Brooks heading back from Sea of Pink

Earlier in the day I caught up with M. Tracey Brooks, president and CEO of Family Planning Advocates of New York State, who was flying back from Washington D.C. after participating in a rally to support Planned Parenthood funding, which if you’ve been following the U.S. Capitol shutdown drama remains a key area of disagreement on the budget.

“This is 100 percent ideological,” said Brooks who in 2008 competed in a Democratic primary for Congress in the 21st District seat now held by Paul Tonko.

In addition to gathering at the Capitol for a show of support — Planned Parenthood supporters wore pink t-shirts, Brooks and others spent the day meeting with Congressional reps from New York both Democrat and Republican, laying out their position.

They met with all 29 reps or their staffs in efforts, she said to convince them not to keep trying to pull Medicaid and other federal funding streams from Planned Parenthood.

In an interesting sidelight, two of New York’s freshman Republicans, the 20th CD’s Nan Hayworth and 25ths Ann Marie Buerkle are in the health care professionals — Hayworth is an opthamologist while Buerkle was a nurse before becoming a lawyer.

Here is Brooks’s statement:

It is outrageous that we are facing a shut down of the federal government over an extremen proposal that would deny millions of women pap tests, breast exams and birth control. Attacking the preventive care that Planned Parenthood and other family planning health centers provide hurts women, doesn’t reduce the deficit or fix the economy and must be stopped.

Planned Parenthood is a mainstream health care organization and one in five women in her lifetime has received care at a Planned Parenthood health center.The truth is that the rider regarding Planned Parenthood would bar Planned Parenthood from being paid by Medicaid and other federal programs for providing women with birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing, and testing and treatment for other STIs.

  1. Legal, Safe and Rare

    A fourteen-trillion deficit
    Is nothing at to sneer,
    But in these times of hope and change
    We think we’ve been austere.
    Another one-point-five-trillion
    And then we’ll start to pare:
    We want to keep our budget cuts
    All legal, safe and rare.

    We know the voters turned us out
    The last election day,
    And gave the House to radicals,
    Hell-bent on foul play.
    But voters took a different tack
    And did the Senate spare,
    So we just treat Republicans
    As legal, safe and rare.

    Though consequences are to flow
    Beyond the ballot box,
    In truth we don’t much give a damn
    For populi’s clear vox.
    So let those new House members
    Pass all the bills they dare;
    Their chances in the Upper House
    Are legal, safe and rare.

    And if the House’s budget cuts
    Are aimed at NPR,
    We’ll brand the cuts extremist hate;
    We’ll paint the cuts bizarre.
    And if Planned Parenthood should fall
    Into the budget snare,
    Abortion’s kept, we’ll say, by us
    As legal, safe and rare.

    Here’s hoping never comes the day
    The public starts to seek,
    The truth behind our fresh facade
    And media technique.
    For if they do we run the risk
    They may become aware:
    Few words can mask the truth as well
    As legal, safe and rare.

  2. Phil says:

    I am pro choice but women’s health is not the same as tax payer funded abortion. Someday people are going to figure out that Planned Parenthood is guilty of genocide on African Americans.

  3. Roger deLeon says:

    What planet is Brooks from? “Mainstream healthcare” please all planned parenthood is,is a government abortion clinic, please lets not sugar coat the truth.

  4. Erwin says:

    Roger above does not know what he is talking about. He thinks that abortion is 100% of what Planned Parenthood does. The reality is that abortion is only 3% of what they do. The other 97% is preventative care and immediate care.

    Roger also thinks that Planned Parenthood is not mainstream. I don’t know how he defines mainstream. I define an organization which serves one in every five women at some time in their lifetime as very mainstream. I suggest that Roger interview five mainstream women on the street and ask how many of them have ever received services from Planned Parenthood. You see, Roger, women use Planned Parenthood a lot more than you understand. They do not necessarily tell men, or brag about it. You are just in the dark. You are the one who lives on a planet where only blind ideologues live.

  5. sammy says:

    Absolutely NO government money has been spent on abortions.
    Planned Parenthood is essential for the health of many women.
    Why does the Repub/Tea party hate women, & want to deny them access to family planning?

  6. Stephanie says:

    don’t let facts get in the way of a good conservative line.

    Do away with family planning have more unplanned pregnancies.

    1 in 5 women have visited PP in their liftime. (that is a fact).

    Republican women (and their daughters) have abortions too.

  7. Blago says:

    Stephanie, no one cares that Planned Parenthood operates, its that people don’t want tax dollars going to all this stuff.

    I’m sick of the government pumping up non-for-profits so the heads of it can get rich.

    Ms. Brooks is a lunatic, she needs to calm down and get a life.

  8. Adirondack ED says:

    Planned Parenthood can go away.The government can then continue to fund community health centers which provide all the preventative services PP claims they do, except the abortions. Not unlike NPR, if there are those who believe strongly enough in PP, let them donate to its cause to keep it going.

  9. CCisme says:

    Stephanie, Can you back up your comments with a link? Is your 1 in 5 number worldwide? NYS? NYC??

    Erwin, can you back up your 3% number with a link??

  10. CCisme says:

    Phil, wow! Canj you back up your comment with facts or a link????????

  11. kidding? says:

    Throughout college and after, when I had healthcare that covered only the basics, I used Planned Parenthood for my yearly pap smears, to get birth control, and my yearly exam. When I became pregnant with our first child, I went to Planned Parenthood for my pregancy test. They celebrated my good news with me. I remember sitting with the nurse and office clerk talking about the months to come with such joy. They referred me to a wonderful doctor who became my OB-GYN. I look back on the care I received with such gratitude. Planned Parenthood allowed me the freedom to plan for my first pregancy. It makes me sick to think that this wonderful resource for so many is being threatened by the Republican party.

  12. rza says:

    Kidding?, if its such a great organization then donate your own money to it like everyone else does to non-for-profits.

    Why does the taxpayer have to support it?

  13. bgbytoys says:

    Why does the taxpayer have to support it?

    they help control the birth rate of the poor. goverenment supports them so they can keep the welfare payments down.

  14. kidding? says:

    rza, Why would the government support oil companies, bail out wall street, give tax breaks to the rich? Now, that’s a good question. Your question is pathetic.

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