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I hate the fact that issues of defunding and abortion are prevalent, that they take over all other topics that should be our main focus or concern. But with GOP lawmakers in state after state, Indiana, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas, defunding Planned Parenthood in their 2011 legislative sessions and those in states like New Hampshire, Texas, or Ohio planning similar measures, there is simply no way around it. Republicans always take the same path: First they claim that there is a need to defund Planned Parenthood over 3% abortion services with the weak argument that federal dollars are going to abortion services. Next, they make it almost impossible for clinics to get licensing. Now, we have come to a phase where they deny PPs ability to dispense birth control and antibiotic­s. But this is serious stuff and women, especially lower-income women, need the support primarily for their personal health and not because they are “anti-life”. (more…)

photo © 2006 Tim Mansfield | more info (via: Wylio)I have written about the fact that states such as Texas, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire have recently moved to disallow the use of state Medicaid funds for abortions. Indiana is the hub of all this legislative activity since it attracted the ire of the Obama administration in its decision to strip taxpayer funding for abortions within its Medicaid program. President Obama’s administration has threatend to hold back billions of Medicaid funding to the state of Indiana if it doesn’t continue to fund Planned Parenthood, the premiere family planning/abortion provider in the United States. (more…)