“We earnestly hope that you will put women’s health before partisan politics and reconsider this decision for the sake of the women who depend on both your organizations for access to the health care they need.”
One of the saddest (or is that sadistic?) things I have watched this week has been the pilloring of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure – private charity that specializes in fighting breast cancer. Simply by stating that they were going to withdraw their $600,000 or so donation that they have given to the abortion mill Planned Parenthood, all heck has broken loose on the Left – how DARE a private charity stop funding one of Holy Chalices of Secular Progressivism? As this snippet from Hot Air points out, it isn’t about the good they have done over the years (about $2 billion in charitable giving) but who it was that was no longer going to get their donation:
“You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize this is a clarifying moment. Think of it! Three decades of service to women fighting breast cancer, and having raised and distributed … nearly $2 billion towards that goal, means absolutely nothing to these people now trying to destroy Komen. Or as one post called them “intolerant fanatics” if you threaten their abortion cause. They could have denounced Komen’s decision, but in light of all Komen has done, and still does for women, turned their ire on the Republicans, the Religious Right, and so forth. But no, Komen broke ranks, and it must be dealt with harshly. And the sympathetic mainstream media is helping them do the job. All this reminds one of exactly what we’re dealing with here: what John Paul II called the culture of death. It is helpful to be reminded which side you’re on.”
This goes a long way to demonstrates how the Left believes- even in the US Senate when half that body including our US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (R-NH): 
- Once you’re in, you’re in or treated worse than a despicable leper for abandoning “the cause”. In fact, only absolute destruction is permissible.
- One cannot just have a philosophical or political disagreement – it is war all the time over everything.
- The Left engenders an entitlement mentality in those on the dole – but it also seems that the Left believes they are always entitled to “donations” forever.
Think about it – people wonder (and complain) why politics is into everything? This is a great example, as we are seeing the advance front of the Progressive Administrative State (aka “the bureaucracy”). No, not much directly from government on this directly as the Left’s 5th column in the private sector has raised much of the ruckus. However, leave it our US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (R-NH) to be amongst those that used their official title to give “advice and consent” to persuade a private charity that it should become “guided” by Government too.
Now, if you were a private organization, and you received a letter by half of the US Senate of the US Senate, would you have the feeling that perhaps you are losing your Freedom to Choose (as in “nice charity you got there; be a shame if anything happened to it.”). Would you think “Er, even if this just looks like a letter, I’d better be thinking that this has the force of Government behind it – what kind of risk am I willing to take if I say no?
“Dear Ambassador Brinker,
We write to express our disappointment with Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s decision to cut funding for breast cancer prevention, screening, and education at Planned Parenthood health centers. This troubling decision threatens to reduce access to necessary, life-saving services. We urge Komen to reconsider its decision.
Planned Parenthood is a trusted provider of health care for women and men. More than 90 percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are primary and preventative including wellness exams and cancers screenings that save lives. Each year, Planned Parenthood health clinics provide 750,000 breast exams, 770,000 pap tests and nearly 4 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases. Twenty percent of all women in the U.S. have visited a Planned Parenthood health center.
For the past five years, grants to local affiliates of Planned Parenthood have been an important part of Planned Parenthood’s work to protect women from breast cancer. Komen funding for Planned Parenthood has provided nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and resulted in 6,400 referrals for mammograms. In 2011 alone, grants from Komen provided Planned Parenthood with roughly $650,000 in funding for breast cancer prevention, screening, and education. According to a recent statement by Komen, “In some areas of the U.S., our affiliates have determined a Planned Parenthood clinic to be the best or only local place where women can receive breast health care.”
It would be tragic if any woman —let alone thousands of women — lost access to these potentially life-saving screenings because of a politically motivated attack.
We earnestly hope that you will put women’s health before partisan politics and reconsider this decision for the sake of the women who depend on both your organizations for access to the health care they need.”
Senators Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. Senator Patty Murray, D-Was., Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Mark Begich, D-Alaska, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Jon Tester, D-Mont., Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Max Baucus, D-Mont., Ben Cardin, D-Md., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Al Franken, D-Minn, John Kerry, D-Mass., Claire McCaskill,D-MO., Debbie Stabenow, D-MI., Chris Coons, D-DE., and Jeff Bingaman D-NM.
You know, the whole premise of the Letter just sucks. All hail to the Altar of Abortion (euphemistically called “women’s health”)! Yes, these Senators still have the same First Amendment Rights that private citizens to in expressing their views – I have no problem with that IF they had indeed sent private letters as private citizens. However, that’s not what they did and not what Jeanne Shaheen did. Instead, she and all the others used the integrity and the power of their office, the implied power of the US Senate, to tell private citizens, in the form of Komen for the Cure, what to do with its money by signing that letter with their official titles. They decided that they, and not the Directors of the charity, knew better where the money should be spent. Komen never stated that they were going to be stopping their donations to organizations that research, detect, and help cure breast cancer and thus advancing “women’s health”. While many on the Left have proclaimed it was a reaction to a Republican Congressman that started an investigation into Planned Parenthood as to why Komen changed their focus, why is it the purview of the US Senate? Gosh, the amount they were donating was less than the amount that a US Senator gets for operating their individual offices!
With everything else going on in the nation, the havoc going on in the world, Jeanne Shaheen really has shown New Hampshire citizens her real focus. Once again, she felt has shown us that she that the private sector has to bow to the wishes of the Government when it matters to her. What is important to citizens – not so much. She knows what is best for “the common good” – and how dare that be questioned. No, her major focus, now revealed again, is her support for Planned Parenthood and her willingness to run roughshod over first the NH Executive Council and now over a private entity to ensure its support. The only focus that these Senators have is in advancing a Progressive agenda. Freedom of choice? Freedom of conscience (again)? Sacrificed to the biggest abortion business in the country.
It also shows how trivialized the US Senate has become. In its thrust to micro-manage its citizens lives, it cannot even do what it is tasked to do given that the US Senate hasn’t passed a real budget in over 1,000 days. And Harry Reid has just said that the Senate will not take up a budget this term either? This is willful abandonment of what they were actually elected to do. But, I guess every failing person needs to find a scapegoat to hide behind, and this is just one more of them.
Sadly, the lesson we have learned is that when given the power of the elected office, one of the highest in the land, Jeanne Shaheen is happy to be hypocritical. Look at that Letter again and how she decries “because of a politically motivated attack” yet has decided herself to be politically motivated herself.
She took an oath to protect the US Constitution and the ideals that promulgated it – and the highest value of the Constitution is individual Liberty, the ability to choose for oneself in the pursuit of Happiness (which is different for every person and not to be defined by the State). It seems, however, that in her eyes, her “end” justifies her “means” whether that matters or is important to the average citizen.
Live Free or Die? Just words to her it seems. Perhaps it she would prefer, as a New Hampshire Progressive version of “Shut up and do as you’re told”?
