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Planned Parenthood Calls Looming Government Shutdown a Dystopian Nightmare

Several Republican lawmakers are threatening to shut down the government if they can't restrict women's reproductive healthcare access. According to a Planned Parenthood executive, "We're living The Handmaid's Tale."
Image via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

A summer marked by increasingly feverish attacks on women's basic reproductive healthcare has reached its harrowing climax, with Republican legislators threatening to shut down the government unless Planned Parenthood is stripped of federal funding.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this would mean that as many as 650,000 people—most of them women in low-income areas—would lose access to essential reproductive healthcare, including vital services like cancer screenings and contraceptive services. Several thousand unwanted pregnancies and births could occur as a result. "It does seem like a dystopia, what would be taught in a tenth-grade English class," said Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood. "We're living The Handmaid's Tale."

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It does seem like a dystopia. We're living The Handmaid's Tale.

Planned Parenthood receives roughly $500 million in state and federal funding per year, most of it in the form of Medicaid reimbursements. 2.7 million people visit the Planned Parenthood clinics per year, and many of these patients rely on the organization as a primary healthcare provider. Although federal funding only goes to abortions in very, very specific cases—mostly rape, incest, or threat to the mother's health—Republicans have recently turned their ire on the organization following the release of ten highly-edited "investigative" videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood profits off of the sale of fetal tissue.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House voted 241 to 187 to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding for a year, pending congressional investigations—although it's unlikely that the measure will pass the Senate, and President Obama has made it clear that he will veto the bill. Still desperate to show their fervid support for the unborn, even (or perhaps especially) at the expense of millions of living women, several conservative lawmakers have threatened to refuse to pass a budget bill required to keep the government open unless it contains a defunding provision.

"These [politicians] have made it very clear that they want to take away funds from one of America's leading health providers, one that women count on, that one in five women has been to," said Laguens. "You have them saying very clearly that they want to turn back the clock and go back to the days where women and girls were dying because of unsafe and illegal abortion."

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Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz is one of the main agitators for the shutdown: In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, he vowed to "oppose any government funding legislation that would authorize or provide federal funds" for the reproductive healthcare organization. In addition to Senator Cruz, at least 31 Republican lawmakers in the House have signed a letter vowing to block any spending bill that allocates funds to Planned Parenthood. "We are deeply disturbed at recent reports that Planned Parenthood has been selling the tissue of unborn babies for profit," it reads. "Please know that we cannot and will not support any funding resolution… that contains any funding for Planned Parenthood."

They want to turn back the clock and go back to the days where women were dying because of unsafe and illegal abortion.

Critics note that the organization behind the deceptive anti-Planned Parenthood "investigation" videos, the Center for Medical Progress, is far from reputable: Qualified experts have found that the footage was "deceptively and misleadingly edited," according to the New York Times. Planned Parenthood has repeatedly denied selling any fetal parts, maintaining that they were merely being reimbursed for costs associated with processing and transporting the tissue—and, indeed, every investigation into the organization has turned up absolutely nothing. In addition, multiple reports have found that the Center for Medical Progress is a front for anti-abortion activists, many of whom have ties to known extremists. In obtaining the "sting operation" footage of Planned Parenthood, the group has allegedly committed perjury, identity theft, and making illegal recordings, according to two separate federal complaints.

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And yet, Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates continue to repeat the Center for Medical Progress' baseless accusations as fact. The resulting fallout has been brutal, with at least five states moving to defund Planned Parenthood and every single Republican presidential candidate calling to strip the organization of funding on a federal level. In the most recent primary debate, several candidates tripped over themselves attempting to enumerate the various ghastly things Planned Parenthood had been accused of; Carly Fiorina, in particular, has come under fire for describing an extremely graphic scene that does not appear in any of the Center for Medical Progress footage.

"It is upsetting and angering to watch the incredible work of our staff and doctors, as well as our patients, be maligned so outrageously, deceptively, for other people's ideological and personal gain," said Laguens. "It is infuriating to watch people who absolutely either do or should or could know better parrot these outrageous charges."

It is infuriating to watch people who absolutely should know better parrot these outrageous charges.

Seventy-one percent of Americans believe that avoiding a government shutdown takes precedence over defunding Planned Parenthood, according to a CNN poll, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows the majority of Americans support federal funding for reproductive healthcare, which makes this political posturing even more ridiculous. Laguens believes that openly supporting such extreme and needless anti-abortion measures will result in a definite political backlash for the Republican Party. She said, "Americans are all of a sudden going, 'Oh, my gosh, these people are not kidding. They're actually trying to defund one of America's most beloved healthcare providers, and they are willing to shut down the government and drag our economy backward for their own ideological reasons.'"

In the aftermath of the House vote to defund Planned Parenthood, supporters of Planned Parenthood have rushed to rally around the organization on social media, sharing their abortion stories to destigmatize the procedure and publicly proclaiming that they stand with the group. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have publicly condemned the attacks on Planned Parenthood as well.

"[Conservative politicians] don't have the right to tell me, or my daughters, or you, or your boyfriend, or girlfriend, or anybody else, how you have to live your life and what your belief should be," said Laguens. "This unending assault on progress, on women's equality, on freedom—I'm standing here looking at the American flag out of my window, and I think the American people will say, 'That's the opposite of what I think being an American is about.'"