It boggles my mind the utter drivel and nonsense which is believed by people in America today about a lot of things. But the issue of Planned Parenthood and abortion and tax dollars is one of the most egregious.
This is my piece from last night on Facebook in response to the insane comments left by dozens of people to a question posted by a News organization: "Should the Federal Government defund Planned Parenthood"...
To all the conservatives posting in comments about Taxpayer dollars funding abortions at Planned Parenthood:
I know you are sure that you know "the truth", that Planned Parenthood is getting your hard earned tax dollars and spending that money on abortions. You've heard this on conservative news programs and other shows for decades now. It must be true, otherwise, all of those people on TV wouldn't have been saying it all these years, right?
Here's the thing about that though...
From January 3, 1975–January 3, 2007 there was a US House member from Illinois called Henry Hyde. Rep. Hyde was in fact one of the GOP House members who steered the impeachment efforts against President Clinton. He is ALSO the congressman who is famous for championing government restrictions on the funding of abortions. He did this so well that a copy of his original Amendment to restrict funding of abortion with Federal funds to only those pregnancies which result from rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother has been attached to other bills and renewed each time it comes up to expire since it was originally passed into Law on September 30, 1976. (that's 39 years ago, by the way)
The version which was Law from 1981 until 1993 prohibited the use of federal funds for abortions “except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term.” No exception for rape or incest.
These are plain and simple facts and part of our History. Your tax dollars do not pay for abortion except in these narrow, strictly defined cases. They haven't for nearly 40 years now.
I beg of you, stop repeating the lies you've been sold on this issue. You don't have to trust me. Google "Hyde Amendment". Look up the history of former US Rep Henry Hyde of Illinois. Rest assured, your tax dollars don't pay for abortions.
NOT EVEN at Planned Parenthood. Oh, you didn't know that, either?
Planned Parenthood puts fiscal constraints on the money it receives from Federal Funding and uses those dollars only for other medical services like cancer screening and Mammograms and STD testing. The funds for the 3% of their services which are abortion related? They raise private funds for those.
Conservative Lawmakers know this is the truth, because this is what Republican Mike Pence from Indiana had to say about it in 2011:
"There's no question that money that Planned Parenthood receives for its operational expenses from the federal government frees up resources that can be used to provide and promote abortions through its abortion clinics," he (Pence) said on the House floor during a similarly unsuccessful attempt to defund the organization in 2009.
I'm not digging this information up out of a vault somewhere, it's openly available to any of you should you wish to read it yourself. Supreme Court cases, Federal Laws passed, quotes from Republican members of Congress, it's all out there to find in moments with a Google search.
Defunding Planned Parenthood because you don't want to spend Tax dollars to pay for abortions? You don't need to. Tax dollars don't pay for any abortion services from Planned Parenthood.
It's just that simple.