Better Watch Your Kneecaps!

For the most part in the last couple of years, I have tried to stay away from the political stuff.  It is very evident to me that most (not all) of the bloggers I enjoy reading are of a very different ideology than my own.  And while I appreciate different opinions, I don't appreciate the "conservatives are mentally defective and educationally inferior" that so often accompanies the liberal commentary.

With that being said, I'm going to voice my own personal opinion about last week's Komen Foundation debacle.

While I am most definitely ANTI-ABORTION, I am very strongly PRO-CHOICE.  Contradictory, say you?  No, it's not.  I do not agree with abortion.  I fervently wish that such a thing had never ever been enacted by man.  But it was.  Probably hundreds of years ago.  I don't know the beginnings and I, quite frankly, am not interested in reading about something so heartbreaking.

But let's face it, folks.  Abortions happen and they happen all the time.  I won't even get into the whys or justifications.  I'm not here to pass judgment on those who choose abortion.  Being against abortion does not unequivocally mean that I feel it should be outlawed.  Most definitely not.  Because we all know that abortions will continue to happen, either legally or illegally.  I, for one, would rather a licensed medical doctor be performing abortions in a sterile medical facility than some butcher in a back alley with a wire hanger.  Because that is exactly what will happen if pro-lifers get their way.  They actually believe that outlawing something will make it stop.

So it was with some disgust that I watched the mafioso attitude of Planned Parenthood go after Komen when it announced that it would discontinue its charitable contributions to PP.  Wait.  Back it up a bit.  CHARITABLE.  Yes, that's right.  VOLUNTARY.

I don't care about who said what or who did what because of somesuch.  What matters is PP's tactics in basically publicly "kneecapping" Komen into continuing its funding of an organization that it no longer wants to donate to.

"Nice little charity you've got there; be a shame if something were to, uh . . . happen to it."

I appreciate what Planned Parenthood does for our communities.  At one time I was a low-income college student who needed their low cost healthcare and almost free birth control pills.  Chances are good that without PP, I might have found myself with an unplanned pregnancy.  But despite the health services that PP offers, it is acknowledged fact that it does not offer mammograms, for which Komen is this nation's most verbal advocate.

So why the very public lynching of a private charitable foundation by a federally funded organization?  I disagree with PP's words and support Komen's right to donate to whomever it wants.  A right we should all have without penalty.

And as a little side note to all PP's blustering and blathering about Komen's financial withdrawal being tantamount to Komen not caring about poor women's health, I bet most of you didn't know that the average salary of the top eight executives of Planned Parenthood* is $270,000 which makes them officially part of what the Obama administration calls "the 1 percent."  You know, the people who make too much money and should pay more in taxes to spread the wealth.




*Planned Parenthood's target demographic are low income/poverty level women.