Keith and I went to a cocktail party last week for Planned Parenthood donors. The guest of honor at this little fancy shindig was none other than Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood. I was really looking forward to hearing her speak and was a bit disappointed when she started shilling for Obama - not because I want McCain's camp to win, but because I am so tired of women's health issues being polarizing and politicized. To tie PP fundraising with the Obama campaign dilutes the message that this is about women's health, plain and simple. It shouldn't be a question of liberalism over conservativism; rather, it should be a question of humanism.
Yes it SHOULD be but if "they" can politicize medical research (stem cell, cloning, etc.) or gay marriage or the death penalty then they'll certainly politicize woman's health. Just sayin.
I don't see how the two can be separated. Obama will bolster women's right to choose and push for rational sex ed and women's health policies while McCain/Palin will do everything they can to take us backwards in terms of all of these things.
Planned Parenthood is primarily a health care provider; while the national organization does perform some advocacy work, the (for lack of a better term) "field offices" perform the day-to-day services that keep women (and men) healthy and informed. Regardless of who is elected, they will need funding from both government and the private sector in order to keep their doors open. My concern here is that tying PP to the Obama campaign this strongly will alienate conservatives who would otherwise have donated to PP in order to support a more palatable agenda of women's health care. As it is, I feel like any money donated to PP for the next six weeks is going to be, essentially, a donation to Obama's camp.
I just don't see conservatives as a big PP donor base to begin with, so there doesn't seem to be too much danger in alienating them, and if McCain/Palin are elected, you can say bye bye to government funding for the likes of PP, so rooting for Obama seems like a pretty solid fundraising strategy. but maybe I'm thinking too simplistically...
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Just sayin.
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