The Friday Photo A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity December 28, 2012
I took this picture in the fall and saved it as a reminder of what I can do when I stay focused. I didn’t know my pedometer had a maximum step count until I realized one day, after walking at least three miles plus the other steps I had collected that day, that my count hadn’t increased in several hours. Getting to 10K steps a day requires some planning and effort when your work allows, or requires, sitting in front of a screen all day.
I haven’t worn my pedometer in a while, too long. I would like to say that I was going to the three day a week 5:45 a.m. aerobics class I love, so I didn’t need to count steps every day. Or I was walking some known distance and then stopping at the Wellness Center to do some strength training. Or I was using the inexpensive elliptical in my home office during conference calls.
It is silly, not carving out some time to take care of myself. Just like it is silly to not get enough sleep because there is so much I have to do (have to do and want to do are not the same, but I have trouble seeing that too).
Maybe I’ve had just enough time away from my daily work routine over the holidays to realize that I don’t have to return to my usual work habits next week. Maybe I have finally realized that I can’t afford to waste the second chances at life I have gotten (one at 25 years old after a car accident, another at 50 years old with breast cancer). Maybe that homemade eggnog wasn’t low-calorie after all.
Maybe it doesn’t matter why I am making sure I get stronger and more fit as long as I do it. And there is no reason to wait until January 1.
This morning NPR ran a short feature on a proposed cigarette tax increase that will be decided on by state voters tomorrow. NPR reports that Missouri has the lowest state cigarette tax in the country at 17 cents per pack. An Illinois shopper, named Deb Sarenson (sp), who was stocking up on cheap Missouri smokes, told NPR this, “It’s ridiculous! Why are they raising taxes when they need to be cutting all the ridiculous spending they are doing?” (never mind that “they” would be the citizens of Missouri, not legislators).
Is she saying spending money on cigarettes is a good idea?
In little rural communities like the one I live in, it isn’t unusual to see donation jars in convenience stores, bbq lunches cooked and sold, and motorcycle rides planned to support someone who has cancer but no insurance.
Team Brilliant has taken fundraising and support for a cancer warrior and his family to an international level.
Last Wednesday, on September 5th, National Team Brilliant Spot Removal Day, my friends asked about my team t-shirt and were impressed with the campaign progress to eliminate a family’s worry about paying for health care when they need all their energy to beat kidney cancer.
Overnight 12 people came off the Free Agent list. We are just 12 team players shy of 1000 donors/team members and less than $4,500 from meeting our goal of raising $100,000 dollars. That’s what community is all about.
People all over the country (and probably around the world, I can’t keep up with all the ways people have stepped up) have sold art, handmade goods, web site design work, and weekend yoga classes. At least one restaurant has devoted an entire day’s business as a “pay what you can” so their customers could join the team.
We need to meet the 1000 team members and $100,000. Hear John and Patti share their deep appreciation for those who have become part of this phenomenal community and then join Team Brilliant.
A Facebook friend posted this graphic, said he thought the statements were true, but asked if anyone could verify.
The people who responded in opposition to Ryan’s policies were mostly women (I responded too), and provided links to legislation, historic perspectives, and personal experiences to back up their positions.
The poor man, Jim, (no last names here because I am feeling generous and don’t want to expose the guy’s knuckledragger politics) “dared” someone to prove that a “common form of birth control” would be banned got a firestorm of answers from both women and men which included links to the legislation Ryan sponsored, Supreme Court decisions, historic references and stories of personal experience.
Poor Jim responded at times by primarily personally criticizing strangers who offered strong arguments in opposition to Ryan’s policies. At one point, perhaps because no one was coming to Jim’s aid, the mutual friend, a man, asked everyone to “play nice.” And frankly, when the topic is women’s health and reproductive choices, it really pissed me off for a man to say we should “play nice.”
I am not going to “play nice” when it comes to protecting the hard won health care rights for me, my friends, my daughters, my granddaughter, and my nieces. “Playing nice” also puts the ability for families to plan when and if they have children (childless couples are families too) at risk.
Any person, be they male, female, gay, lesbian, transgendered, pangendered, questioning, celibate, or heterosexual, who has a vested interest in the health of women, children, and families in our country, needs to do their homework. We must know the legislation Ryan and likeminded Conservatives support, and speak up with facts and information, not hot-tongued rhetoric that is no better than the factless refutations proffered by poor Jim.
I am willing to discuss and talk when someone disagrees with me. But being told to “play nice” when the conversation is vigorous, don’t even go there with me.
(You can get a jump start on the legislation and some keen analysis here with a link to the Sanctity of Life Act, analysis of Ryan’s positions and policies at The Daily Beast and Jezebel. If that doesn’t scare you senseless about the attack on women by Republicans, read Rep. Todd Akin’s stupefying comments on whatever “legitimate rape” is.)
The Friday Photo A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity July 27, 2012
I’ll never win the lottery because I don’t buy tickets. But I took home a grand prize when I applied for a retreat at the Wind River Cancer Wellness Retreats nestled in the North Carolina mountains near Asheville.
When I arrived on the appointed Thursday afternoon, Shannon, one of the retreat directors told me who I would room with, hesitated, and said, “No, I think you need to be with Naima.”
All of us soon to be good friends were sitting together early that evening, and when Naima arrive, someone whispered, “Oh, she is so beautiful.” And Naima was.
Wigs were shed by Friday morning, including Naima’s stunning page boy style. We were there to let our hair down, and that was especially important for the women who had no hair or were growing theirs back.
We drummed, we painted, we walked, we read, we slept, we shared and cried, cooked, learned Taichi, and experienced incredible healing touch therapy (I was completely amazed by it, just like those who are sure hypnotism won’t work on them).
Young women talked about balancing work, young children, and chemo. And hard decisions to come, like whether, with a seven month old baby at home, it was the right time to lose a breast to cancer.
And Naima smiled all day, so broadly. She even belly danced when we drummed on Saturday night. But her pain was so real, the uncertainty so heavy, a dark diagnosis weighing on her as her cancer had spread through her abdomen. She had a beautiful daughter who would graduate from high school in the spring. Naima wanted to be there for Jasmine, and she was.
But by late June, despite new treatments which gave her a little more time, at least enough to get to graduation, Naima’s long and painful fight came to an end.
Later today, the women who came to know Naima over a four day retreat, all of us strangers when we arrived, and all of us now friends in a way that only we may truly understand, will remember Naima for the survivor she was up to the end.
Each of us will write her name on an “In Memory Of” bib and pin it to our shirts, and we will, most likely, tearfully, ride together as survivors in a cancer event in Charlotte.
Wind River brought us together, and we are lucky to come back together today, healthier now on the most part, but without one, the one who was so beautiful one of us had to say so.
I will always owe a huge debt of gratitude to Wind River, to Shannon and Dave who open their homes to survivors in all stages of treatment and health. I got lucky when I rushed my application in, but I was even luckier when Shannon hesitated and said, “No, I think you need to be with Naima.”
A Guilford friend, Bill Meikrantz, shared this thought yesterday while the “protect our rights to own more guns” chanting started and families began to mourn:
“What if, after a tragic shooting like the one in Aurora, we talked about mental health services rather than argued about gun control?”
Alan Sorkin and Jeff Daniels have nailed it with this script and performance.
We have work to do in America, and the first thing in doing that is accepting the facts for what they are and go forward together. Since 2001 too many people who say they wanted to make our country “great” instead gave up or bargained away our freedoms based on narrow-minded, Conservative, faith-driven, and dehumanizing policies and laws based on little more than what they think is right. Just look at Michele Bachmann, an attorney and former candidate for President, who thought that the authors of our country’s founding documents “worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.”
I’m voting for President Obama. I’m proud of our President. No one is going to get it right all the time, and I have certainly had my days of absolute frustration with some of his policies and decisions. We’re a lot better off than we were at the end of 2008, and I for one am not willing to go backwards.
I have had the pleasure of meeting both of you when you have met with constituents in Sandersville. I haven’t had the opportunity to bring any of my family with me so I hope you will allow me to tell you a little bit about them.
My husband and I moved back to his home county 25 years ago because we wanted to live in a rural community and be near family. We raised two daughters outside tiny Warthen, in an old farm house we restored with considerable sweat equity. We are fortunate to have two incredibly energetic grandchildren Ella, 5 1/2 years old, and Chase, 4 1/2 years old, who live nearby.
Ella making pottery, Spring 2012Chase helping his dad at a volunteer firefighters equipment repair work day
Now that you have met my two grandchildren, I hope you will consider my concerns on behalf of Ella and Chase, the five grandchildren you have Senator Chambliss, and your nine grandchildren Senator Isakson.
The other day both of you voted to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to enforce the Mercury and Air Toxins Rule, known as MATS. These emission standards weren’t the result of fly-by-night or stealth regulatory work by the EPA. Instead, they were announced in 1990 as additions to the Clean Air Act.
Twenty two years is a long time for citizens to wait on cleaner air and the cleaner water which results from less pollution in the air. It was long enough for me to give birth to my younger daughter and raise her to the age of 22. Her entire lifetime has been spent breathing air that could have been cleaner a long time ago.
Mary Michael, Georgia Southern, May 2012
I just can’t figure out why, after all the medical, scientific, and financial research done by numerous respected institutions and individuals which shows just how harmful mercury and heavy metals emissions are to fetuses, growing children, and anyone with asthma or cardiopulmonary disease, that anyone would agree it should go on any longer. Or the research that demonstrates that the tougher standards would actually create approximately 8,000 permanent jobs and up to 45,000 temporary ones.
Yet both of you chose to stand up and say with your votes, “Yes, I support the continuation of dirty air and water for American citizens, including my grandchildren.”
I did a little research so that I might understand why you voted as you did. The Southern Company’s Georgia Power, which owns and operates Plant Scherer near Juliette, and emits the most carbon pollution in the country, was the second largest donor with a total of $102,650 in the 2011-2012 election cycle, to your campaign committee Senator Chambliss (that ought to be helpful if you run for re-election in 2014).
Senator Isakson, the Southern Company was third on your donor list with $28,050 to your campaign in the 2011-2012 election cycle (on the heels of the $38, 350 donation for your re-election in 2010).
Where you trying to help your donors who are burning an awful lot of coal with your vote opposing tougher mercury rules?
Or maybe that vote would help clients using the law firm King and Spalding (K&S). Those attorneys represent a group called Power4Georgians that wants to build a coal fired power plant in Washington County. Senator Chambliss, K&S helped your campaign with $58,000 in donations, putting them at a respectable sixth on your list. Senator Isakson, they didn’t ignore you either. K&S is eighth on your donor list with $31,250.
It goes to figure that some local folks in Washington County would support your respective campaigns. I found out some of the neighbors at my farm have done exactly that. Ben Tarbutton (no middle initial or other identifier) has donated $3,000 so far to the Chambliss campaign in the 2010-2012 cycle. Several Tarbuttons have donated $9,300 to the Isakson campaign since 2009. Those family members include Ben Jr., Benji, Charles, Betsy, Gena, and Hugh.
It’s no secret since Plant Washington was announced over four years ago that the Tarbuttons have been vigorous supporters of Plant Washington. It’s also public knowledge that Charles Tarbutton, who personally donated $1,000 to the Isakson campaign in 2009, is a member of the Georgia Power Board of Directors.
There are 10 directors on the Georgia Power Board. There are seven members of the Tarbutton family who have donated to your respective campaigns since 2009. If we consider corporations to be people (per the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling), then the number of interested parties in these two groups plummets from 17 to 8. A single digit.
Almost 24 percent of the 21,187 people living in Washington County are under the age of 18. In the state of Georgia, there are over 2,500,000 children under the age of 18. The math should work out in favor of the children and votes in favor of upholding the MATS rule.
My grandchildren are among those 2.5M children who deserve cleaner air to breathe. Your grandchildren deserve the same, in whatever state they live in. My children deserved cleaner air when they were growing up. Yours did too.
So please tell me, when does the health of the children come first ahead of the money and influence of donors?
Last week my allergies conspired and pegged me with an upper respiratory infection. It was bad enough to make me run a fever each afternoon and feel puny, so I went to the doctor on Tuesday.
He prescribed some antibiotics and over the counter meds and sent me home with a tidy sheet of instructions. I’ve done this before and know the drill: wait approximately 24 hours for the antibiotics to kick in and resume full speed.
But Thursday morning when I got up I said I felt really bad, and logically my husband asked if I was going to rest. Stunning both of us, I said, “Yes” and got back into bed.
Day One of The Big Rest consisted of actual bed rest. That night I turned off the light next to the bed and fully expected to leap out the next morning ready to go.
Instead I woke up holding my head in my hands with a raging headache. And so began Day Two of The Big Rest. Day Two was a slight variation on Day One because I did actually read some.
Amazingly, The Big Rest lasted through Saturday, which consisted of more reading, public radio, and half-listening to Braves games.
On Sunday I got out of bed and commenced The Ease Back In.
Those four days were really unremarkable, except that on Friday I began to think about how privileged I was. I have a great doctor in town, reliable transportation to get there, and insurance to cover my office visit and prescriptions. We work hard but neither of us need second jobs to support ourselves. Bills get paid and food gets bought.
Sure, it would have been a harder on us if this had happened when our daughters were young and at home, but there wasn’t added stress over getting to the doctor, or paying for the visit or meds. The point remains the same: for some of us being sick and taking care of ourselves is a privilege. For over 17 percent of Americans without insurance, there are no privileges.
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by spontaneity, art, and community.
April 20, 2012
Every so often I get a reminder that the work I love so passionately matters to other people, and that in fact they want me to succeed.
The mail on Tuesday contained this envelope, and I knew immediately it would have something meant to urge me (and my work partners) on to stop Plant Washington. And it did.
On the heels of the near-fatal injuries inflicted on Plant Washington last week, I was asked what I will do once we “kill Plant Washington dead.”
I got a love letter this week, and I think someone is asking me to work on “old” coal next.
The Georgia General Assembly stooped to a new low with HB 954. By passing this legislation, the men under the Gold Dome said that legislators know more about women’s health than women, their families, and their doctors. The bill is now on the governor’s desk. He could choose not to sign it, but that isn’t likely.
Let’s make sure the legislators and the governor own this bill as theirs when it is signed. Please share this video and remember in November (or during the July primary) that being a legislator doesn’t make anyone a health care professional. But it might qualify them as a barnyard expert.
“You’ve done more public health work than most public health professionals” is high praise coming from Russ Toal, the former Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health. The fight to stop Plant Washington, for me, began out of deep concern for the health ramifications that a coal fired plant would have on the health of my community and my family.
Together with partners that include national, regional, state, and local organizations, we have seen two coal fired power plants cancelled since December (Longleaf and Ben Hill). A third project, Plant Washington, is now hobbled with new emission regulations, so that what was tenuous at best, now looks absolutely unfeasible.
Fighting coal for me, is all about public health. The health of our communities is directly tied to the quality of the air we breathe, the clean water we all want to to drink, fish that are safe to catch and eat, and the rivers and streams where we want our children to splash and swim. Not surprisingly, health organizations including the American Lung Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Thoracic Society and others have taken strong positions on coal and climate change.
I’ll give the Plant Washington supporters some credit. They do have some things they can point to since they announced the plant over four years ago:
5 of the 9 original EMCs have withdrawn from the project
the former CEO of Cobb EMC, Dwight Brown, who led Power4Georgians, has 35 indictments against him for his dealings at the co-op
emissions standards for coal have become much more rigorous and expensive
demand for electricity is down
natural gas prices have plummeted
wells and rivers are stressed by drought
co-op owner-members across Georgia are angry about being shut out of the co-ops they own
This morning I told two county commissioners, Frank Simmons and Edward Burton, and county administrator Chris Hutchings, “Shame on you.” They have been busy toeing the line in this one family county for outdated, expensive, and unhealthy coal, while other communities have courted renewable energy based companies and hundred of jobs that will not harm their air shed or deplete stressed water supplies.
While elected officials, and business and community leaders here still cling to coal, local residents have seen a solar panel plant opened in neighboring Laurens County (approximately 400 renewable energy jobs have been announced there, and people are already at work). In two weeks, Elbert County to our north, will hold a ribbon cutting for a wind turbine plant that is already employing some of the 200 people it will tap for jobs.
In the mean time, FACE and our partners have worked tirelessly to see the proposed mercury emissions for Plant Washington drop from the original 122 lbs per year to 1.63 under the new Mercury and Air Toxins standards. Reports by the megabyte have been released about the higher power bills Washington EMC members will have to pay if the plant is built, the ready and plentiful supply of cheap electricity in our state, the risks to local wells if 16 million gallons of water per day are sucked out of the ground to feed Plant Washington, and the fact that our air shed will be placed in non-attainment, essentially putting a cap on any business locating here that would need to apply for an air permit.
I don’t know how much longer plant supporters can keep their heads in the sand because the clock is running for the developer of this no-bid project. Dean Alford is about to need a lot more money for his relic of a coal plant. Come on P4G, show us the return on this great investment you have promised us.
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by spontaneity, art, and community.
March 23, 2012
I once introduced myself at a meeting of about 40 health policy/program directors and added, “Guilford College, Class of 83” for fun. A few people chuckled (there was a concentration of University of Georgia people there). They stopped when another woman said, “I need to talk to you. My daughter just applied to Guilford.”
The more I wave my Guilford flag the smaller the world becomes by way of Guilford connections. Amanda, on the left in the photo, is a Guilford alum (Class of 97) who works as a health policy professional at the Georgia Health Policy Center. Had we not waved our Guilford flags, we would have been at the same meetings and never known both of us love the Fighting Quakers.
Jennette, on the right in the photo, is a friend made through the environmental work I began four years ago. Jennette once sent me an email, copied a Guilford alum, and said we at least needed an electronic introduction.
Then this photo was posted on Facebook and I learned that my health policy/program friend is connected to my environmental advocacy friend.
The world gets smaller every day. It shrinks with technological links all the time (like this photo posted on Facebook), but electronic links are no substitute for the human connection of playing Bocce ball on a hot summer day at a friend’s wedding.
Jennette is about to reach critical mass on Guilford friends. One of us needs to at least get her a t-shirt.
The chase to Crossover Day in the Georgia General Assembly (when bills must be voted out of one side of the legislature or die) allows our elected officials to be seen at their worst and their best. Women and men across the state who value the ability of women, and their doctors, to make responsible decisions about their health care, have opposed HB 954 and SB 438.
SB 438, which passed yesterday, is stunning in its interference in the decision-making process for women’s health. The bill removes any state employee insurance coverage for a legal abortion unless the mother’s health is at serious risk. The AJC reports that the lead sponsor of SB 438, Sen Mike Crane, R-Newnan, drew gasps when refusing to add exceptions for rape and incest victims.
The 33-18 vote so angered Democratic women in the Senate that they linked arms and left the floor. Valenica Seay, D-Riverdale, said, “This is not a good day for women in Georgia. “Come on, guys. We are not your property.”
The House has also been hard at work reducing health care options for women. HB 954 shortened the window of time for a legal abortion from 26 weeks to 20. Again, the question bears asking: Do state legislators in Georgia think their wives, daughters, aunts, nieces, granddaughters, friends, and doctors, are really incapable of making good decisions about abortions (which are still legal despite Conservative efforts).
Well, Rep Terry England, R-Auburn, seems to think that the women in our state can fairly be compared to cows, pigs, and chickens. England thinks that stillborn pigs and calves make for good comparisons when talking about the difficult decisions involving abortion. I don’t think I can give his comments from the House floor their due, but fortunately Bryan Long at Better Georgia posted video footage of England explaining his thoughts before voting on HB 945.
What is next Rep. England? Giving farm animals the right to vote? Or stripping away a woman’s right to do that too?
I hope you know what is a stake with all this shouting about birth control and access to safe and legal abortion. It hasn’t really been that long since the pill was introduced in 1960 as a safe and effective means not only of planning for/avoiding pregnancy, but as a prescription treatment for certain cancers, endometriosis, acne, and cysts involving the ovaries.
The Comstock Act, a holdover from 1873, made it illegal to even mail information about birth control because it was “obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious.” Ditto for actual birth control devices. Comstock hasn’t been wiped from the books, but the definition of obscene has changed (can you imagine television without Sex and the City or movies that even hint at sex?)
And please be aware that while your may think your parents are older than Methuselah, some of my friends remember when Roe v Wade made abortion safe and legal (1973 isn’t that long ago, really. We even had color television then.)
Which brings me to the tirades which have exploded over women’s reproductive rights since Susan G. Komen pulled its support of Planned Parenthood. That opened the door for more of us to see how threatened those rights are now. Access to safe and reliable birth control isn’t just for women. It is for their male partners/husbands/one night stand guys/boyfriends. It is for you, your sister, your nieces and nephews, your friends, and the children you have now or may want to have later.
Last Thursday Rep Darrell Issa (R-California) convened at panel of “experts” to discuss the mandated coverage of birth control. You may notice that all of the “experts” are men.
This expert was shut out making comments before the panel.
Sandra Fluke is young, healthy, bright (a third year law student at Georgetown) and like you, has plans, dreams and ambitions for her career and personal life. She made her way to Congress last week to comment, but was shut out so that five men, five “experts,” none of whom will ever be pregnant, could tell Rep Issa’s panel what needs to be done about requiring access to birth control for all women.
Sandra Fluke left the Congressional hearing room with Democratic leaders last Thursday when they learned who Rep Issa deemed worthy of testifying. Yesterday she returned to testify to a room filled with people who value what women have to say about their health and access to care.
Rep Issa insists that his hearing was about health care reform and religious freedom. His hearing was certainly about freedom: it was about the freedom of women to choose the type of birth control they want so they can plan when and if they want to have children.
You don’t have to testify before a Congressional panel to make your thoughts known. But you have to speak up and you need to do it now. Call or email your Congressional Representative. Tell both of your Senators too. Stand side by side with the people who worked tooth and nail for birth control to be legal and available today. Too much is at stake to sit on the sidelines.
Last week when the country erupted over Susan G. Komen’s decision to yank funding for Planned Parenthood, one key element was missing from all the shouting: how many cancer organizations are talking about the very real dangers and causes of cancer resulting from how our food is produced, and what is in the air and water we rely on?
Genes play a part in one’s proclivity for disease in many cases, but what we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink play a large part in our health. Exercise does too, but if you have asthma or respiratory problems, being outside on a bad air quality day isn’t an option.
Why aren’t more health and disease focused groups insisting that these contributors to poor health status be addressed? Before quitting my job as the Executive Director of the Georgia Rural Health Associaction (GRHA), I made mention of my volunteer work, more than once, with the Fall-line Alliance for a Clean Environment (FACE). My “hobby” fighting coal was just that, a volunteer thing I did on my own time and dime.
I would go to meetings with state partners fighting three proposed coal plants in Georgia and folks would ask why, if GRHA was working on behalf of better health for rural Georgians, wasn’t the organization speaking up to protect the air and water sheds in the threatened communities? That remains a mystery to this day.
Standing up to new coal, AND talking about the problems already plaguing rural communities from existing coal plants, would have been appropriate and right. I couldn’t make my personal agenda GRHA’s, but it still begs the question: why aren’t more health care advocacy organizations speaking up for what lies at the root of so many health problems? The silence from the Department of Community Health in Georgia is stunning.
While so many of us focus on how Komen let politics get in the way of delivering preventive health screenings to undeserved women, we shouldn’t forget that our environment and access to healthy foods play a part in good health too. When you consider where to donate, think about what isn’t being said publicly. Better yet, ask them why before you sign the check.
Last year in January while I was recovering from a lumpectomy and waiting to start radiation (because early detection saves lives and contributes to better outcomes), a group of friends wanted to make a donation in honor of a young friend (32 at the time) who had just lost both breasts to cancer (she has the BRCA gene). We got the comfort food and flowers to her, but wanted to really do our homework on which organization to donate to in her honor.
At the same time, Steven Colbert gave a Tip of the Hat to Susan G. Komen and their use of at least $1M of donor dollars a year to sue mom and pop groups working to support cancer research and cancer patients. That’s a lot of money spent to essentially bully small efforts to help sick people be healthy.
Komen’s funding has been used to provide breast exams to women who rely on Planned Parenthood for healthcare services. These women are often poor, underinsured or uninsured, and do not have access to a family doctor or gynecologist for regular care.
Now Komen, an organization established to honor a breast cancer victim, has said it won’t help fund preventive care services like breast exams (and cervical cancer screenings, which is one of the most difficult cancers to identify because the cancer is usually advanced before the patient suspects a problem).
There is no evidence that Planned Parenthood misappropriated the funds for abortion or other services. What is known is that Komen Vice-President Karen Handel, who served as the Secretary of State for Georgia before resigning to launch a failed bid for the GOP nomination for governor here, campaigned long and hard against state funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings which went to Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately what she couldn’t accomplish in Georgia she has now managed on a national level.
And, because it bears repeating by women who grew up while the battle was waged for safe and legal access to abortions, or came to adulthood not long after the dust began to settle, the issue isn’t whether abortion is good, moral, a form of birth control, etc. Really desperate women who want to end a pregnancy will find a way to do that regardless of whether it is safe or legal. We endanger lives without access to safe and legal abortion.
This defunding is a result of politics driven by such socially, politically, and religiously conservative officials that they will strip away access to preventive health care for poor women. If the lost funds aren’t made up to Planned Parenthood, how many women will not find the cancer soon enough? How many young children will suffer, and perhaps be left without a mother who makes pancakes from scratch on Sunday morning before going to church?
I donated to Planned Parenthood last night. I am remiss in not giving them even a small donation in the past.
Later today I am stuffing all my Komen Race for the Cure t-shirts and the return address labels they have sent me into an envelope and sending them back to:
Nancy Brinker
CEO, Susan G. Komen
5005 LBJ Freeeway
Suite 250
Dallas, TX 75244
I support access to preventive health care and good health information for all Americans. Especially for the mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, aunts, and godmothers, now more than ever.
Rural and Progressive is in the process of moving from blogpsot to ruralandprogressive.org. Please bear with me while I get everything in place. I hope you will comment and be engaged in addition to sharing the posts.
Got ideas on how this can be a really great site? Let me know.
