PP needs to go the way of ACORN it seems that it has allowed some of its locations to be cesspools of corruption and criminal activities. Just like ACORN. When an organization gets to this point,in general, can no longer be fixed.

I think it's worth while to take a look at some of the Middle-Eastern peoples and nations and their take to this problem.

Arabic English Dictionary

Congress must repeal the TAX EXAMPT law so these groups speaking out on political matters that claim TAX EXAMPT can truly have their full freedom of speech and PAY TAXES like the rest of America.

My question: why do Catholic charities support illegal aliens? Isn't that encouraging and enabling law-breakers?

Why not let the church raise its own money to help -- we'll say Mexicans, because the majority of illegals are Mexican -- in Mexico. If the church teaches compassion and encourages sin, it has failed. And illegal immigration is sin -- stealing and robbing, in stealth. That's why illegals sneak in, that's why illegals steal identities, that's why illegals defraud welfare services. They hide because they know they are wrong. And for the church to encourage this disregard of federal and state laws is wrong.

Take YOUR money to MEXICO and teach the Mexicans how to make their nation, and their quality of life, better. Don't be a hypocrite and talk religion out of one side of your mouth, and O, poor "immigrants" out of the other -- and wreck our country in the process.

Stevie7,

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html
January 2008

Might want to look up the side-effects of injectionable, implants or patch birth control agents/methods before promoting their use.

The failures of the widely used birth "control" methods i.e. the pill and male condom have led to the large rate of abortions and STDs in the USA. Men and women must either recognize their responsibilities by using the pill or condoms properly and/or USE OTHER methods in order to reduce the epidemics of abortion and STDs.

"FIRST YEAR CONTRACEPTIVE FAILURE RATES

Method Perfect use Typical use
Pill (combined) 0.3 8.7
Tubal sterilization 0.5 0.7
Male condom 2.0 17.4
Vasectomy 0.1 0.2
Three-month injectable 0.3 6.7
Withdrawal 4.0 18.4
IUD (Copper-T) 0.6 1.0
IUD (Mirena) 0.1 0.1
Periodic abstinence - 25.3
Calendar 9.0 -
Ovulation method 3.0 -
Symptothermal 2.0 -
Post-ovulation 1.0 -
One-month injectable 0.05 3.0
Implant 0.05 1.0
Patch 0.3 8.0
Diaphragm 6.0 16.0
Sponge
Women who have had a child 20.0 32.0
Women who have never had a child 9.0 16.0
Cervical cap
Women who have had a child 26.0 32.0
Women who have never had a child 9.0 16.0
Female condom 5.0 27.0
Spermicides 18.0 29.0
No method 85.0 85.0"

The Catholic Church and it's Vatican-sponsored anti-birth control policies is a monumental threat to poor and third world countries in particular, but is by no means restricted to less affluent nations.

Mother Teresa carried the Church's anti-abortion, anti-birth control crusade to the incredible squalor of Calcutta, where population control was and is of paramount importance. For this, she will no doubt be sainted. Unfortunately, Margaret Sanger has not been similarly nominated for her work in this country.

Undermining Planned Parenthood through the auspices of republican lackies in congress who are inadvertantly kowtowing to Rome, must be quite thrilling moment.

Indeed, the long arm of Vatican City has significant political impact right here in the USA, with their blatant attempts to control a woman's independent decision-making with regard to reproductive rights, via the elimination of pro-choice laws that have been in effect since 1973.

It's not only the fundamentalist Muslims that are seeking to control the world - they have a worthy and ancient competitor much closer at hand. Catholic does mean universal, after all.....

"How do we know that today's law that gives government the power to take away an agency's freedom to spend its own money will never be used against the Catholic Church? "

Money is fungible. If Planned Parenthood uses tax-funded grants to pay for postage stamps and web sites, that is money they don't need to allocate from other sources that is now free to pay for abortions. There is no way that this law can be construed to say what Arroyo mendaciosuly claims. The law dows not tell Planned Parenthood how to spend its private money. It says rather, that if Planned Parenthood is going to continue to spend money on abortions, it will have only its private money to spend as freely as it wants.

It must be mentioned for the obtuse among us, that the US Government is under no obligation to give any organization not part of the government any money at all.

The US does have a high infant mortality rate. Few other developed countries count miscarriages, babies under certain weights etc toward their infant mortality rates. America's prenatal and neonatal technology allow more premies to survive than in other countries, who don't factor their preterm infant deaths into their mortality rates. Figures lie and liars figure.

I'm trying to understand this article -- if Congress cuts funding to one group for one reason, that's the same thing as cutting funding to another group for a totally separate reason, therefore everything has to be funded, or a religion has been established? It would be fine with me if neither PP or CC received any of my tax money, but the principle of equal protection of the laws does not mean that Congress has to give the same amount of money to every group that sticks its hand out.
Further, the author's defense of rules forcing religious groups to place children in same-sex households is just totally incoherent -- if you support judging one charity on moral grounds, why can't conservatives do the same for PP?

mascmen7, that sounds like a freshly brewed pot of crazy you just cooked up. Arroyo is opposed to abortion, and regardless of what you say, is a Catholic. This may be news to you too, but President Obama actually was born in this country.

I am speaking as an 82 year-old Professor emeritus (University of Houston) who devoted 30 years research/teaching (FSU, Univ. Miami, Woods Hole MBL, Tulane's Delta Regional Primate Center, and UH). I served on NICHD and Population Research Site Visit Committees, and as an ad hoc member of NICHD Study Section. I was a participant in National and International Meetings and Symposia on Reproduction, Fertilization (+ 3 Gordon Conferences), Spermatogenesis and Sperm Motility. About 9 years of my research was funded by grants from the NICHD and the Center for Population Research. My 63 scientific publications were subjected to peer review, and I also reviewed several articles (and a few books) submitted by my peers to various journals.
PLEASE FORGIVE THE DELUGE What Appears to be Horn Blowing!

I included it to underscore that the Greatest Threat to a PEACEFUL future for Civilization and obtaining Scientific progress that "might" restore a Balance between the human population and the environment - - - is the EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF THE HUMAN POPULATION.
Programs that attempt to address that REAL threat (Family Planning) should receive absolutely HIGHEST Priority in Funding and support.
Please UNDERSTAND that Opposition to Family Planning has NO scientific basis. It comes ENTIRELY from outdated and unfounded religious Dogma.
Those are FACTS, Unfortunately for our Future!

I am surprised that most of the readers including the author of this article does not know the history of Planned Parenthood and the Nazi roots!

"At issue is whether a corporation like Planned Parenthood can receive government funding for some services and still spend privately raised money on others."

The real issue is why, in a democratic society, private citizens should have any say -- beyond the statement they can make in the voting booth -- in the funding of non-profit organizations that are performing legal activities in a legal manner.

If I can't choose to withhold my tax dollars from the funding of wars I think are immoral or religious groups I think are immoral, then Catholics, evangelicals, and all of the other anti-abortion factions should not be able to choose to withhold their tax dollars from organizations that are performing activities they think are immoral.

Why do these people's consciences matter more than mine? We see morality in different ways, but the government shouldn't be making choices about which citizen concerns merit action and which don't.

When an activity is officially deemed legal in this country, no citizens should be able to withhold their tax dollars from funding it.

So who in their right mind admits to being a Roman Cahtolic these days? The protection of Catholic child molesters from law enforcement investigation and prosecution by RCC heirarchy leaves this institution completely morally bankrupt.

It's so cute when the Catholic Church pretends like it has some moral authority!

Arroyo is not a Catholic as he knows all tax money given to Planned Parenthood for mammograms can be used to fund abortions. Arroyo is hired as a Catholic by a Jewish owned newspaper to fool Catholics into adopting the Liberal Jewish agenda of free love, abortion, divorce, contraception etc.

chatard says, "You're not a Catholic, Arroyo. You're a left-wing Democrat operative".

Assuming that Mr. Arroyo were a left-wing democrat operative, whatever that is, how is that an alternative to being catholic? It's like saying, "you're not a state citizen. You're a teacher." One thing has nothing to do with the other.

You're not a Catholic, Arroyo. You're a left-wing Democrat operative.

Re: Margaret Sanger. Silly me, I always thought that she wanted birth control for women because "Her mother had 18 pregnancies, bore 11 children, and died in 1899 at the age of 40. Working as a nurse with immigrant families on New York's Lower East Side, Sanger witnesses the sickness, misery, and death that result from unwanted pregnancy and illegal abortion." At the time there weren't even that many blacks in NYC- she was helping immigrant and poor women, not trying to kill off blacks.

Quoting from another article; "abstinence makes the church grow fondlers".
Comparee "GDP" of catholic church to "GDP" of PP: who has a more vested interest in the status quo, medieval-based ideology.

Papafritz571, I couldn't have said it better myself!

I have been a non practicing Catholic for 40yrs and believe in birth control. I was never so digusted with the Catholic Church then I was after the earthquake in Haiti and learned that 85% of the population in this terribly poor country were Catholics and that before the earthquake there were over 250,000 orphans there and more today. If there ever was need for birth control in a country it is in Haiti yet the CC has such control that this country and their people will never ever have a chance without controlling their population and for a church not to see that and still leaving it up to "God's will" to me is sinning. I guess to the Catholic Church it is more important to have starving children on the street than to say it's okay to use birth control. I'm sorry that is just evil.

This column is why I read the Post; nuanced, smart, compassionate and I learned something new. Many thanks!

The one thing I never hear about is why Margaret Sanger created Planned Parenthood; it was to eliminate blacks, which she thought were inferior. Since black women have aborted so many of their babies, it seems that Sanger got what she wanted.

Who pays the bills? How many people can earth feed? Why do groups that pay no tax want to speak out on political issues? Cannot people think and make their own choice? Why are these that speak at the pulpit never questioned? Think.

"What is to prevent the Republican foes of immigration reform from cutting off all funding for Catholic Charities by using the same logic that attacked Planned Parenthood?"

Excellent point. The vote to cut Planned Parenthood funding was really a victory for fundamentalist opposition to abortion, not Catholic opposition. For both feminists and fundamentalists, the abortion debate is largely a proxy for a debate about the role of women in society, with the latter defending what amounts to male privilege. (The debate should really be about whether abortion should be legal or illegal, not about whether it's wrong, because the latter question is outside the realm of government.) In contrast to the fundamentalist position on abortion, the Catholic position has a theological basis, and I can respect its internal logic even while disagreeing with the theology. More to the point, that theology doesn't fit into the fundamentalist framing of the abortion issue, since fundamentalism is a type of absolutism. I've heard anecdotes about fundamentalists upbraiding Catholics for being insufficiently militant on abortion and even for being insufficiently Catholic on the issue.

The church needs to get out of people's private lives. Religion does more harm than good.

@Yeal9 - I noticed that you didn't post any references for your contraceptive effectiveness list. I notice that you also left out injectibles, which typically have a failure rate of about 1%.

Here's data from the university of Arizona with some drastically different numbers:
Abstinence*** No intercourse or genital contact 100%
The Pill* Inhibits ovulation 97-99.5%
Ortho Evra Patch* Inhibits ovulation (worn 3 out of 4 weeks) >99%
Depo-Provera* Inhibits ovulation (injected every 3 months) 99.7%
Nuva Ring Inhibits ovulation (worn on cervix) 98-99%
Diaphragm & Jelly** Physical and chemical barrier 82-94%
Cervical Cap** Physical barrier placed over cervix 82-91%
Condom*** Physical barrier placed over penis 88-98%
Female condom *** Physical barrier lines vagina 79-95%
Withdrawal * Remove penis before ejaculation 81-96%
IUD* Uterine device interferes with implantation 98-99%
Fertility Awareness* Periodic abstinence 70-95%
Sterilization* Fallopian Tubes cut/Egg cannot join sperm 98-99%
Emergency Contraception* May delay ovulation if taken w/in 72 hrs 75%

I also see lots of misinformation out there today - PP does not receive any federal funds for abortion. Abortions only comprise 3% of their total services, so I fail to see how its generating huge profits. Not to mention that its a 501 (c)(3)

If it is no longer okay to "put money any longer into two separate piles", then Catholic schools in those states which provide for books/bus transportation/surplus commodities or subsidies for milk, etc. can make the same argument about the funds not being involved in teaching religion. It cuts both ways.

The Roman Catholics have a program that works. Population is being controlled by ignorance, disease and starvation. If a raped 10 year old girl is dying, let her die. That way she can't testify against her rapist. If a female of any age will die if the pregnancy continues, the Catholics know that this will reduce population.
The Catholic Church has been ripped because of the abusive homosexual priests. How many nuns have been taking care of the sexual needs of priests? This is the elephant in the room.

The more the unGodly churches try to do to us women, the more we will stay away from them. Planned Parenthood gets a tiny amount of money from the federal government for abortions and everyone knows that. But the hate-filled men who want control over our lives continue to lie. They take no responsibility for their dirty actions getting women pregnant and the unGodly churches have failed to do anything to them.
I'll believe they have an ounce of soul when they make all men subject to felony charges for having sex outside the bonds of marriage. Put your money where you lying mouths are.
These lousy people have always and continue to put the burdens of childbearing on the backs of women, who suffer the birth, subject themselves to possibly dying, bear the cost and burden of raising the child and suffer the shame of abortion. And the rotten men get to walk away and the churches say nothing. The women is dirt and the man isn't even mentioned.
Trashing Planned Parenthood which has done outstanding work for the health the reproductive lives of womens, is just another tactic used by the
unGodly liars who want women to continue to suffer and be ostracized. Stay the hell out of our wombs and worry about where you drop your seed and who you left holding the burden.

The Feds put strings on all the money they dole out to the states and any organization. Set your speed limit to 565 or we'll take away your transportation funds. etc. etc. This is nothing new. Now we have Republicans in charge and they don't like the abortion mill business that Federal funds enable PP to run. Quit whining because you just don't like what the Republicans choose to do.

So, by this logic we have to fund everything??? That's why we have representatives, so that they can hash this stuff out and take the praise or blame in the next election.

I'm glad they voted to strip Planned Parenthood of their tax-payer funds. The most dangerous place for an unborn child is in a PP clinic. They don't need my tax dollars to make a profit, and they make a good one, off of abortions.

Why does this guy get to represent "Catholic America" He seems to be against church teaching on almost all issues.

How about Catholic support for "Sharia Law?"
Would that pass your muster. Next you'll be advocating that The "Angelic Order of Heaven". join with the "Satans" to save on double rent.

Never, never, bargain with the Devil. Have you forgotten, "..Lie down with dogs; get up with fleas."

Why no one should support Planned Parenthood:

From the Guttmacher Institute:

FIRST-YEAR CON-TRACEPTIVE FAILURE RATES

Percentage of women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy

Method Typical

Pill (combined) 8.7
Tubal sterilization 0.7
Male condom 17.4
Vasectomy 0.2

Periodic abstinence 25.3
Calendar 9.0
Ovulation Method 3.0
Sympto-thermal 2.0
Post-ovulation 1.0

No method 85.0"

(Abstinence) 0

(Masturbation) 0

The failure of the Pill as noted above results in one million unplanned pregnancies every year because women basically fail to take it once a day as prescribed. Is there a literacy problem that Planned Parenthood failed to recognize?

The failure of the male condom results in another one million unplanned pregnancies every year basically because many men, as per Guttmacher, fail to use them even though they have them in their pockets or billfolds.

Then there are these additional facts:

from the CDC-2006

"Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain a major public health challenge in the United States. While substantial progress has been made in preventing, diagnosing, and treating certain S-TDs in recent years, CDC estimates that approximately 19 million new infections occur each year, almost half of them among young people ages 15 to 24.1 In addition to the physical and psychological consequences of STDs, these diseases also exact a tremendous economic toll. Direct medical costs as-sociated with STDs in the United States are estimated at up to $14.7 billion annually in 2006 dollars."

and

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/20/yes-oral-sex-is-sex-and-it-can-boost-cancer-risk/?npt=NP1

"Yes, oral sex is sex, and it can boost cancer risk-

Here's a crucial message for teens: Oral sex carries many of the same risks as vaginal sex, including human papilloma virus, or HPV. And HPV may now be overtaking tobacco as the leading cause of oral cancers in America in people under age 50.

"Adolescents don’t think oral sex is something to worry about," said Bonnie Halpern-Felsher professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. "They view it as a way to have intimacy without having 'sex.'"

Obviously, Planned Parenthood, parents, sexually active couples and the educational system have failed miserably on many fronts.