Why the wealthy right hates Planned Parenthood (and it has
nothing to do with abortions)
Do you wonder why the Republicans have made de-funding
Planned Parenthood such a high priority?
The outrage over abortion seems overdone, given that it’s coming from
people who generally love wars, adore guns and champion capital
punishment. Do these people really care
that much about the unborn?
No. They don’t. Abortion is a red herring, a righteous
rallying point for those who want to control the reproductive choices of women.
Especially poor women. They want to keep
them poor, and they want them to keep cranking out babies who will grow up to
fill the ranks of the impoverished labor pool.
There are two important factors that influence family size
decisions: economic stability and education. We know what happens when wealth
is more evenly distributed. Think of
Scandinavia, Germany, and Italy. When
people rise above poverty, they tend to have smaller families. People with resources to invest in their
offspring are inclined to limit the number of offspring they have. Some countries are even experiencing negative
population growth. Great for the planet,
awful for the cancer of wealth through growth. People with nothing are likely
to have more offspring. They have few
resources to devote to their offspring, so they produce more offspring, perhaps
in hopes that one of them will make it.
Educating the poor, giving them access to information about
reproductive options, is another way to reduce the birth rate, and the power
brokers hate it. They do not want the workers to have access to reproductive
counseling, birth control, and sex education.
No, they want a world divided between the haves and the have-nots, and
they want lots and lots of have-nots to tote their bales and haul their
barges. Abortion? Do you really think the billionaires care
about some poor woman’s fetus? No. They only care that there are enough malleable
workers to do their bidding.
A great labor pool, eager to compete for low wages, is what
the moneyed class wants. They do not want an even distribution of wealth, or
even a strong middle class. That would diminish
their pool of cheap labor and increase costs, reducing profits.
Planned Parenthood is a stumbling block to furthering the
income disparity in this country, and the Republican field bosses are cracking
their whips and brandishing their torches. It is a strategy driven solely by
greed, and unfortunately, supported by many otherwise good people who follow
their religious and political leaders down a hallway to their doom. The powerful have us by our reproductive
organs, and they’re doing everything they can to hang on.
