North Country loses funding for teen pregnancy/ parenting program
The Watertown Daily Times is reporting that Planned Parenthood of the North Country New York recently lost $95,000 in Teenage Services Act funding from the state. That means the program to assist pregnant and parenting teenagers has been eliminated.
The newspaper quotes Martha Stahl, vice president of external affairs at NC Planned Parenthood, as saying the cut would help the state reduce Medicaid costs. Pregnant or parenting teenagers had to be eligible to receive Medicaid to participate in the program.
“For us, these programs were pretty self-supporting, and it was very successful, but that was the only funding to support it,” Stahl tells the Watertown Times. “It was a Medicaid program, and we could bill Medicaid for that.”
There is no longer a specific Planned Parenthood program for pregnant and parenting teenagers in the North Country, but the newspaper reports that some participants of the Teenage Services Act program have qualified to transfer to the agency’s Community Health Worker Program.
What do you think – is it a good idea to cut money for teen pregnancy and parenting programs, to save money on Medicaid?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPF1FhCMPuQ
Gianna Jessen is one of many abortion survivors. It’s harder to kill someone who is around to talk about it.
Some here think it’s ok, as long as you get to kill them before they are born.
Tell Gianna whether or not you think she is just a piece of flotsam or jetsam.
Well sure, but you could make a similar case about contraception– think of all of those people you have kept from existing by using birth control. Back in the day, ten children per couple was common. If you’ve got the now-normal two or three kids, there are seven or eight human being that you prevented from having a life.
No, Walker. This living, breathing person existed in a way that many say is not alive and was actively aborted. Big difference.
This person was obviously a person before, during, and now, after being aborted.
It takes away the argument that you are aborting something less than a human being when, one who was aborted, is alive to tell you that they are a person.
Knuckle, I know it is fascinating the amount of fervor this topic brings on both sides.
Look at the story right before this one, that poor kid from Potsdam murdered; yet not one comment. I mean we are all saying we care about life yet we are not thinking about him and his poor family we are arguing about rights and laws and so forth. It is not about rights and laws I think it should be about our hearts.
That’s a really, really strange story. I have never, ever heard of an abortion at seven and a half months.
Tell you what. I agree, without reservation, that abortions shouldn’t be performed for any reason other than to save the life of the mother after six months. I would be willing to bet Mitt Romney’s $10,000 that that would prevent very few abortions.
Incidentally, the Wikipedia article on abortion starts by defining abortion as “the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo _prior to viability_.”
Something is very very odd about the Gianna Jessen story!
There are others that survived abortions. There are abortions happening right up to the day before birth especially in china where there is a one child policy and you must have a license to bring that one into the world. This is happening! 30,000 a day women are dragged out of their homes forced abortions and forced sterilization. The reason why prolifers are so passionate is because the unborn have no voice of their own. We must look after our littlest brothers and sisters in the womb. The culture of death is everywhere in our world. We can all be passionate about changing this culture to a culture of life. We can all do something to change it for the better.
NLB, I’m sorry, but I’m most interested in what goes on in this country, where I have some hope of influencing what laws apply. In California, where Gianna Jessen’s abortion is supposed to have happened 35 years ago, third trimester abortions are currently illegal. I have no idea what the law was in 1977, but it would seem very odd to me if Planned Parenthood performed an abortion on a seven-plus months pregnant woman. I have no doubt that Jessen believes the story, but it is worth noting that her source is her adoptive mother, who was an anti-abortion crusader who kept fetuses in formaldehyde around the house. (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/27/us/in-debate-on-abortion-2-girls-make-it-real.html?scp=1&sq=Gianna%20Jessen&st=cse&pagewanted=2 )
In any case, it matters less how it happened than what the law is in the U.S. today. Is anyone aware of any state where third trimester abortions are legal in the absence of a threat to the mother’s life?
Mervel, the reason we’re not exercised about the poor kid from Potsdam is that murder is illegal. Everywhere. People _will_ break the law.
I haven’t met a prochioicer(I’m sorry Walker do you consider yourself prochiice?) yet that can do their own research. Google third trimester abortion clinics and this is what I got:
http://www.google.com/m/search?oe=UTF-8&client=ms-rim&channel=browser&hl=en&q=third+trimester+abortion+clinics&ei=vcktT9DbOomZyAHtzQE&ved=0CDkQ1QIoAA
And I’ve yet to meet a fundie that can interpret their so-called research. Try looking up the definition of a therapeutic abortion. The life of the mother means next to nothing to you so-called pro-lifers.
Well, I confess that I am surprised. According to this site (http://realchoice.blogspot.com/2008/10/third-trimester-abortions-and-law.html ) ten states place no restrictions on post-viability abortions. A commenter there states that “In 2002, 1.4 percent of abortions were performed on fetuses older than 20 weeks gestational age” so although some of the language at that site rather snarkily suggests that the restrictions that states have in place are easily circumvented, in fact they are not being performed much. I would be interested to see figures on how many post-viability abortions are performed annually in the U.S. for reasons other than the mother’s health.
And for the record, I would support legislation that would prohibit such abortions.
@pnelba
“The life of the mother means nothing….”
I have listened to many mothers who mourn the loss of their aborted children, mothers who can’t have any more children due to the physical affect of their abortion, mothers who have have tried to commit suicide after having their child killed from an abortion and they could not bear to live with themselves, mothers who were addicted to drugs alcohol self abuse spousal abuse because of their abortion, mothers who can’t have a normal relationship with their other children. Don’t tell me I don’t care about the mother. Do you care about the mothers?
Well I have known five women who had abortions. One had some regrets, and went on to have three children. The other four were very happy with their choice. It is disingenuous of anti-choice people to suggest that heartache and pain are the inevitable consequence of abortion. It is not true.
I am pro-choice and yet I have 2 children and no aborted fetuses.
Walker
I never said it is an inevitable consequence of abortion. I know of many women that have long lasting affects from their abortion. Everybody is different I respect that. There are men to that regret lost fatherhood. It is a heartbreaking story. I feel bad for those that are hurting but there is hope and healing programs out there. Especially when a person is drawn to a relationship with God they have a strong desire to be whole again and Jesus is their answer. There are programs for all people where they are at.
But Walker the Wing story is real, this debate is not real. Its just us talking with no one changing their mind. I don’t know; in some ways the abortion movement both pro and con, has become a cult. It is not that meaningful.
Abortion IS meaningful but the debate that surrounds it is not.
Walker,
Guttmacher Institute estimated the number of abortions in the USA done past 24 weeks to be 0.08% or about 1,032 per year.
CDC also keeps track of abortions in the USA. See table 8 for abortions by weeks of gestation. Sorry about the poor pro-choicer research.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6015a1.htm?s_cid=ss6015a1_w#Tab8
thanks for the research PNelba. half a million a year and new york is the abortion capital of our country. this data nauseates me. America has innocent blood on their hands and I am afraid will be held accountable.
Thanks, PNE, but of that 1,032, how many were done to save the life of the mother? I would imagine it was the vast majority. I really doubt that there are significant numbers of third trimester abortions done because a woman makes a late decision that she doesn’t want the child. It just doesn’t make sense, either medically or from the woman’s point of view.
NLB, I would worry more about being held accountable for our failure to minister to the poor in their tens of millions.
I’m still worrying about the War Crimes that have been/are being perpetrated in our name. Hundreds of thousands of living, breathing innocent people. And then there is the waterboarding and other methods of torture – torture of living, breathing people.
Surely Jesus would have been opposed to the random slaughter of innocents in a war zone?
I will not sway from the urgent call of the unborn. Nor stop reaching out to the men and women hurt from abortion. I do not want to see any more women or babies suffer from a bad choice. You are missing the magniture and evilness of this heinous crime. Just because the SC says it is legal doesn’t give us cart blanche to accept or follow down the path of darkness. Look at abortion in its face go to abort73 they have pictures go to priests for life they have pictures go to silent no more to watch-read testimonies of these courageous damaged and now healed warriors of the abortion war and then go see pictures of the developing child in its most safest place in the world the womb and then tell yourself that nothing else matters in the world except ending this holocaust. Our country is on the brink of an awakening so immense you will not comprehend it. May God have mercy on us!
I’m sorry, but this sounds like monomania.
NLB,
Go to your church and convince 100% of your god-fearing, “family-values” Christian congregation to stop using contraception and seeking abortion. After you succeed in doing that, I might be more willing to listen to you.
As for the CDC stats, they do show that abortions past 21 weeks in the USA are very rare.
knuckleheadedliberal asks:
“What is the longest thread of comments for any In Box post? I believe we are approaching or have perhaps set a record.”
This thread, now 125 comments long, is the record.
This brings to mind another comment in the thread that may need a little explanation–Two Cents said:
“No more Nazi’s or i’ll have to call Godwin’s Law AGAIN!!!!”
Here is Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
This discussion bore out Godwin’s Law in the first dozen comments.
It is probably pointless to mention at this point, that the actual blog post is not about when life begins, or the ethics of reproduction. It is about NYS cuts to a subprogram of Medicaid, The Teenage Services Act (TASA).
Here is how the New York City Child Services website describes the purpose of the act:
“TASA programs work with pregnant or parenting teens who are receiving Medicaid or whose child only has Medicaid. TASA’s case managers help mothers and fathers under age 22 to manage their new responsibilities, take control of their lives, and learn how to provide better futures for themselves and their children.”
Mark 6:11
And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”
NLB wins!