Run time: 04:58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snnXb5MZoFI
Posted on YouTube: April 19, 2011
By YouTube Member: MidweekPolitics
Views on YouTube: 489
Posted on DU: April 21, 2011
By DU Member: celtics23
Views on DU: 1089 |
From: www.davidpakman.com | Subscription: www.davidpakman.com/membership | YouTube: www.youtube.com/midweekpolitics
David: Well, by the way, this is a good segue, now the Republicans are starting to go after sexual health and the pill, and the-- and contraceptives. The battle is just starting on this. We're transitioning from abortion, and I know, Louis, you're very concerned about this, we're transitioning from abortion to issues of contraception and sexual health in an absurdly conservative way. If you think the Planned Parenthood battle was bad, just wait. This worries you, right, Louis?
Louis: Of course, yeah.
David: Yeah. The war on contraception and general sexual health care is just getting started. Liberals need to be ready for the fact that contraception access and funding is now also going to be called into question by Republicans. A lot of the budget talk, you need to know this to get an idea of why... what's going on, a lot of the abortion funding talk with the budget over the last couple of weeks was not really about funding for abortion, because the funds in dispute could not actually be used for abortions. This fact seems to be lost on many. It really was money for STD testing, mostly STD testing, birth control, cancer screenings, 97% of what Planned Parenthood does is not abortion.
And now we are starting to see anti-contraception sentiment becoming mainstream in the Republican Party despite the fact, I know it, Richard Nixon and George Bush played a huge role in supporting expansion of access to contraceptives. Now, we have to remember, they did it for population control, not for pro-feminist reasons, but hey, they did it nonetheless, right? I don't know if the-- if the ends... if the ends are good, if the means matter.
Republicans we know have been all over the issue of abortion, but they've been silent, really, on the contraception topic, and it's politically savvy to stay silent because 99% of sexually active women have used contraception, so why would you want to be very active against that? But suddenly you have Rush Limbaugh, lover of Viagra and serial marriage, agreeing that the only form of birth control he finds acceptable is closing your legs. Glenn Beck tried to drive a point home by claiming only people... the only people who defend Planned Parenthood are "hookers". Contraception is going to come up as a big issue here, Louis, no question about it.
Louis: And these are the types of issues that they should be avoiding. I think this is why people are...
David: Abort? They should be aborting these issues?
Louis: Avoiding.
David: Oh.
Louis: I didn't say aborting.
David: I thought you had a Freudian slip there.
Louis: No, no, no. Did I? No, no. No way.
David: I mean, Health and Human Services is going to release new guidelines on women's health care in August, so there's actually going to be a formal list. We're going to have to see a list, Louis, of which preventative health care services have to be covered in full by insurers. Now, obviously common sense indicates that preventing unintended pregnancies is the very definition of preventative care. It's the definition, that's what it is.
Louis: Preventive care.
David: Yes. And anti-choice groups are gearing up to fight the possibility that contraception makes the list of covered services. Why would anyone fight that? Why? It's an opportunity for Republicans to grandstand on health care, grandstand on health care reform, all under the specter of hey, your dollars can't go to someone's erotic, immoral lifestyle, so let's not fund contraception.
Louis: I think this can only be a bad thing. I mean, when someone brings this up in a debate against a Republican and says why aren't you focusing on our budget, why aren't you focusing on our deficit?
David: Well, they would say we are. Your money is going to fund a...
Louis: Yeah. We're talking about a pretty negligible amount of money in the grand scheme of things.
David: The NPR funding was negligible in the grand scheme of things, that didn't stop Republicans from completely losing their heads over it.
Louis: But that needs... it needs to be brought up that the amount of money we're talking about is negligible.
David: I agree with you. It's very hard to get past the corporate media spin, though.
Louis: Very true.
David: The story that's told there is of do we need to be funding public broadcasting like the crazy Communists in Britain, or do we need to not be doing that? When we could be saying you know what? Let's close one of our 50 bases in Germany and we'll cover that cost. Let's close two and we could open up a whole brand new series of public broadcasting outlets. Oh, but those would be Communist, too. They would allow Communist, socialist, Marxist, Muslim, Kenyan, Indonesian, Hawaiian, Native American Obama to go on there and talk about how he wants a Communist economy and to be picking people's jobs for them and having everybody earn the same amount of money. That's what it would turn to, that's the sad thing.
Louis: I think you're right.
David: It's a sad commentary.
Louis: It is.
Transcript provided by Alex Wickersham and www.Subscriptorium.com. For transcripts, translations, captions, and subtitles, or for more information, visit www.Subscriptorium.com, or contact Alex at subscriptorium@gmail.com.