DFW Catholic reports that today "leaders from more than 20 pro-life organizations will come together in Rosemont, Ill., to draft a joint resolution, expected to outline a plan to de-fund and shut down Planned Parenthood."
I think what may be the best response to Planned Parenthood is good old fashioned competition in the marketplace. The Pro-Life Action league and other organizations can publish detractions against Planned Parenthood all they want, but they shouldn’t expect it to disappear unless the needed services it provides are more effectively provided by others. The case against Planned Parenthood will carry much more weight if the pro-life movement can offer viable alternatives.
Pro-lifers have instituted and supported centers that offer services to mothers, but these centers don’t receive funding to match what goes to Planned Parenthood, making competition difficult. Planned Parenthood also receives millions in government aid each year, the amount of which has risen each year since at least the mid 90's. In 2005 government funding accounted for about 33% of its income, about 34% in 2006. Cut that funding and, yes, Planned Parenthood would have to cut back on its clinics and its services, but it would still survive. It thrives not just because of government funding, but because it has effectively sold the idea that pregnant women have certain needs (some real, some false) and has positioned itself as the best place where those needs can be met.
With good organization and effective capital campaigning, competition is possible even if our pregnancy centers don't get the government funding that Planned Parenthood gets. For one thing, we would not be looking to provide abortions and contraceptives, but rather healthcare services for women wanting to keep and raise their babies. We wouldn't need to raise the full amount of money on which Planned Parenthood operates, but enough to do better what it does some of the time: prenatal care, breast exams, testing, etc, and enough to offer additional services it doesn't provide but would give women with "crisis pregnancies" a choice. I'd like to see our pregnancy centers employ full time OB/GYNs and pediatricians who could offer free support to women who believe they have no other choice but to go to Planned Parenthood.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
A Market Approach to Planned Parenthood
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 profound comments:
I think this is a great idea, Kyle. It bothers me that more of this isn't done.
Kyle--
Does your plan include provision of the birth control services provided by Planned Parenthood?
And, how does your plan provide a lifetime commitment to those children who will be born unwanted and unloved by those whose irresponsibility brought them into the world? All of the charities now operating combined are doing a pretty miserable job on that score. If criminalized abortion added several million births to an already underserved population, how would we cope?
Does your plan include provision of the birth control services provided by Planned Parenthood?
As stated, no. The plan calls for well funded centers providing healthcare services for women wanting to keep and raise their babies.
The scope of support they could offer would depend on the amount of continuous funding they receive. Where charities reach their limit, I'm more than open to government involvment.
If criminalized abortion added several million births to an already underserved population, how would we cope?
By better serving the population.
Thank you, Matt. An aside: I find it interesting that when it comes to voting, abortion is often held as the issue that must ultimately determine the Catholic vote, but when it comes to where Catholics send their money, abortion is just one problem of many that Catholics are called to respond to financially.
By better serving the population.
With all due respect, Kyle, that's a slogan, not an answer.
As I said above, the combined efforts of all existing charities, plus the government, are currently doing a miserable job of caring for unwanted children--even in a rich country like this one. If we passed legislation that would add a couple million more to the current population every few years, we would address the situation how? By issuing bumperstickers that read "Love Means Better Caring"?
Sorry, Rodak, I’ve been watching political interviews lately and thought I could get away with answering in a bumper-sticker slogan. Come on, can’t you show me the deference Hannity gives to Palin?
First, there is no ultimate solution that will ensure that all children are cared and provided for, regardless of how many children enter the world each year. Still, we should do what we can.
A few suggestions toward that end:
1. Examine our systems for adoption for ways they can be made more effective.
2. Move our culture away from being rooted in consumerism and individualism toward being grounded in self-sacrifice and social solidarity.
3. Rethink and possibly refashion our entire economic system. We also have to understand as a society that there are laws above the laws of the market that should inform our economic practices and structures.
4. Get to know and depend upon our neighbors. We live nowadays in very close proximity to one another yet we’re strangers to those residing next door.
5. Develop real communities based on shared responsibility.
These are broad and big ideas, to be sure, but I think that is what is needed, provided we put into to practice their particular requirements. Some of these ideas require that individuals and neighborhoods change their behavior; others demand that American society as a whole be revised. In any case, I could never run for high office on these ideas. Neither party would allow me on its stage.
Kyle--
I agree with you about what is needed. Or what would be needed if PP and its analogs were eliminated.
Unfortunately, however, without the implementation of cradle-to-grave socialism, I can't envision any way to bring those things about in a such as way that the elimination of PP wouldn't severely worsen the quotient of societal suffering over what it is now.
Rodak,
I'm not aware that cradle to grave socialism has ever assured in the past that everyone is loved, cared for, educated, and brought up to be a productive member of society.
Let me see if I have this right, though: You're assuming that if we didn't allow abortion there would be a huge "unwanted" number of people in society who would be treated badly by their parents, and thus might grow up to be criminals or other social misfits. Of course, they might not. They might grow up to be really great people. But just to be on the safe side we better kill 1.2 million of them per year.
How about this modest proposal: We outlaw abortion but we institute a system of government culling whereby at age sixteen all of the people who seem useless are put in front of firing squads and then shoveled into mass graves. And hey, a bullet is much cheaper than surgery. Moral situation is just that same. Are you a supporter?
Alternatively, we could look at the evidence of history and note the interesting phenomenon that the unwanted conception rate skyrocketed in the decade after Roe. (This is covered in depth in Freakonomics, as I recall.) Ironically, once abortion was freely available as a "last resort" people starting being less careful their personal habits, and so most of the "unwanted" pregnancies that end up in abortions are simply the result of the cultural assumption that abortion is available.
Sorry for the angry tone, Kyle, but I must admit I find the idea that we as a society need to slaughter the poor and "unwanted" to be one of the most despicable claims that allegedly civilized people make. If I'm over the line, feel free to delete me.
I'm not aware that cradle to grave socialism has ever assured in the past that everyone is loved, cared for, educated, and brought up to be a productive member of society.
Take a look at, for instance, Denmark.
They might grow up to be really great people. But just to be on the safe side we better kill 1.2 million of them per year.
If that's the only alternative you can see...
And hey, a bullet is much cheaper than surgery. Moral situation is just that same. Are you a supporter?
And hey, a bullet is much cheaper than surgery. Moral situation is just that same. Are you a supporter?
No. I think it better that we go on building prisons and locking them away from the general population. We already have more persons incarcerated than any other country on earth (including China) and I'm sure that we can afford to incarcerate more.
most of the "unwanted" pregnancies that end up in abortions are simply the result of the cultural assumption that abortion is available.
Then the solution is a constitutional amendment declaring the unborn to be persons from conception. Nothing short of that will end legal abortion.
Ironically, once abortion was freely available as a "last resort" people starting being less careful their personal habit
I'm not sure that the availability of abortion is the primary factor there. Societal attitudes have undergone major changes across the board. For instance--compare what was being shown on prime time TV in 1973 to what is being shown now.
Compare the way young women dress to attend college classes today, to the way they dressed for college classes in 1973.
Compare what is meant by the term "hooking up" to what was meant by "dating" in 1973.
Admittedly, I've never been to Denmark, only watched some Danish movies -- but my impression is that the availability of cradle to grave social services there has in no way removed all human suffering. It has not assured that all parents love and properly care for their children.
Socialism may mean that "every child is an affordable child" but it certainly does not mean that "every child is a wanted child".
And if one wants to look at social disfunction: Would you say that it's more a matter of people who are not wanted or people who are not well paid for?
Though I should say, incidentally, that you provided a model of a calm and respectful comment in response to my very tempestuous one.
It has not assured that all parents love and properly care for their children.
No, of course not. But what it has assured is that, where parents fail, society will take up the responsibility of proper care of those children. Love is more problematic. Perhaps nothing can replace the love of biological parents. But at least the fundamental material needs of every child are provided for.
Our society cannot say that.
Post a Comment