Planned Parenthood attacked by Colorado Rep. Tipton

Admittedly anthropogenic global warming is my pet issue, but I am aware of the rest of the world. Recently, I felt compelled to weigh in on the US House of Representatives plans to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization of critical health importance to women, couples and families.

Since Planned Parenthood is overshadowed by the abortion question I want to point out an essay written long ago, but that remains unsurpassed in it's humane examination of the issue: "Abortion, Right and Wrong" By Rachel Richardson Smith
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{The following is my letter sent to Congressman Tipton
and the Durango Herald - 3/6/11}:

Tipton Playing Politics With Women's Lives

Open letter to Congressman Tipton,
Recently, I called US Representative Tipton’s office to voice my objection to a bill (later passed) for cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood. I said it was a short sighted self-destructive choice. He sent me a reply starting off his justification for voting to shut down funding for Planned Parenthood: “I believe in protecting the sanctity of all human life. . .”

My first reaction was: What does cutting off HIV tests, cancer screenings, sex education, birth control, prenatal screening by crippling Planned Parenthood do for the sanctity of life? What about the sanctity of the living women and children who will be harmed because of this shortsighted penny pinching action that guarantees down the road ballooning troubles.  It makes no sense.

My second reaction was, if this is about a woman’s right to choose an abortion: Why would “believing in the sanctity of all human life” preclude having on rare occasions to terminate one? Tipton favors expansive gun freedoms which assume that at times a citizen has the right to blow away someone else’s life. 

Then there’s the Republican’s embrace of that Iraq War of choice and its unnecessary massive loss of innocent life. What happened to the non-threatening Iraqi children and peasant’s “sanctity of all human life?” How much consideration was, or is, given to the sanctity of all those lives? The hypocrisy overwhelms.

Representative Tipton you might claim; self-defense justifies those killings. OK then, right.

But, that begs the question: What justification do Republican’s have to strip a woman of her right to exercise self-defense? An honest examination of aborted pregnancies reveals that it is about difficult anguished survival decisions. Self-defense of a most primal nature.

There is a uniquely female right to self-defense and self-determination that Republicans and the religious right can’t seem to abide. Why?

Sir, I believe it’s shameful to use the extremely personal abortion crisis for a political bludgeon.

Sincerely

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