Blog 3: Planned Parenthood and the Federal Budget

Throughout history there has been plenty of turmoil when it comes to Planned Parenthood. Frequently there is debunked facts, yet people that support the defunding of PP keep trying. No matter what you read about the organization it boils down to medicaid, religion, and government funding which tends to make people extremely angry. I recently read this article online from the San Diego Union-Tribune stating that it is wrong for abortions and PP to be federally funded, but these claims through the article are false.

Planned Parenthood is mainly thought of as an abortion playground in the eyes of many pro-lifers, but abortions are only funded through medicaid in three situations: rape, incest, and if the pregnancy is endangering a woman’s life. The article claims that “this restriction has been sidestepped” when in fact medicaid and each healthcare provider only gets federally reimbursed if this rule is met, as well as medicaid and healthcare providers are subject to audits and claims reviews by both state and federal auditors to see if there has been an abuse of the system. If these healthcare providers were to seek reimbursement with a false claim they would end up with violations and liability to the False Claims Act, which would cost them millions of dollars (The Hill).

One of the main reasons people think PP is federally funded is because 60% of women who rely on PP rely on public health programs like medicaid. With recent talk of defunding PP it’s not really about shutting the organization down, it’s about cutting healthcare. There’s not a part of the federal budget that says “Planned Parenthood”, but there’s a part for health care that is about 1/10 of the federal budgets 4 trillion dollar budget.

This article was written by a pro-life and anti-PP radio show host, and this is even stated at the bottom of the article. The author worked for Life Choices pregnancy counseling center in San Diego, which is a pro-life and pro-catholic organization, and has all her degrees from Catholic universities in biblical studies. Personally I do not believe she is fit to try and talk about abortion, because in all of her work it comes down to morals and religion which is unjust in deciding legal matters. Planned Parenthood is about more than terminating a pregnancy, it’s about the safety and health of women across the nation and without healthcare this doesn’t exist.

Blog 2: Shutdown

  Recently there has been a lot of talk about ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy, which allows for adolescents who illegally immigrated to America to have a renewable two-year deferred action from deportation. This policy passed during the Obama era in 2012 and has stayed, with hundreds of thousands of people applying and being accepted. This program has allowed for many immigrants to obtain an education and secure jobs, but the current President wants to end the program.

  Trump has made his opinion on illegal immigrants extremely clear by expressing a need for a wall on the U.S. and Mexico border, as well as frequently tweeting various hate remarks on immigrants and their countries. Recently there have been two government shutdowns within three weeks, both times being about government spending on the military, immigration reform, and border security. 

  I have been reading articles frequently about the subject, and I feel as though there are two great articles to somewhat understand what exactly has been happening. The first article by CNBC discusses the view of the government shutdown directly related to DACA, while the second article by BBC discusses what exactly the government shutdown is. With both going hand-in-hand it makes understanding the dilemma a lot easier!