From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Friday that Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin just completed building an $8 million facility in Milwaukee. The first new abortion facility in more than a decade, the newspaper reports.
“The move comes despite state Republican leaders’ efforts to limit access to the procedure,” reporter Mary Spicuzza wrote.
Heather Weininger, Executive Director of Wisconsin Right to Life, has an important question about the new abortion facility.
“Despite constantly begging for taxpayer dollars, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin plans to open a glitzy, $8 million new facility in Milwaukee,” said Weininger in a statement Friday. “This leaves us with just one question – why does Planned Parenthood need taxpayer money, again?”
The newspaper reports that Planned Parenthood built the $8 million abortion facility using private donations. Dan Miller, Executive Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, points out, “[Planned Parenthood has] proven once again that you don’t need taxpayer funding when you have the likes of Edie Brengel- Radtke, Lynde Uihlein and Marianne Lubar offering their ‘volunteer leadership’ to help secure funds for the project.”
I do not really appreciate the intentional misinformation from bloggers like this. It’s not an abortion facility. It’s a facility that has the tools and resources to provide abortion services. According to the article James links to, of all the services PP provided last year, only 6.5% were abortion services. PP didn’t build an abortion facility. They built a new facility to keep people filled with virtriol and hate from harassing their fellow human beings while they attempt to get help that’s been systematically taken away and denied from them.
Why does PP benefit from government grants? Because since only 6.5% of Wisconsin’s PP services were Abortions, 93.5% of services weren’t. Society benefits from all of these services. This is also not the arguement “conservatives” should take when talking about grants and money sent in PP’s direction. We give tax cuts and grants to ridiculously profitable businesses like many within the Oil and Gas industry. They seem to enjoy a more favorable opinion from “Conversatives”. If PP doesn’t deserve grant money and benefits from the government because they can build an $8 million building, than how do you justify the money and benefits going to companies making Billions in profit?
He ends the article with relief that abortion services are on the decline. When you’ve only got two clinics in the State and the legislature is going out of its way to deny the legal service to its citizens (The legislature wants to keep the State University System from training OB/GYN students in abortion procedures, apparently potentionally exasperating an existing OB/GYN shortage), of course procedures are going down. I look forward to follow up blogposts bemoaning the need to expand other public services to accomodate mothers/family and children in poverty.
I seriously doubt a medical facility is all that “glitzy”.
It’s a much better use for $8 million than Trump’s endless golf vacations or chartered air travel for his self-important flunkies.