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Indiana cutting funds for women’s clinics

Jill

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels is the latest soldier in the crusade against Planned Parenthood. The Indiana bill is particular important because Indiana is the first state to cut off Medicaid financing for women’s health clinics. This sets a horrible precedent for other right-leaning states, and threatens access to health care for millions of women nationwide. It’s also targeted directly at low-income women who rely on Medicaid for their health coverage:

Planned Parenthood says the bill could leave as many as 22,000 patients without access to Pap tests, birth control and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

The governor’s office said the law will affect 7 entities in Indiana that have a total of 34 locations in 21 counties.

These seemingly small state issues often fly below the radar, and then we’re all surprised when cutting Planned Parenthood is #1 on the national GOP’s agenda. So let’s do something, yeah?

1. Contact Mitch Daniels. If you’re in Indiana, contact your state rep and urge them to vote against this bill.
2. Spread the word. Retweet, reblog, tumbl, post to your Facebook wall, whatever.
3. Donate to Planned Parenthood of Indiana — and do it under Mitch Daniels’ name.

Let’s stop this in its tracks.

18 thoughts on Indiana cutting funds for women’s clinics

  1. The whole “Let’s cut Planned Parenthood’s funding!” totally befuddles me. It’s like “Let’s cut off our nose to spite our face! That’ll be AWESOME!”

    I suppose I shouldn’t be perplexed that misogyny trumps any sense of fiscal responsibility (contraception, saving taxpayers money since 1965!), but I still am.

  2. FashionablyEvil:
    The whole “Let’s cut Planned Parenthood’s funding!” totally befuddles me.It’s like “Let’s cut off our nose to spite our face!That’ll be AWESOME!”

    I suppose I shouldn’t be perplexed that misogyny trumps any sense of fiscal responsibility (contraception, saving taxpayers money since 1965!), but I still am.

    I don’t get it either. My stepmom goes to PP for mammograms and she was giving me this crap this weekend. I pointed out that she uses those services and she said “But that’s different.” No…no, it isn’t. *headdesk*

  3. As a Hoosier who gets my BC from Planned Parenthood I say this some SOME OLD BULLSHIIIT. I will be contact Mitch. I know where he lives….

  4. How the hell can this be legal?

    I keep reading stuff like this here, at RHRC and Abortion Gang, and my eyes are getting so wide that they don’t fit on my face any more.

    How can it be legal to deprive 20% of AFAB people with the only healthcare they have access to, just because certain people find abortion icky?

    Also, why are the ‘pro-life’ brigade cutting welfare programs for pregnant women, babies and kids? Why are they wanting to ban BC? Why are they oddly silent on the recent stillbirth campaigns?

    And finally, someone tell me, why a whole country is being held hostage by people who apparently don’t believe that every child should be born loved, wanted, and in the right circumstances?

    I feel useless because I cannot help.

  5. Daniels is also the darling GOP pick for the next presidential run, and is often loved/hated for his “neutral” stance on social issues. I’d put money on this being a lead-in for a near-future announcement as to his presidential aspirations.

  6. Just to let you know, there is a option to have Planned Parenthood send notification to Mitch Daniels that someone has donated in his name. The address of the Governor’s office is
    200 W. Washington St., Rm. 206, Indianapolis, IN 46204

    Stay classy, even when Governor Daniels’ actions are not.

  7. Also, why are the ‘pro-life’ brigade cutting welfare programs for pregnant women, babies and kids?

    I can’t say for sure, but it probably has more to do with the pro-life movement being represented by the Republican party and less to do with the movement itself.

    Why are they oddly silent on the recent stillbirth campaigns?

    See above.

  8. kitewithfish:
    Just to let you know, there is a option to have Planned Parenthood send notification to Mitch Daniels that someone has donated in his name.The address of the Governor’s office is
    200 W. Washington St., Rm. 206, Indianapolis, IN46204

    Stay classy, even when Governor Daniels’ actions are not.

    I love this idea.

  9. Aletheia – sorry, I can’t grasp your meaning there. The pro-life brigade (and not all of them are republicans) are wanting to ban abortion, severely limit contraception, and eliminate the very welfare programs that are necessary when people can’t get access to abortion or contraception. They (pro-life) say they’re doing this because life begins at conception, abortion is murder, people with uteruses should let God decide what happens to their bodies etc. They harass people outside of abortion clinics, they set up ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ and lie to desperate people to convince them that abortion will cause cancer, make them suicidal, make them infertile, or kill them.

    They do this under the banner of ‘pro-life’. It’s clear that they are not pro- the lives of people being forced to carry and birth unwanted babies, or pro-the lives of the babies themselves.

    If they are ‘pro-life’, why do the anti-choicers only care about the 40 weeks inside the uterus, and not about what happens outside of it? Why do they harangue and harass people into birthing babies they do not want, yet stand idly by, refusing to help campaigns that would help to prevent the deaths in-utero of much-wanted babies? (props to Bill & Melinda Gates, who really are pro-woman, and pro-GOOD lives)

    Glib vagaries about the Republicans explain nothing. I want to know why anyone wants to pass laws forcing birth, and bringing children into the world that are unloved, unwanted, and born to people who are unable or unwilling to raise them, while ignoring the plight of those who go through the trauma of their wanted babies dying.

  10. Some guy on Faux News had a theory that feminists want abortion for women to cater to lesbians because “lesbians can’t have children.” It’s a socialist/affirmativeactionish way of evening the playing grounds and being all PC and shit.

    He’s a fucking genius! Someone send that guy a certificate!

  11. The pro-life brigade (and not all of them are republicans) are wanting to ban abortion, severely limit contraception, and eliminate the very welfare programs that are necessary when people can’t get access to abortion or contraception.

    The pro-life people who want to eliminate welfare programs are usually media figures who serve to ensure that Republican candidates get elected. The pro-life party is also the party of rich people who don’t want to pay higher taxes, which are necessary in order to fund these programs. While the majority of people within the pro-life movement favor these welfare programs, the media figures who represent them are also the minions of the Republican party, and so they do not support those programs. This creates the appearance that pro-life people are opposed to welfare, but in reality, most of them are, especially Catholics.

    Instead of demonizing individual pro-lifers for opposing welfare programs, you should demonize the Republican party and the asshats who represent them in the media.

  12. This creates the appearance that pro-life people are opposed to welfare, but in reality, most of them are, especially Catholics.

    Sorry, that should read:

    This creates the appearance that pro-life people are opposed to welfare, but in reality, most of them are not, especially Catholics.

  13. Florence:
    Daniels is also the darling GOP pick for the next presidential run, and is often loved/hated for his “neutral” stance on social issues.I’d put money on this being a lead-in for a near-future announcement as to his presidential aspirations.

    Absolutely this. He has already said he’d sign the bill, too.

    I (also from IN) recently heard a woman discuss why she agreed with this bill and I was floored -she basically said that women could go elsewhere if they really needed birth control and if they couldn’t afford it, they could either join the rest of people with high medical bill debt or they could, and I quote, “close their legs and stop being whores.” It’s so sad that such mentality still exists.

  14. @laeberge – I have friends that think like that also. One in particular, who is on federal assistance with 3 kids herself, seems to have the mindset that it’s ok to bash some “welfare slut”, although nobody knows who this “welfare slut” is, but she needs her assistance taken away for “being lazy”. It’s like she’s totally disconnected with the fact that her assistance will be taken away, also. I can’t get this through her head, she would rather complain about Obama for other wacky reasons I can’t understand.

  15. Alethia – so you’re pro-life anti-choice then? You do know this is a feminist blog, yeah? Don’t defend the anti-woman, anti-poor, forced-birthers by rambling on about republicans and catholicism. Come right out and say what you really feel.

    Oh and FYI – I’m not American. JSYK where I’m coming from. I don’t give a flying fuck about which man is sponsoring this bill, and which man thinks ‘uterus’ is a filthy word, because all I see ia country being dragged back into the 1890s by Theocons, anti-choicers, and their woman-hating supporters.

  16. Oh, and not only am I pro-woman, pro-trusting women (and anyone with a uterus) to make their own decisions, I’m also proud that my taxes go to fund free abortions in my country. I think that’s amazing.

    I just donated £20 to the Abortion Support Network on behalf of any anti-choicers reading this. The more people argue against it, the more motivated I am to make sure everyone who needs one can get one.

    http://www.abortionsupport.org.uk – for anyone interested in the situation in Ireland.

  17. I just made a donation to Planned Parenthood in Indiana because of this post. I *should* have set up the “notify Mitch Daniels” bit, too, but I did put something in the comments about that’s why I was donating.

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