Let Me Get This Straight

First, I would like to apologize, this is far more political then I generally let this blog go. Second, this has nothing to do with me and Mimi-- except, it does.

As a non-heterosexual female, I generally stay away from issues of birth control, abortion, and the like.  I don't figure it's very fair-- my odds of an accidental pregnancy are... well I just don't figure I have a lot of room to cast a vote.(Once in a social entrepreneurship class in college, during a conversation on the morality of abortion the one non-female person in our class tried to defend a strictly pro-life argument... he was quickly informed he was not allowed to weigh-in on that particular discussion.)  The point is: I don't feel it's fair to weigh in on a situation I could never be in. And I stand by that.

But that's not the point.  I looked up the info on the Planned Parenthood website because of all the hullabaloo that's been going on lately across the country.  I've read the tweets (@PPact) and followed the stories, but I wanted to see how the #s play out.  This is what I see for 2010:

Service Breakdown:

• 38%    - STI/STD testing and treatment
• 33.5% - Contraception
• 14.5% - Cancer Screening and Prevention
• 10.4% - Other Women's Health Services
• 3%      - Abortions
• 0.6%   - Other Services

From my understanding, the argument/defense of the Republicans fighting to end funding for Planned Parenthood (and other family planning services) is that they are not making birth control (or other services) illegal, they're just making people pay for them on their own... hmmm... on their own.  Is this with the health care that (those same) Republicans are trying to take away my access to? So as a young female, early in her career, who may/may not have access to good health care I'm supposed to... what? 

We're not talking about selfish services here.  STI/STD prevention/treatment has a distinctly positive effect on a large-scale. Contraception gives us as a society, and specifically women, the chance to chose when we are or are not ready to bring life into the world-- again, a distinctly positive impact on a society that cannot afford to have more mouths to feed than food to feed them.  Breast cancer screenings... they have nothing to do with sex.  Nothing to do with anything anyone could dare cast a moral judgment on and yet we are so quick to deny care.

We can't have it both ways.  We can't spend day in and day out pushing the vital, undeniable importance of the nuclear family and then toss women to the curb and hope they survive.  I've realized in these last few months that the entirety of the women's health debate is so much bigger than sex.  This is so much more than abortion.  This is about priorities.  It has been proven in study after study, where women go their families go.  And now the same party that has fought for "perfect" families, is fighting to cut funding for women's health, and further to make it harder for any of us- male or female- to have access to the health care we need to pay for those services for ourselves.

I just don't get it.  The entire matter ridiculous- but they're doing it.  They're winning. States are agreeing to cut funds, and casting their vote that women aren't all that important.  I disagree.  We are important.  And I shudder to think what the impact will be on us as a society, male and female, if they are successful.  Less screenings means more stds; less birth control means more ill-timed pregnancies; less care means more preventable deaths. Personally, even though not all of those services apply to me- they're worth my tax dollars. Are they worth yours?