It’s obvious from comments that the Governor has made and David Fowler has made that they always intended to defund Planned Parenthood across the state. This has been in the works for a long time and been their dream for even longer.
So, here’s my question. It’s a question that would give me great pause if I were just a normal ‘pro-life’ person and it gives me minor pause as a pro-choice person. Why didn’t these guys have a big fundraiser for CCHS this spring? Then, heck, another one planned for right now? They know how much money it takes to provide free healthcare to poor people in Memphis because they know how much the Title X grant is–$400,000.
So, why didn’t they just raise that much money for CCHS in the spring? Let them start offering full-service healthcare that fits their philosophy? Give them a chance to gear up on their own terms for going after that Title X money? That way, there wouldn’t be this gap between when Planned Parenthood’s money ran out and CCHS was ready to see patients.
I mean, sure, $400,000 is a lot of money, but you get a lot of regular pro-life people giving $10, churches maybe taking up a special offering, and, oh, I don’t know, some rich businessman governor to cover the rest and it’s pretty easily taken care of. Shoot, maybe you’d only have to raise $200,000, since you’d just be covering the time from the spring fundraiser until CCHS took over the Title X program.
You think that between the Republican party apparatus and David Fowler’s network, they can’t raise $200,000?
So, why didn’t they?
Why not fund a pro-life free health clinic and let the people of Memphis decide which one they wanted to use while the Title X stuff was getting hashed out?
I have my theories why. But I’m curious as to whether this tickles uncomfortably at the back of any ‘pro-life’ person’s head? Are you, as a person who thinks abortion is wrong, starting to worry that, for folks like Fowler and Haslam, this is more about punishing political enemies than helping women have healthy children?
I mean, there’s David Fowler, crowing about what a great victory this is, apparently completely unbothered by people not having access to needed healthcare right now.
Just makes you wonder what their agenda is, exactly.
Tiny Cat Pants 
The last time I was prolife I was a clueless college student who had no idea how hard it was to get healthcare, or to fear being sick, or to fear being evicted and homeless. That was my excuse then (and it was a thin one, because I really should have known better even then). I don’t know what older people’s excuses are.
But I can tell you that this is not new. When I was in that clueless state, I was stung by prochoice students accusing pro-lifers of not caring about the born babies. Because I did! So I went to the Catholic church that was our main source of funding/adult volunteers and said, hey, what are you guys doing for the women who keep their kids, so I can have a comeback to those pro abortion types. Lots of hemming and hawing ensued, but in the end they said, uh, nothing. We give them some diapers and formula and we also encourage them to give up babies for adoption if they can’t support them.
Huh, I said. Well, what if my college group organized a donation program? Could you get that stuff to the new moms?
Sure, they said, ok, whatever.
So I did, and we got a few boxes worth (it was a small school, and college students don’t generally have a lot of used kid clothes lying around). I drove the boxes to the church, gave them over, and then, nothing. No call thanking us, no follow up, no response to my requests that we make this a regular thing, get set up in local stores and businesses.
They just weren’t interested. Getting the baby born took all their attention; after that, well, leave it to the welfare office or the woman’s family or her ability to scramble.
I think the self-justification used was, just preventing an abortion was so hard to do (and so virtuous—you Saved a Baby!) that God gives you a pass on the rest. I mean, you saved a baby’s life. On to the next baby; your work here was done and it was fine to leave it In God’s Hands. There might even have been the feeling that you had done the nonvirtuous woman a favor by protecting her immortal soul from murder, so she really didn’t have the right to expect anything else. And the even less-admitted feeling that the struggles of raising a child in poverty were her punishment for having unauthorized sex, as it was assumed she had, and she deserved it.
i think emjb has covered all the bases.
These people don’t give a flying flip about poor women and children. I was pro-life in college, too, and I’m still anti-abortion. I just think the answer is education, not criminalization. But I stopped being an adherent to a conservative pro-life stance when I finally figured that this was not about the babies; it was all about punishing women who had the audacity to engage in extra-marital sex. Not the men, mind you. Just the women.
And that pisses me off.
Leaving aside the prejudice revealed in these comments against the pro-life segment of society, I will say that it is obvious reading Stacey Campfield’s comments this year on Facebook that to the politicos of Tennessee the PP/CCHS battle is a purely political one. It’s more of a Capture The Flag scenario, with each side viewing the grant money as the victory dance.
The actual citizenry for whom the programs are designed is less than incidental.
“The actual citizenry for whom the programs are designed is less than incidental” – It’s not, though. It matters that CCHS isn’t ready/able to provide the services. It matters that services women were used to being able to get via Title X money, like emergency contraception, may not be available, or may not be available in a timely enough way to matter.
Rachel, I agree. I’m just saying the POV expressed by Campfield and his Campfollowers is etc.
Ah, got it. I was thinking you meant on both sides, from everybody.
I can’t believe this is 20frickin11 and we are still hashing out these issues. It is absolutly horrifying to me that so many people feel they can get so involved in what is happening in some one else’s bedroom or uterus. Ick, ick, ick. Abortion is a choice, a terrible, terrrible, personal choice. The only alternative is even worse. Those who are appalled at the waste of a potential independent life should focus their activism on all the ways that can limit the circumstance that make the choice necessary and that includes education, birth control and support for infants and mothers. Childbirth should be a miracle, not a dreadful punishment for being the healthy, sexual, loving humans God and nature made us.