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kalikshama -> RE: Nope, there is no GOP "war on women". (3/14/2012 4:45:02 PM)
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Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood President: Mitt Romney's Plan To 'Get Rid Of' Us Won't Balance Budget
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that she was traveling in Texas Tuesday when she read about Mitt Romney's promise to "get rid of" Planned Parenthood in order to cut the deficit.
"I was really stunned to read that Mitt Romney has now said he wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood, because really what that means is he wants to get rid of preventative health care for 3 million folks every year," Richards told reporters on Wednesday.
"It shows an extraordinary lack of understanding of family planning and the budget to say one of the ways he's going save money in this country is by ending birth control and family planning," she added. "The most conservative economist will tell you that family planning saves money. It saves taxpayers money. It's ludicrous to think that Mitt Romney, who is running for president of the United States, thinks we're going to balance the budget by ending birth control access in this country."
Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney has previously expressed his opposition to the federal funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest family planning provider, and his opposition to the Title X federal family planning program, but his comments on Tuesday made it sound like he wanted to axe the provider altogether.
"Of course you get rid of Obamacare, that's the easy one, but there are others," Romney told a reporter in Missouri when asked how to balance the budget. "Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that."
For Romney to now say that he wants to "get rid" of Planned Parenthood seems to contradict his prior positions, when he sought Planned Parenthood's endorsement during his run for governor, attended a fundraiser for the family planning provider and filled out a survey in which he said he supported state-funded abortions for low-income women.
Planned Parenthood has become a lightning rod for political controversy over the fact that some of its clinics provide abortions. But it also provides affordable contraception, STD testing, cancer screenings and maternity care to millions of low-income, uninsured and medically underserved men and women across the country, and all of the federal money it receives go to health services that are not related to abortion.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/14/cecile-richards-mitt-romney-planned-parenthood_n_1345479.html?ref=topbar
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