We have just learned that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) is expected to attack Planned Parenthood. He will offer an amendment to the Appropriations Act this afternoon that would block Planned Parenthood health centers from receiving federal funds from Title X, the nation’s family planning program.
The Title X program enables family planning health centers to provide basic health care, such as birth control, breast exams and Pap tests for early detection of cancer, blood pressure testing, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, HIV screening, and adoption referrals. Vitter's attack on Planned Parenthood is an anti-choice tactic to prevent women from accessing abortion, but Title X funds cannot be used to provide abortion services — in fact, a main goal of the Title X program is to prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.
There is a health care crisis in this country, and this amendment would make it more difficult for women, men, teens, and families to get the services they need. US News recently reported that more and more women are turning to Planned Parenthood health centers in these difficult economic times, and for many other low-income women, men, and teens, Planned Parenthood is their primary source of health care. Attacking the nation's leading reproductive health care provider and many people’s only option for medical care is unconscionable.
We need you to call your senators and tell them to stand up and oppose the Vitter amendment.
The Appropriations bill is being voted on this afternoon, so we need you to call today . Ask your senators to speak out on the floor and oppose Sen. David Vitter’s Amendment No. 601 to the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R.1105).
Don’t know who your senators are, or what their office telephone numbers are?
It’s easy to look them up .
Calling your senators is easy (promise!) You can just tell whomever answers the phone:
Planned Parenthood’s health center is my community’s women’s health center, and I oppose Sen. David Vitter’s Amendment No. 601 to the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R.1105). It is an unconstitutional, completely unfounded attack.
Stand with Planned Parenthood and the millions of women, men, and teens who count on us. Call your senators and tell them to oppose the Vitter Amendment today!
Thanks so much for all you do,
Planned Parenthood Action Fund
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I could use some help from NY people on this. I called Gillibrand's staff and told her staffer what was going on. She didn't express a position. I said that representing the people of New York meant representing a strong majority who strongly support a woman's right to choose and who will have no tolerance for Senator Vitter's hypocritical attempt to cut off Title X funds for PP just because they also provide abortion services with other funds. She reminded me that Senator Gillibrand is historically pro-choice.
People, if you're in NY, please take the time to call Gillibrand, who is brand new to the Senate and used to representing a socially conservative district upstate. I think she needs to know where her feminist consistuents stand.
202-224-4451
Also, remember that Vitter is the clown who was in the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey's black book, though he runs as a "family values" conservative. What a fucking slime.
I called Gillibrand too. The man who answered said he hasn't had a chance to speak to her about it yet. I gave him an earful. I did tell him that I wasn't going to get into the idea of a man who pays women to diaper him dictating morality to me, but really, how can you open any conversation about Vitter's moralizing without mentioning that?
What kind of world do we live in? A world in which even Mark Twain couldn't make this shit up.
I just called my senators (if you can call Roland Burris a senator - I got a recording). It WAS easy.
I might have heard about this to late to call, but there's a great post at RH reality check about Vitter's hypocrisy. I emailed it to my husband (and posted it on facebook), because I've used PP services in the past and got the pill from them until we recently decided to try and have a baby. So he'll know as soon as he reads it that this affects not just me, but him as well.
Thanks for the heads up and I hope I'm not too late. I will call both my senators (Oregon).
I live in Oklahoma. Both my Senators are anti-choice fuckwits. No help there.
This jackass? Seriously?
The numbnuts was just recently caught up in the DC madame scandal, so he's quite comfortable with having non-reproductive sex, apparently, as long as he's paying $500/hr for it. (The Senator, of course, is married, so his wife may strongly disagree).
And, of course, the cheating, misogynistic bastard has the audacity to support a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.
I guess my point is... "fuck Vitter."
As a woman who's been unemployed for months and has lowered my standards to house cleaning, canvassing in the rain and jobs less than my dream, seeing more and more job posts on Craigslist in Washington State just like this Maine one, it makes me furious! Is it just the summer up north that make bikini and pastie coffee shops and car washes (which require full body pics to apply)so appealing? No one wants to be sprayed with boiling coffee or oogled at by trogladytes... but in this economy women will debase bedroom furniture themselves for good tips. It is not empowering to have managers judge prospective employers on age, weight and cup size.