Ragey Spendy

It’s been a depressing week or so, hasn’t it? First, the House vote to defund Planned Parenthood.  I am one of the few women I know who’s never actually been inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, but I’m a longtime donor and supporter.  My never having used their services is just the result of luck and idiocy.  I either had private insurance, access to a student health center, or when I had neither, I just wouldn’t go to the doctor. That last part is the idiotic part.  I was furious – FURIOUS – about the House vote this weekend, but I’m trying to calm down.  So I’m not going to say a whole lot about it except this: My friends who have used Planned Parenthood’s clinics have done so mostly because they needed a gyno checkup or … wait for it … primary health care.  Like they had a bad cold or a weird rash or something.  Even though PP is supposed to be for “women’s health services” they often end up becoming primary healthcare providers.  And literally every person who has told me about their experience with PP has been beside themselves with how fair, professional, and helpful the place was.  An acquaintance recently posted something lamenting the vote to defund Planned Parenthood on Facebook, and someone I don’t know commented to her that PP was just an “abortion mill” in it for the money.  Thankfully, the acquaintance quickly shut this misinformed person down, starting with “It’s a non-profit organization, you dolt!”  But I find it stunning that there are people out there who think things like this.

And, okay, I’ll say a little more.  I have friends who have received abortions at Planned Parenthood.  And they all reported the same professional, caring experience.  Because things happen that you don’t plan on, and sometimes an abortion is the most tolerable option out of a few very difficult options. For countless personal reasons that don’t fit into a single cookie-cutter.  But people who get hysterical about this seem to forget that Planned Parenthood is chiefly concerned with helping you plan if and when you want to be a parent.  Education and birth control and stuff like that.  Go figure.

And then they voted to defund PBS.  Really?  REALLY?? We’re cool with no more Sesame Street or News Hour or Frontline or shows about building things and cooking things and sewing things and planting things on Saturday mornings? We’re okay with being even dumber than we already are? We’re okay with our giant, hypnotizing screens streaming in endless messages from for-profit hosts only?

And now this Wisconsin thing.  I heard some spokesperson for Wisconsin’s governor say that in difficult economic times, state and local governments just can’t afford collective bargaining.  What?? That makes absolutely no sense, but the only conclusion I can try to assemble from this nonsense is that public school teachers and cops and firefighters make too much money or otherwise just get too much from their glorious, glorious jobs.  Like trying to figure out who is defacing the boys’ bathroom and acting as surrogate parents to kids whose parents have abdicated their responsibilities.  All while being paid a salary that would be insulting to the average governmental spokesperson.

Honestly, some days it feels like I’m on some strange planet populated mostly with people whose values I don’t understand.  It’s not just that I disagree, it’s really more like they’re speaking some other language and operating under a completely different structure for a civilized society.

But … I don’t want to make a too big of a deal about it.  So I signed all of the petitions and made all of the donations.  And then today I bought some adorable note cards and post cards to soothe my scraped and baffled soul.  (I know, I know.)  If you want me to send you one, email me your address.  I promise to use it only to send you the adorable (opinion-free) fruits of my spendthrift ways. 

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