Apparently, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi enjoys the taste of shoe leather. First, she insisted that she knew more about Catholic theology than the Catholic Church, and continued to insist (loudly and publicly) on her allegedly Catholic wisdom after the bishops corrected her grossly flawed “understanding” of abortion in Catholic thought for the last two thousand years. Now, she’s insisting that she knows how to fix the economy.
How, pray tell? Kill babies.
Strangely, Speaker Pelosi doesn’t seem to have figured out that the usual politician response when an uproar breaks out because people actually noticed that you said something really, really dumb is, “I misspoke; what I meant to say was…” Instead, she keeps right on chewing on the shoe on the foot in her mouth.
Asked how sending money to Planned Parenthood ($200 million for contraceptives and “family planning” in the bailout package) qualified as an economic stimulus, Speaker Pelosi elaborated, “Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs.”
As the business section loves to tell us, “One of the worst economic mistakes you can make is to have a child. Worse yet, have two! Yikes! What will happen to your retirement? And think of all the stuff babies need! That’s expensive!”
Want to know what really happens to your retirement with no children? Ask Japan. They’re so panicked about their crashing population (and shrinking workforce), companies are sending workers home early, hoping it will encourage them to have more children. Given how ingrained it is in their current culture, however, it doesn’t really seem to me that this will be anywhere near enough to halt the unprecidented greying of their population. (They have acheived the dubious distinction of being the society with the oldest median age ever.)
Let’s be clear here: what the “family planning” services do is reduce births, which is how they reduce the costs of health care, education, etc. It’s not a baby, it’s just a drain on the economy. (What’s next? Mandatory euthanasia? End of life care is vastly more expensive than “well baby” check-ups.) Of course, in twenty years or so, that “useless” baby will most likely be a productive worker and taxpayer. (Or are we assuming that only “those people’s” babies will be aborted or contracepted, the ones who won’t be “productive” enough to have rights?)
“Family planning” is yet another nasty little euphemism we use, sort of like “planned parenthood.” What we mean, of course, is contraception and abortion. There is no planning for parenthood, only for the avoidance of it at all costs.
The fact that Speaker Pelosi could even suggest this with a straight face on national tv is a sad, sad commentary on the state of our country. We’ve lived with the Culture of Death for so long, the skeleton doesn’t even have to be hidden anymore.
President Obama, in a magnanimous gesture, has graciously allowed that the Planned Parenthood bailout ($200 million in the bailout package) can be removed as a nice gesture to Republicans (after a huge backlash to the wastefulness and moral inappropriateness of using the bailout to prop up Planned Parenthood).
I can’t wait to see what the second half of this “generous” compromise is going to be.
Oh, wait, news just in: no more compromises will be forthcoming. Speaker Pelosi has succeeded in getting the stimulus through. The House just passed the economic “stimulus” bill, including $400 million for global warming research, $335 million for STD prevention (would we be surprised if Planned Parenthood was profitting from that?), $650 million for digital tv converstions, and $1 billion for Amtrak (which has never been anything but a money sink), among other useless expenditures.
Not a single Republican voted for it, and only eleven Democrats voted against it.
I wonder if Pelosi will treat us to a victory speech? I hope she salted her shoes.
Typical Democrats and typical Pelosi. I understand that Nancy Pelosi has five children of her own, which if true makes me wonder how much of this she really believes and how much she just wants to be in good with the liberal establishment and far left wing radical activists.
If part of her motivation is for political gain then that makes it incredibly worse and despicable, in my opinion.
Overall very good piece with which I totally agree. But please be gentle with the Mulieris Nullagravidae Some of us never found that man worthy of the title “daddy”. Count youself blessed.
Mark-
It’s a strange thing; in spite of the fact that most women are at least somewhat pro-life, most women politicians are decidedly pro-“choice,” even among Republicans. I think some of it is, as we saw with Palin, that being a pro-life woman in politics makes you a target. And, yes, calling babies part of the problem will make most environmentalists and other left wing groups very happy.
Jean-
I am translating “mulieris nullagravidae” as “women never pregnant.” If I’m interpreting your comment correctly, you have my deep sympathy. I do count myself blessed that I grew a lot in my faith in college, so when I chose a husband, he had to be someone with a solid faith and good fathering potential, things I might not have considered critical a few years earlier (as evidenced by my abysmal dating choices before meeting my future husband).
I did not mean to come across as judgmental of women who choose to remain childless; I was specifically addressing Planned Parenthood, which has nothing at all to do with encouraging parenthood.