A clap went up at the end of an unexpectedly long resolution hearing at the Sept. 15 Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting, which was held in Santa Maria. It was a very different round of applause than any of the 20-plus clapping sessions that came before it in three-minute intervals during public comment on the resolution—despite the objections of the board chair, 2nd District Supervisor Janet Wolf.
Clapping is frowned upon after any public comment and every meeting held before a dais of elected officials. It’s just plain rude. That being said, you could say the final round of applause was payback. And I say, “Here, here!”
What was the resolution? It was … a resolution recognizing Planned Parenthood for its significant contributions to the health and well-being of women and families throughout the county. Controversial?
Apparently.
Listening to the comments gave me new information about what Planned Parenthood does in the U.S. It takes our hard-earned taxes and kills babies with that money. THEN, that dishonest organization turns a profit on selling baby parts to organizations that do research on them. Baby killers! Women’s health care? Please. Nobody uses that place for prenatal care, STD testing, and birth control.
“When you think of Planned Parenthood, think of abortion,” said one woman during the resolution hearing. Resolutions like this don’t usually have hearings, by the way.
Oh wait, I did a little research after listening to those who railed against the organization. Here’s what I found out:
The $528 million federal dollars that helped fund the organization in 2013-2014 were explicitly not to be used for abortions. That money and other state and local government funding accounted for 41 percent of the organization’s funding, according to its 2013-2014 annual report. The report notes that 42 percent of its revenue went to STD testing and treatment services, 34 percent went to contraception (which helps prevent unwanted pregnancies, by the way), 9 percent went to cancer screenings and prevention, and 3 percent went to abortion services.
In fact, I don’t know any female between the ages of 20 and 40 who hasn’t used Planned Parenthood at some point in their lives for medical care—birth control; pap smears; urinary tract, kidney, or yeast infection treatment; or anything else that has to do with women’s health. Hell, this little birdy who’s tweeting to you has utilized its services—I’d tell you more about it, but that stuff is pretty personal.
And that’s kind of the point. Health care and the decisions that are made about people’s bodies are personal, and not everyone can afford to go to a doctor without a sliding scale of charges for services. But let’s get back to the meeting.
A deacon told supervisors that Planned Parenthood is inherently a racist organization, saying the clinic isn’t located in Orcutt or the Elkhorn Estates. “It’s down here where the local poor people live,” he said.
If the point of Planned Parenthood clinics are to give everyone access to “quality, affordable, and non-judgmental care,” it would make sense that a clinic would be in an area that doesn’t have as much money floating around as a place like Orcutt does.
Another person said she stands outside the clinic in Santa Maria telling pregnant teenage girls that they have a choice. She accuses Planned Parenthood of forcing these young women into a corner, forcing them to get abortions.
“They have a choice,” she said. “This is the land of the free.”
Correct. This is the land of the free. Planned Parenthood lays all the options out on the table; abortion just happens to be one of them. You, my dear, are the one who is telling people that abortion shouldn’t be a choice. You want to take away that choice and that freedom to choose for those young teenaged girls you’re referring to. In fact, it would seem that you want to take away all the funding that helps prevent pregnancies that could lead to abortions. So I’m a little confused about choices here.
Santa Maria City Councilmember Etta Waterfield made an appearance, asking the board to oppose the resolution.
“In this time, where we see the actual videos of what’s happening, the pulling apart of these little babies,” she said. “I’m not here to judge: I’m just here to say think about what this resolution is about.”
I’m guessing she’s judging that the resolution is about abortion. Just for the record, those videos she’s referring to don’t show little babies being pulled apart. The videos, which are a pretty big player in the national fight to defund Planned Parenthood, do depict the nonprofit’s head honchos talking about fetal tissue and its sale to scientific research organizations. That sort of thing’s been happening with lots of health-care clinics, not just those that belong to Planned Parenthood, under guidance of the U.S. Congress since the early 1990s, when it became legal. Pro-abortion activists view the videos one way, anti-abortion activists view it a completely different way.
Did I watch the videos? Absolutely. Do I believe the nonprofit organization is truly a front for an abortion-fueled desire to “kill, kill, kill” and “profit, profit, profit” as one speaker put it? Absolutely not. The whole purpose of the organization is to try and prevent unplanned and unwanted pregnancies by giving women the choice to become educated about sex, birth control, and other women’s health topics. And it also gives them the choice to not go through with a pregnancy that isn’t wanted.
But, I’m sure you’ve already got firmly held beliefs on the issue and won’t hear my arguments one way or the other.
Supervisors Peter Adam and Steve Lavagnino refused to throw their support behind the resolution, refused to pass it, and refused to sign it. Not that it matters, because it was only a resolution and had nothing to do with funding, and because Supervisors Wolf, Doreen Farr, and Salud Carbajal did the exact opposite. This is one vote where I’m glad the classic 3-2 split went the way it did. North County versus South County.
“This is about allowing women to have a choice in making decisions about their body. … This is not about infringing on anyone else,” Carbajal said, adding that passing the resolution supporting Planned Parenthood was important. “And I would do it over and over and over again.”
The Canary tips her hat to the three “South County” supervisors. And that doesn’t happen very often. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 17-24, 2015.