Roe v. VA

The Virginia Senate voted Feb. 27 to
cut state funding to Planned Parenthood.
The vote was 20-20, with Lt. Gov. Bill
Bolling’s vote breaking the tie. Unless
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine removes the
amendment from the final Virginia
budget in the next month, Planned Parenthood
will suffer major cutbacks.

The vote is the latest attack by a prolife
movement aiming to eliminate abortions
throughout the commonwealth.

According to Washington Post
reports, Sen. Janet D. Howell, D-Fairfax,
stated Planned Parenthood provides
contraception planning-which prevents
abortions.

“The irony is, Planned Parenthood
probably prevents more abortions than
any other organization in the country,”
Howell stated.

If state funding is cut, that does not
mean abortions will come to an end. It
is this line of narrow thinking that justi-
fies abstinence-only sexual-education
classes. The states that have abstinenceonly
sexual-education programs have
much higher birthrates than those that
teach about contraceptives.

This amendment is not intended to
save money. It is a way for lawmakers
to get around Roe v. Wade,
the Supreme Court case
that made abortions legal in
the United States, without
directly confronting the
constitutionality of the
decision.

To reduce state funding
from Planned Parenthood
because clinics provide
abortions completely ignores
all the other services
this organization provides.
Planned Parenthood provides
heath care to lowincome
women, distributes
and educates about contraceptives, runs
programs to help prevent HIV, tests for
cancer, offers pregnancy counseling and
much more.

In a report published in The Commonwealth
Times this past year, Karen
Raschke, who represented the Virginia
League of Planned Parenthood, stated
less than 9 percent of what Planned
Parenthood does is perform abortions.
During the same week the bill to
decrease funding was passed, another
bill, which would require abortion clinics
to be licensed by the Board of
Health, failed.

Although at first this failed
legislation might seem like a
way to improve to these clinics,
it is actually just another
way for pro-life activists to
attack Planned Parenthood.
If Planned Parenthood is
forced to meet the standards
of the Board of Health, it will
cost the clinics money, which
might impair the clinics’
ability to function, especially
if state funding is cut.

A similar bill was proposed
in February 2007. The Virginia bill would
have shut down all medical centers that
did not meet ambulatory medical standards-
which would have shut down all
but one Planned Parenthood in Virginia,
according to Raschke’s estimates last
year. These ambulatory standards would
have enforced unnecessary requirements,
such as wider hallways, regulating airflow
quality and expanding parking lots.

This year’s failed legislation was
proposed by the pro-life Delegate Matt
Lohr, just as last year’s bill was proposed
by the pro-life Delegate Robert G. Marshall.
These delegates have no concern
for mothers’ safety; they just want to
make it harder for Planned Parenthood
facilities to function.

These bills are is an attempted two-hit
punch from pro-lifers. Removing state
funding and then requiring improvements
that Planned Parenthood could
never afford are just sneaky ways to
kill Planned Parenthood as an organization.

With any luck, Kaine will try to
remove the amendment before he approves
the budget next month.