planned Parenthood recently.  Let's counter that with some real voices from real people like you and me.

Date: 2011-02-10 03:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randwolf.livejournal.com
My rep. is a reliable Democratic progressive, but it's probably still worth writing him. But he is old. Where is his replacement going to come from? I cannot imagine being a young progressive Democrat.

The sheer raw hatred that is coming from conservatism of our parents generation astonishes me, even though I foresaw it. So much negativity was drawn out of people--there was nothing to contain or transform it. We had hoped for Obama, but he failed out of hand. So we wait, and work, and hope.

Date: 2011-02-10 03:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] catsittingstill.livejournal.com
The ferocity of the anti-woman backlash is just stunning.

Do these people have *no* female human in their lives they give a damn about?

Date: 2011-02-11 12:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dornbeast.livejournal.com
I sometimes wonder if they really know about everything that Planned Parenthood does, or if they just assume it's a Kill Your Babies operation. There's also a little suspicion in my mind that they don't understand what it's like to be poor, and so they don't see this as a problem.

Date: 2011-02-11 01:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randwolf.livejournal.com
I think they mostly do, but they have very little empathy outside their own social groups.

Date: 2011-02-11 05:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randwolf.livejournal.com
There's a lot more to be said about this, and I am very tired, so I may not say it very clearly. But this, then: whenever there is an economic collapse, there's a substantial group of people who believe it is the result of moral failings. And, somehow, those failings are always made out to be the fault of women. Oh, not only women, to be sure: Latinos and Muslims and people who make less than $100,000 a year are also coming in for part of the blame. 80 years ago, those groups were also blamed, and so were blacks and Jews, and the people who blamed them were unashamed. But this is scapegoating, and it is behavior that can be seen, I think, in most tribal apes: when the boss males have a bad day, they assert their authority and take their unhappiness out on everyone around them.

Humans are sapient apes, and this can make a difference, but when many people are scared, and wondering where their food is going to come from, and how they are going keep their homes, some forget their sapience. And so many conservatives, in so many ways, act like teenagers who have never learned better: people who are still rebelling against the rules their parents made, and claiming that now they are grown up they need abide by no rules.

Ramble, ramble...hope this makes some sense. Still gotta write that letter.

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