Malkin Spreads More Stupid, Shills for Misogyny
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KTK
Michelle Malkin now takes on the cause, and the rhetoric, of the misogynist anti-autonomy movement and its efforts to eliminate accessible reproductive healthcare.
Planned Parenthood is the largest single provider of prenatal, contraceptive, and abortion care in the US. In a country in which over 85% of all counties have no abortion services provider at all, in which health insurance plans are not required to provide contraception, and in which government-provided health programs for the poor are prohibited from providing abortion or, at times, even information about abortion, Planned Parenthood is often the only reproductive health provider available in many communities, and usually the only one available at reduced cost.
This drives the anti-woman brigade screaming crazy. There has been an organized campaign against Planned Parenthood by the sex-negative right wing for years, using a combination of smear tactics, lies, distortions, and political lobbying. Attacks range across everything from Margaret Sanger’s racism (don’t believe what you hear from hypocritical liars), Planned Parenthood’s practices of murder, malpractice, and coverup (don’t believe what you hear from anti-woman liars), and the - in Malkin’s terms - “obscene profits” Planned Parenthood makes from the lucrative business of providing subsidized healthcare to uninsured patients in poor communities (don’t believe what you hear from financially illiterate liars). The reason, of course, is that Planned Parenthood is doing what they are dead set on wiping out: making reproductive autonomy real for the most vulnerable women in America.
Having failed in their campaign to ban abortion, having failed in their attempts to demonize abortion and the women who have them, having failed in their terrorism campaign against healthcare providers, that anti-choice movement has for years now concentrated on making abortion simply inaccessible, even though legal and Constititionally protected. Their tactics range from disingenuous “protective” restrictions that make it impossible for abortion clinics to operate or for women to get to them, secondary boycotts and blocades to intimidate those who fund or do business with abortion providers, and, for years now, an organized campaign of deception aimed at cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. To this end, the organized anti-choice community recycles the same discredited crap over and over, and now have one of the most visible - and visibly crazy - spouting their canned lies for them.
There’s no point quoting Malkin’s stupid, false, and ignorant nonsense about Planned Parenthood. What is important is that she has made herself a tool in a campaign of falsehood to try to cripple the only source of reproductive healthcare for many women in America. The major lie in the campaign is that Planned Parenthood is being subsidized by the government to provide abortions. (”cut the abortion subsidies”, “the tax-subsidized abortion industry”, “what market-distorting results do we get for those government incentives? 289,650 abortions in 2006″) Aside from the bizarreness of an opposition to abortion based on “market distortion”, this is all just false.
Given their wide geographic base and commitment to low-cost care, Planned Parenthood is often the service provider under government contracts for healthcare services for the poor, or for Medicaid services (not including abortion). The money they receive from government sources is not a “subsidy” for any of their activities - it reimburses direct services to patients under Title X and Medicare - the same as would be the case for any other provider, except that, in the communities Planned Parenthood serves, there often aren’t any other providers. And these services are often further subsidized by Planned Parenthood itself from donations. Federal funding is prohibited for abortion in all but a small percentage of cases. Abortion services to other Planned Parenthood patients are paid for out of other funds - they have to be, since the government money is more than used up providing non-abortion services. The claim that the government paid for “289,650 abortions in 2006″ through Planned Parenthood is simply a lie - not a mistake or even an exaggeration, but a straightforward lie. In fact, the federal government paid for virtually no abortions, and the money they did pay was less than required to provide the non-abortion services Planned Parenthood provides. But that’s just the first of the standard lies.
Malkin claims Planned Parenthood earned “$115 million in profits” last year. As a non-profit agency, that would be quite a trick. They did, in fact, receive (almost) that much in revenues beyond their total outlays, as every non-profit agency is allowed to do; like every non-profit agency, they are also required to devote excess revenues to their non-profit work under specified schedules and regulations. They can use it for expansion projects or to provide further services, and can maintain a small percentage of revenues as a “rainy-day” fund. That’s just sound fiscal management (if non-profits were required to spend every dollar every year, they’d go bankrupt the first year they had an unplanned expense), and it is standard for non-profit agencies. But excess revenues are not “profit”. By definition, profit is the property of the shareholders of a business entity; it belongs to them and can be distributed to them as dividends or recouped by them through selling shares as their price goes up. Non-profits do not have shareholders; they do not pay dividends; excess revenues are not extracted by anyone for personal benefit. It’s not a small thing - it’s the heart of the definition of “profit” and of “non-profit entity”. And you’d think that someone who tries to demonstrate what passes among conservatives as sophistication, by injecting the phrase “market distortion” into a discussion of abortion, wouldn’t immediately embarrass herself by proving she doesn’t even know the meaning of the elementary term “profit”.
She goes on to recycle a farrago of vague lies and complaints about Planned Parenthood: two patients in a 2-year period, out of over 6 million patients served and almost 21 million treatments provided in that time, filed malpractice suits against the agency (one was settled for apparently less than $100K; the other has not even come to trial; Malkin describes each patient’s complaint in lurid detail and gives no other information); Planned Parenthood provides confidential services even in cases of statutory rape (yes, and appropriately so); some racists donated money to Planned Parenthood and she thinks that’s the agency’s fault. It’s a bizarre and stupid grasping of mostly made-up straws.
But the - fully foreseen and deliberately intended - consequences of this nonsense are serious. The intent of this movement is to destroy the one agency that provides the bulk of reproductive healthcare services in this country, concentrated among poor women and teens. As the Annual Report that Malkin breathlessly (and cluelessly) cites as the source of her misinterpreted “facts” makes clear, abortion services are only 3% of their annual activity, and almost none of that is reimbursed by the federal government (a minority of states pay for abortions through state Medicaid programs, but this is still a tiny fraction of Planned Parenthood’s revenues). Malkin and her fellow misogyny-jihadists rave about abortion to whip up the red-meat right wing, but what they are really trying to do is cut off all control of pregnancy options for as many women as possible, focusing on the most vulnerable. Prohibiting Planned Parenthood from receiving federal healthcare money would have almost no effect on their provision of abortion services, and still less on abortion overall in the US - but it would cripple their ability to provide contraception (38% of their annual activity), STI/HIV screenings and treatments (29%), gynecological cancer screening (19%), and pregnancy testing, prenatal care, “midlife” care, and other women’s health services (10%). This is the goal and effect of the campaign of lies, slanders, and disinformation that has been running for years, and that Michelle Malkin has joined. It is a campaign born in hatred for women, contempt for their needs, health, and autonomy, and indifference to their deprivation or suffering. They’ve found themselves a fitting ally.
[This post cross-posted at Sufficient Scruples.]
“In a country in which over 85% of all counties have no abortion services provider at all, in which health insurance plans are not required to provide contraception, and in which government-provided health programs for the poor are prohibited from providing abortion or, at times, even information about abortion,”
Thanks for the encouraging words. In a country where you thugs want to kill unborn babies, it is good news that there are still some obstacles that must be overcome before unborn babies are butchered or burned to death. What loathsome creatures you pro-abortion monsters are!
Comment 6/4/2008
Morris,
Ho Ho, Hey Hey, how many babies did you adopt today?
Comment 6/4/2008
Irony - It’s adults like you, Morris, that are the greatest advertisement for abortion.
Comment 6/4/2008
I would expect such a statement from someone who believes it is okay to kill an innocent unborn baby. Are you really saying that we should abort more unborn babies so they won’t grow up to be pro-life adults? What a sick, contemptible person you are!
Comment 6/4/2008
Mo, it’s good to see that you’re still so public about your lying. Fetuses still aren’t babies, and abortionist still aren’t baby killers. And you know that. You know that the word ‘baby’ doesn’t, and never has (outside of the lies of certain Christionists), meant the unborn.
Now, I don’t think Digg is saying that there should be some program to exterminate authoritarians (though there’s certainly something to be said for having less of them voting). I just think that he’s saying (and he can correct me if I’m wrong), that from our perspective it’d be an improvement if you personally hadn’t been born.
Regardless of the travesty that you’ve turned out, we certainly want your mother to have had the option.
Comment 6/5/2008
“Now, I don’t think Digg is saying that there should be some program to exterminate authoritarians”
Who said he is saying that?
Comment 6/5/2008
Yeah, I’d rather live in a world without people you, Morris (and, presumably you’d rather live in a world without people like me). I don’t say this simply because you happen to be anti-choice (better than pro-life, right - I mean, who is anti-life, or pro-death…). I say this as a well-considered conclusion on the basis of my prolonged interaction with you, not a knee-jerk reaction to one particular view of yours. My wish that you were aborted (perhaps even post-birth)is not tantamount to advocating that we kill anti-choicers, preemptively or otherwise.
I can’t believe I just had to type that.
But, fuck it, why stop at fetuses? Have you ever masturbated, Morris? If so, you’re a baby killer (and hellbound too). I mean, if you don’t have to abide by the definition of “baby,” then why should I?
“You ain’t a leader, what - nobody followed you, you was never shit, your mother shoulda swallowed you.” RIP Big L.
Comment 6/5/2008
“I can’t believe I just had to type that.”
I’m not surprised you typed that. It makes as much sense as anything else you’ve written.
I love the way diversity loving liberals want uniformity
so much that they wish everyone who disagrees with them was dead.
Comment 6/5/2008
Didn’t you just have the “digglahh doesn’t self-identify as liberal” conversation a few days ago?
Apparently, stuff Morris doesn’t like = liberal, period.
Comment 6/5/2008
“Didn’t you just have the “digglahh doesn’t self-identify as liberal” conversation a few days ago?”
Conservatives don’t believe in killing unborn babies. Liberals do. Denying being a liberal doesn’t mean anything. Liberals lie. “Self-identity” doesn’t mean anything when your beliefs say something else.
Comment 6/5/2008
Conservatives don’t believe in killing unborn babies.
Gosh, I didn’t realize that the abortion issue was the sole determinant of one’s liberal/conservative status.
By the way, conservatives believe in killing unborn babies — as long as they’re “collateral damage” in a war, you can kill them by the thousands without shedding a tear. Killing them with bombs, no problem. It’s when you kill them surgically or medically that it’s somehow a “sin.”
Comment 6/5/2008
“Gosh, I didn’t realize that the abortion issue was the sole determinant of one’s liberal/conservative status.”
Who said it was?
Comment 6/5/2008
Gee, Mo, if you try real hard, I bet even you can find out who said “Conservatives don’t believe in killing unborn babies. Liberals do.“. I know, I know, it’s tough; take your time.
Comment 6/5/2008
I hate to break it to you, Morris, but “conservative” and “liberal” are characterizations one self-identifies with. Despite a general consensus of view that are usually held by one as opposed to the other, there are no explicit criteria one must adhere to in order to gain membership into either (theoretical) group. There are certainly people out there who fit the fast majority of the “conservative” archetype, but who happen to disagree on one core issue (abortion, welfare, who knows - whatever).
Further the terms are relative. One may say TG is conservative compared to me. One may say you are moderately liberal compared to, say, Cap Anson.
The irony is that my views extend beyond “liberal” into zones that should be far more reprehensible to you. So, your reluctance to acknowledge this fact only limits the scope of your platitudes and ignorant remarks. I don’t really care what you call me; the nomenclature is not important. I’m just sayin’ if you think you can offend my sensibilities by claiming (with or without merit) that my opinions defy contemporary liberal values, you’re way off base. Contradicting them doesn’t offend my sensibilities or violate my views, which I have stated on here dozens and dozens of times. This is a point that every other regular seems to grasp.
Thanks for the help, guys, but this is a lost cause.
Comment 6/6/2008
“Gee, Mo, if you try real hard, I bet even you can find out who said “Conservatives don’t believe in killing unborn babies. Liberals do.“. I know, I know, it’s tough; take your time.”
It’s not tough for me at all. You disappoint me. I thought you had better understanding of the English language. If I say that liberals believe in Affirmative Discrimination, does that indicate that that is the only(SOLE) thing that determines if a person is a liberal. Note the word SOLE in tg’s reply. Do you ever embarass yourself with your ignorance? Are you a college professor?
Comment 6/6/2008
As Ken Tremendous would say, “Fuck the heck!” Seriously, holy fuck!
I said that I’m not a liberal, or that I don’t self-identify as such.
You said it doesn’t matter what I self-identify with, I support killing babies (which I obviously do in any possible context, I’m goin’ baby huntin’ this weekend, yee-haw!) and it doesn’t matter what I say, it’s what I do, or what I believe. The logical (not like colloquial, common-use interpretation of logical, but like the p > q form) implication of that sentence is that supporting baby killin’ is the/a determinate of whether I’m a liberal.
In that case, there is very little semantic distinction between “sole” and “determinate.” I guess “determinate” leaves open the possibility of there being more than a single criterion poignant enough to unequivocally relegate me to the liberal camp, while sole implies that there is only one criterion that can make that distinction. That’s pretty much irrelevant in the context of this conversation (conversation is a euphemism here). Basically, you claimed it was a determinate - it doesn’t matter if it is the sole determinate - it has determinate power.
But whatever, it’s not that with which I self-identify that matters, it’s what Morris identifies me as that matters. So, in that spirit, I identify Morris as a charter member of NAMBLA.
Comment 6/6/2008
The logical … implication of that sentence is that supporting baby killin’ is the/a determinate of whether I’m a liberal.
I don’t know that I’d go that far, but certainly implies that you’re excluded from being conservative.
In any case, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that even Morris doesn’t believe what he types.
Finally, I can’t believe that things have gotten so low that you’ve resorted to insulting NAMBLA…
Comment 6/6/2008
Now, now guys. Let’s be accurate. While I have read several times that Morris has a predilection for the molestation of children, I have seen no evidence he is exclusively homosexual in his practice.
Comment 6/6/2008
You have gone about as low as you can go. What a bunch of lowlife lying jerks you are. Great uplifting, intelligent, serious blog you have here. It certainly speaks volumns about liberals. Keep up the good work.
Comment 6/6/2008
I agree. I don’t think any self-respecting evangelical should hang around such a corrupt place. But you continue to choose to do so. Why is that I wonder? Because you contribute serious, uplifting, intelligent content to the blog? No, that’s not it.
Comment 6/6/2008
Ted, don’t forget that he’s not just hanging around here, he’s gone to the effort of circuventing through fraud measures set in place to get rid of his pitiful yammering.
What I do wonder if whether he even notices when he equivocates. For instance, at #15, he agrues that “p->q” is not “p=q”. Of course, this is after having been quoted as claiming “p->q; q->p”, which is “p=q”. (And Digg, that does mean that it’s the sole determinant.) It really makes you wonder how much effort he needs to put in to hiding his own falsehoods from himself.
Comment 6/6/2008
Good point.
Comment 6/6/2008
In post #10, Mo says “Conservatives don’t believe in killing babies. Liberals do.”
Mo has also adamantly refused to accept the notion that “conservative” and “liberal” might fail to encompass all the possible sets of political beliefs one may hold.
Morris used my penchant for baby killing (c’mon, they’re annoying and messy) to claim that I was a liberal. I was like, “oh no you didn’t, I ain’t no liberal.” And he was like, “yeah, you is, you be all down wit baby killin’ and shit.”
Certainly in Mo’s mind being pro-choice has determinate power to classify one as a liberal. It is presumably not the only belief that does so though. That’s why I said determinate and sole determinate is an artificial distinction in terms of this convo. Now, if you’ll excuse me I gotta reload and make my way to Brad and Angelina’s.
Comment 6/9/2008