Republicans, backed by the Christian right, have made it clear that they oppose the pro-contraception provisions in the stimulus package that allow states to cover family planning services and supplies to low-income women who are not otherwise eligible for Medicaid, and give states the option to provide such coverage without obtaining a waiver.
Apparently, the “Christian Defense Coalition calls Speaker Pelosi’s decision to add contraceptives to the economic stimulus package bigoted, racist, elitist and anti-child.” And that “The Christian Defense Coalition will do all within its power to see that hundreds of millions of dollars are not used for contraceptives.”
Eugene, at the Daily KOS, thinks that this is a battle Democrats need to insist on winning for three primary reasons:
1. Contraception, because it reduces unwanted pregnancies, is essentially economic stimulus.
2. This is an attempt by the conservatives to destroy the Obama administration early on, and if Obama gives in, it’s a major victory for Republicans.
3. This is not only a conservative effort to attack abortion rights indirectly, but also primarily attacks contraception and the right to privacy, which effectively keeps pushing this nation’s reproductive freedom and progress back decades to when contraception was illegal.
On the other hand, Benintn, at Daily KOS, thinks that instead of toiling over what amounts to a tiny amount of federal funding (0.24% of the total stimulus package, according to Benintn), efforts should be redirected to reproductive freedom in the arena where it has a good chance of success — donations to Planned Parenthood, for starters.
Benintn suggests that citizens focus on organizing in communities to discuss the impotence of Republicans, focus on private-sector efforts to provide family planning funds (donations to Planned Parenthood, for example), and focusing on stabilizing and improving state and local health departments. Rather than merely handing out condoms, says Benintn, “let’s invest in sex education and counseling that helps empower people.”
Benintn also refers to a potentially disturbing set of facts laid out by TPM, that Democrats were not always the front-runners for family planning rights, and that the provisions of the bill allowing state waivers are cumbersome, at best. Not only that, but many states already supply Medicaid money for family planning, and Republicans from those states opposed the stimulus bill’s family planning provisions as being pro-abortion, but apparently have not tried to get the already-existing funding in their own states nixed (which makes me think that this behavior may be more in line with what Eugene suggested, being an attempt to undermine Obama’s administration from the start).
Regardless of whether you favor Benintn’s or Eugene’s view, there’s no harm in donating to an organization like Planned Parenthood and working for better family planning and sex education in local and state-level communities. As far as the lack of impact of the provision in question with regard to the total stimulus package, I don’t think we should be looking at it as a comparison to the rest of the package, and then allowing ourselves to discount it based on that. I think any federal funding is beneficial, and is also an indication that the federal government doesn’t cave in to right-wing religious extremism. If I were negotiating this deal, and the Republicans tried to insist on dropping the family planning provision, I’d agree on the condition that we drop some much-desired Republican-promoted tax cut, and we’ll see if the Republican legislators are driven more by their alleged fiscal conservatism than their tired religious rhetoric.
This is not just a test for the new administration, but it is also the first in what will be many tests of whether the Republican Party will continue to exist as is with such a distinction between the fiscal conservatives who don’t mind the concept of separation of church and state and the religious extremists who have a lot of support from religious organizations and who would probably enjoy having Palin in ‘12. During the election, I hypothesized (like many others) that the Republican Party would split along those lines, and that the less extreme, but fiscally and governmentally conservative offshoot would succeed on its own merits (and likely get along much better with the Blue Dog Democrats and other moderates in Congress), while the financially powerful but cultish party of religious extremists would, although potentially powerful in some respects, hopefully go the way of the dodo.
The bill, although passed by the House, is not nearly in its final draft. It’s still under review by the Senate, and will likely endure multiple changes by both before being signed into law by President Obama. In the meantime, Republicans need to start seriously thinking about why they’re loyal to a party that doesn’t practice the core values of conservatism and small government (i.e., are they Bush Republicans?), and whether it’s worth it to continue to exist with the taint of religious and political extremism. And Democrats need to start thinking about why the people voted for a Democratic majority in Congress, and perhaps start getting to doing some of the things we hoped would have been done years ago. Remember, Obama can’t do everything himself, and he’s far from omnipotent or perfect.
Rachel Maddow asks a pertinent question: If Obama’s attempt at bipartisanism ends up with no Republican votes for his stimulus package, and if he can pass the bill without those votes, why make concessions on huge tax cuts or anything else?
